No Rest For The Weary......

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MasterMech

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With more lousy weather coming I might be in for a real problem. I usually tarp the top of my stacks year-round but after Irene and Lee (sp?) I yanked the tarps much to the displeasure of a half-dozen garden snakes. What I found did not please me either. My stacks were SOAKED underneath and what little I have burnt is indicating that it's less than ideal depite pulling from the 2yo section of the pile. The smaller splits seem to be ok and burning well but there is a good amount of Poplar with some oak in there that isn't burning very well at all.

With no time left to season/dry further I think I'm in for burning lousy wood this winter. Money is getting tight with a baby on the way :cheese: and vehicles asking for some expensive maintenance. So building a proper woodshed right now is out (but I like the pallet sheds I've seen!) and I don't want to buy materials for what might end up being a temporary situation.

I'm leaving the tarps off until the snow flies and praying for the best.

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/56311/wild-storm-to-hit-east-next-we.asp
(Yeah I stole Zap's link. Thanks for posting it Zap!)

Def want to do the shed next year.
 
All is not lost. I've found that it's pretty easy to finish off drying wood by stacking it near the stove for a few weeks.
The closer, the more effect and the quicker. Within reasonable limits.

I'm talking taking the MC on occasion from the 20s down to single-digit MC. Makes a tremendous difference hear in terms of getting splits to light and stay lit.

No fear!
 
CTYank said:
All is not lost. I've found that it's pretty easy to finish off drying wood by stacking it near the stove for a few weeks.
The closer, the more effect and the quicker. Within reasonable limits.

I'm talking taking the MC on occasion from the 20s down to single-digit MC. Makes a tremendous difference hear in terms of getting splits to light and stay lit.

No fear!
Click to expand...

I agree with CTY, that is a short term quick fix solution. Last year I placed a days supply on the opposite side of the stove and let the stoves heat work the wood for 24 hrs. It did make a little bit of difference.
 
CTYank said:
All is not lost. I've found that it's pretty easy to finish off drying wood by stacking it near the stove for a few weeks.
The closer, the more effect and the quicker. Within reasonable limits.

I'm talking taking the MC on occasion from the 20s down to single-digit MC. Makes a tremendous difference hear in terms of getting splits to light and stay lit.

No fear!
Click to expand...

That's what I've been doing. Unfortunately I can't get more than a couple days supply in the house. I'm more concerned that I may have lost a summers worth of seasoning since the pile shows obvious signs of being wet (Fungus & some mold) for an extended period of time. The wood lights and stays lit but burns with little intensity/heat output and that's with the primary wide open. It's a struggle to get the stove-top over 350. The mild weather isn't helping me try to crank the stove either. :-S House gets really warm quick! Once the splits are dried from any rain/surface moisture, they go in the stove. No hissing or bubbling, some light smoke. Secondary combustion hasn't been sustainable but I expect that at low stove temps.

We've had rainy weather throughout Aug, Sept, and quite a bit this month too. Snow would be easier to manage at this point.
 
A wood shed is indeed very nice to have....but not totally necessary. We've done without a wood shed many times in our moves to different areas and got along just fine. We've even used tarps, which I despise, but they did the trick and made getting the snow off a bit easier than if left uncovered.

We've also found you do not have to spend a lot of dollars in this area. We cut saplings in the woods and use those to stack the wood on. At present we are lucky to have some old galvanized roofing to cover the top of the wood stacks and that works beautifully although you do have to have a way to hold them down. We just throw the uglies on top and let them hold the roofing. I also recall many, many years of having wood stacks with no covering and we got along fine but it was a bear when they got covered with a bunch of snow.
 
MasterMech said:
With more lousy weather coming I might be in for a real problem. I usually tarp the top of my stacks year-round but after Irene and Lee (sp?) I yanked the tarps much to the displeasure of a half-dozen garden snakes. What I found did not please me either. My stacks were SOAKED underneath and what little I have burnt is indicating that it's less than ideal depite pulling from the 2yo section of the pile. The smaller splits seem to be ok and burning well but there is a good amount of Poplar with some oak in there that isn't burning very well at all.

With no time left to season/dry further I think I'm in for burning lousy wood this winter. Money is getting tight with a baby on the way :cheese: and vehicles asking for some expensive maintenance. So building a proper woodshed right now is out (but I like the pallet sheds I've seen!) and I don't want to buy materials for what might end up being a temporary situation.

I'm leaving the tarps off until the snow flies and praying for the best.

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/56311/wild-storm-to-hit-east-next-we.asp
(Yeah I stole Zap's link. Thanks for posting it Zap!)

Def want to do the shed next year.
Click to expand...

We have high wind warnings for tomorrow, wind could gusts up to 55 mph. With all the rain we have had that means downed trees, downed power lines and generator action for the freezer and fridge.

zap
 
MasterMech said:
With more lousy weather coming I might be in for a real problem. I usually tarp the top of my stacks year-round but after Irene and Lee (sp?) I yanked the tarps much to the displeasure of a half-dozen garden snakes. What I found did not please me either. My stacks were SOAKED underneath and what little I have burnt is indicating that it's less than ideal depite pulling from the 2yo section of the pile. The smaller splits seem to be ok and burning well but there is a good amount of Poplar with some oak in there that isn't burning very well at all.

With no time left to season/dry further I think I'm in for burning lousy wood this winter. Money is getting tight with a baby on the way :cheese: and vehicles asking for some expensive maintenance. So building a proper woodshed right now is out (but I like the pallet sheds I've seen!) and I don't want to buy materials for what might end up being a temporary situation.

I'm leaving the tarps off until the snow flies and praying for the best.

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/56311/wild-storm-to-hit-east-next-we.asp
(Yeah I stole Zap's link. Thanks for posting it Zap!)

