Wood Stacking Methods
- Thread starter Cross Cut Saw
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Woody Stover
Minister of Fire
The kids around here won't work that hard, not for a cracker and a bag of jelly beans...
Seriously, good job...let the drying begin!
I'm a noob with his first stove. I'm finding out that it's all about the wood. *insert joke here*
I'm setting up an area to keep everything elevated and stacked in a single row. I have little sun around my house that's not in the front yard, so I can't really stack in the sun. Does sunlight hitting the wood make that much of a difference, or will my attention to wind direction suffice?
Also, is it better to keep the top covered and forget about it, or cover it when it's raining and uncover when it's dry?
I'm setting up an area to keep everything elevated and stacked in a single row. I have little sun around my house that's not in the front yard, so I can't really stack in the sun. Does sunlight hitting the wood make that much of a difference, or will my attention to wind direction suffice?
Also, is it better to keep the top covered and forget about it, or cover it when it's raining and uncover when it's dry?
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
Welcome to the forum Schweinlin.
I've said it over and over that air circulation is the key to drying wood. We stack wood many times without sunlight and have done it even before we got our 3 years ahead. We never had a problem with wood drying so long as it got some wind.
So, to answer your question; maybe. It will depend a lot on what kind of wood you are trying to dry and don't forget it needs to be split in order to dry. In your situation, I would highly advise that you get no oak for your first couple of years because it takes so long for that to dry. Try to get wood that can dry in a year or less. For next fall, I'd stick with soft maple if you can get it. Silver maple too. If you can find some dead or dieing ash, great. Same with elm.
In your area, I would advise top covering the wood simply because you get so much rain. I've always noticed how storms tend to follow the Ohio river which means you'll get a lot more rain than a lot of folks. So top cover but be sure to not cover the sides.
I also think it is a bit foolish to uncover the wood when the weather is dry then cover when raining, then uncover again. Top cover it and forget about it. There is already enough work getting the wood ready and you don't need more. Just relax and let Mother Nature do her work and she is good at it too.
Good luck.
I've said it over and over that air circulation is the key to drying wood. We stack wood many times without sunlight and have done it even before we got our 3 years ahead. We never had a problem with wood drying so long as it got some wind.
So, to answer your question; maybe. It will depend a lot on what kind of wood you are trying to dry and don't forget it needs to be split in order to dry. In your situation, I would highly advise that you get no oak for your first couple of years because it takes so long for that to dry. Try to get wood that can dry in a year or less. For next fall, I'd stick with soft maple if you can get it. Silver maple too. If you can find some dead or dieing ash, great. Same with elm.
In your area, I would advise top covering the wood simply because you get so much rain. I've always noticed how storms tend to follow the Ohio river which means you'll get a lot more rain than a lot of folks. So top cover but be sure to not cover the sides.
I also think it is a bit foolish to uncover the wood when the weather is dry then cover when raining, then uncover again. Top cover it and forget about it. There is already enough work getting the wood ready and you don't need more. Just relax and let Mother Nature do her work and she is good at it too.
Good luck.
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