winter wood drying

[nwohguy]

What is the prefered place to store your wood for seasoning if you have access to inside storage in a barn or leave it outside and stacked in the woods? I am cutting and spliting wood for next season and wondering will it dry down faster if i store inside in barn with not alot of air flow but out of the elements or leave it outside in the woods. I am new to wood burning. Just installed a new VC montpelier and love it after several years of trying to use a 20 year old insert that was not very clean to burn ( or pretty to look at!! ) Thanks for your help.

 

[daveswoodhauler]

Was wondering the same thoughts, but had a question on winter drying.

If your outside temps average 32 degress or below for 2-3 months during the winter, is the moisture content going to drop? or is the moisture going to stay trapped inside the wood?

It will still dry some. Sublimation? I think that's what it's called.

Yep Quads, the process is called sublimation - water going from solid (ice) directly to gas. This is the same process that shrinks the ice in your ice trays in the freezer, and also changes the texture of snowpacks in places where the show stays on the ground a while. A lot of places have really dry air in the winter, and sublimation can really have a strong impact on the amount of snow on the ground, although it can be hard to notice unless the last bit of snow sublimates and you have a change from snow to bare ground. Even in the east, where we generally have a lot of humidity, sublimation happens, especially in very cold weather, because very cold air here usually comes from the north, where it was even colder and the humidity in the air got really low. As the air warms up, relative humidity drops and sublimation rate increases. Anytime it isn't snowing (which usually means high relative humidity) and the daytime temperature gets much warmer than the nighttime temperature (which is almost all the time), your wood can dry through sublimation. It doesn't matter if the temperature never gets above freezing.

Great explantion. Thanks for taking the time to type that out.

+10 Thanks for the help. Always wondered how the water frozen in the wood clears out in the freezing temps...thanks for the thoughtful post!

 

[quads]

What is the prefered place to store your wood for seasoning if you have access to inside storage in a barn or leave it outside and stacked in the woods? I am cutting and spliting wood for next season and wondering will it dry down faster if i store inside in barn with not alot of air flow but out of the elements or leave it outside in the woods. I am new to wood burning. Just installed a new VC montpelier and love it after several years of trying to use a 20 year old insert that was not very clean to burn ( or pretty to look at!! ) Thanks for your help.

Here is what I would do: Stack it in the woods, not pile, and it will season wonderfully. In a few years and/or when it's fully seasoned, then stack it in the barn, if that's where you want it. I wouldn't put it in the barn until it was done seasoning. Personally, I'd save the space in the barn for storing toys; boat, ATV, bicycles, collectible cars, cows, anything but pieces of dead trees!

 

[Duetech]

For the fix your in I would bring it in and put a fan on it. I used to bring in a cord + at a time and store it in the basement as that was the location of the wood furnace. The wood furnace was tied in to the heat plenum of my oil furnace and there was a duct opening forcing a draft in the basement. There was no problem with bugs as the bark was either gone or tight to the wood. It's best to burn dry wood but if I have a fire going and am splitting (usually in the winter) I'll throw green wood right into the fire if I find ants in it. The ants are dormant and can't really move. I don't want to leave the wood outside where it can warm up in spring and the critters can look for a new home and I certainly won't put them in the wood pile.

 

[potter]

Just wanted to update this and say I was able to get a full cord of ash that is newly split, but from logs that have been laying for a year. I'll stack outside and cover with metal roofing. If I need it I would guess it would not be until March. Just got a moisture meter from Amazon...
Thanks again.