Def want to do the shed next year.
Click to expand...

Two years ago was our first heating with wood. It was a decision we made in the spring so the wood we had was six months seasoned at the most, I ended up resplitting everything before we brought it in which worked out great, most of the wood was 22-23 percent moisture content.


Most of our wood we burned that year was cherry, we did have some nice sugar maple for the colder months that was good and dry.

zap
 
Get a face cord rack in the garage this will give you a buffer zone......Easy peasy!
 
If you don't mind the work, what Zap said might make a bit of difference in short time. Resplit the splits... I usually split my oak rounds smaller in order to get them ready for 2 years drying.
 
Thanks for the replies everybody! I -think- I'm going to be alright as we finally had a night cold enough to light a real fire. After getting the stove-top over 500 the secondaries fired and stayed lit even with the primary air completely closed down. Wow what a fire show that was! (I previously had a cat stove that you were supposed to put a heat shield in the door to protect the glass when using the cat.) I had a pretty good burn that night once it was up to temp. Most of the "problem" wood has the bark still attached FWIW. I think it's also a case of using low-btu shoulder season wood that burns up pretty quick, leaves a ton of ash, and has relatively low heat output.

I have had the best success by 1/2 loading the stove and lighting a top-down fire. Run it wide open until the stove-top temps either reach 300-350, it usually "stalls" here. Then I reload and let it continue with wide open primary air. Once the temp reaches 400+ I can start throttling back the primary and watching for meaningful secondary ignition. Once they light and stay lit it's all good to cruise until it's out of fuel again.

I'm going to have to invest in another tarp this winter for the stacks but hopefully it will be the last time! Eventually I'd like my seasoning stacks to look something like DexterDay's setup for everything except the current season's wood. That would be for my shed when/if that happens.

Thanks again everybody. Love this site/forum and enjoy helping y'all out in The Gear!
 
zapny said:
MasterMech said:
With more lousy weather coming I might be in for a real problem. I usually tarp the top of my stacks year-round but after Irene and Lee (sp?) I yanked the tarps much to the displeasure of a half-dozen garden snakes. What I found did not please me either. My stacks were SOAKED underneath and what little I have burnt is indicating that it's less than ideal depite pulling from the 2yo section of the pile. The smaller splits seem to be ok and burning well but there is a good amount of Poplar with some oak in there that isn't burning very well at all.

With no time left to season/dry further I think I'm in for burning lousy wood this winter. Money is getting tight with a baby on the way :cheese: and vehicles asking for some expensive maintenance. So building a proper woodshed right now is out (but I like the pallet sheds I've seen!) and I don't want to buy materials for what might end up being a temporary situation.

I'm leaving the tarps off until the snow flies and praying for the best.

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/56311/wild-storm-to-hit-east-next-we.asp
(Yeah I stole Zap's link. Thanks for posting it Zap!)

Def want to do the shed next year.
Click to expand...

Two years ago was our first heating with wood. It was a decision we made in the spring so the wood we had was six months seasoned at the most, I ended up resplitting everything before we brought it in which worked out great, most of the wood was 22-23 percent moisture content.

Most of our wood we burned that year was cherry, we did have some nice sugar maple for the colder months that was good and dry.

zap
Click to expand...

+1 on the Cherry being a good way out of a jam. I have access to about 1/2 cord (maybe more) on short order if I need it but it hasn't been split yet either. Been sitting in rounds since march tho and was dead standing then.

I split on the small side to begin with from what I'm seeing in everyone's pics so splitting again would definitely make for some tiny (under 3") splits but I could see all that drying out fairly quick like that.
 
MasterMech said:
With more lousy weather coming I might be in for a real problem. I usually tarp the top of my stacks year-round but after Irene and Lee (sp?) I yanked the tarps much to the displeasure of a half-dozen garden snakes. What I found did not please me either. My stacks were SOAKED underneath and what little I have burnt is indicating that it's less than ideal depite pulling from the 2yo section of the pile. The smaller splits seem to be ok and burning well but there is a good amount of Poplar with some oak in there that isn't burning very well at all.

With no time left to season/dry further I think I'm in for burning lousy wood this winter. Money is getting tight with a baby on the way :cheese: and vehicles asking for some expensive maintenance. So building a proper woodshed right now is out (but I like the pallet sheds I've seen!) and I don't want to buy materials for what might end up being a temporary situation.

I'm leaving the tarps off until the snow flies and praying for the best.

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/56311/wild-storm-to-hit-east-next-we.asp
(Yeah I stole Zap's link. Thanks for posting it Zap!)

Def want to do the shed next year.
Click to expand...

Looks like more rain Wednesday & Thursday for the Ohio Valley and East Coast with a cold front moving in behind that. I guess we will push in one more load of Quaking Aspen tonight that way we should be good for another week or so for dry wood.

zap
 
I'm not a tarp or top cover fan. We don't worry about snow much down here. Heck, even rain has not been an issue for the past year or so. Even so... I leave my stacks exposed year round. I keep about three days worth or splits on the covered front porch. Any surface wetness from a recent rain will easily be gone before I bring the wood into the house. To me, a tarp is just an incubator for mold and rot... and snakes.
 
Zap, looks like they've backed off on the snow forecast. It's warmer than they thought it would be yesterday and today. Would be pretty nice if it weren't for that pesky wind.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Zap, looks like they've backed off on the snow forecast. It's warmer than they thought it would be yesterday and today. Would be pretty nice if it weren't for that pesky wind.
Click to expand...

Sav, I think areas around the Great Lakes could get some snow Wednesday or Thursday. The jury is still out on how much rain we will get, the worst is 3-4 http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/56460/eastern-storm-to-tap-tropics-b.asp so far the brook is good but we shall see with all the rain we've had or will get.


zap
 
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