Wood Comparison

[Adios Pantalones]

yup- this effect of higher humidity right near the wood is what we call a "boundary layer" effect.

 

[Intheswamp]

I suspect most of us know that if you buy green wood you will be buying quite a lot of water in the wood (possibly half ton of water in a cord of unseasoned wood).

But I had never thought before about the shrinkage issue before, it makes buying seasoned wood even better as you don't just get decent dry wood, you actually get more of it

It seems to me that it depends on the price that you're paying for seasoned versus green wood.

If you can get both for the same price then it's a no-brainer...buy the dry. But from what I can tell, it seems that truly seasoned wood normally is a tad more expensive so you might actually be paying for the addtional seasoned wood that had to be added to the original "shrunk" cord of wood to get it back up the volume of a cord.

Conversely, if the green wood is cheaper than the seasoned wood then it would seem that the green wood's price is already being discounted for the future shrinkage.

I'm in the process of buying three cords of oak from a fellow. He's giving me a great deal that I can't argue about. All but about 1/4 cord is green and I understand that the green wood will shrink. I also understand that I'm paying $140 per cord for oak and that so far the loads exceed 1/2 cord by probably 15 percent. I'm happy, I know what I'm getting, and I have a good idea of what I'll have later.

A cord is a measure of volume so if someone said they'd sell a cord of green wood for $140 then it would be a stack of green wood measure 128 cubic feet. Likewise if that person said he'd also sell a cord of seasoned/dry wood for the same $140...it would still be truth in advertising though eventually the green wood cord would have a smaller volume than the dry wood. Both woods measured a cord when sold.

Like I said, if they're both the same price, buy the dry. But, buying green isn't necessarily a bad deal...depends a lot on pricing.

Ok, enough of my rambling...where's the meds?

Ed

 

[tsquini]

If it was all split at the same time then I would guess that the difference is that you don't have a sun in your garage.

True. But more important is the wind. We stack wood sometimes where it gets little or no sun but the wind does its work very well.

Seasoning wood is all about air flow and low humidity. This is why I find winter being the best time of year to season wood. The air is dry and the wind is strong. I have a little knoll I place my wood stack perpendicular to the air flow. I can have oak down to a 20% MC in 8 months.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

That's pretty good Tom. We'll still give it 3 years here and we don't live in a wet area either.