wood too wet?

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

Kool_hand_Looke

Feeling the Heat
Dec 8, 2013
469
Illinois
I keep my wood on my porch. It's 60 ft long and 10 ft wide on the EW side, on the north side same width...30 ft long. We got 13" of snow Sunday. Wednesday it melted. Thursday it rained all day. The east side wood is got soaked with blowing snow and rain it doesn't seem to quite light off too well. Which sucks. It's mostly cherry. It's supposed to be in the 60's the next couple of days.

Shut it down and let the wood dry out?
 
If you have a fire going bring enough for another load a put it near the stove. The surface moisture should dry by the time you need to put it in the stove and you should be good to go.

I am going through some wood right now that the tarps deteriorated enough to let water through and it feels damp when I bring it in. It is all seasoned at least three years and is burning fine as long as I give it a chance to dry out in front of my stove.
 
Yeah a couple stove loads in the house so you have something dry. Warm here too. Time to sweep and do some maintenance.
 
I've had good luck with small split Cherry that was seasoned drying back out after surface wetting. I had terrible luck with large split cherry that was delivered saturated and frozen solid.

I'd go for loose stacking of the driest pieces with as much air flow as possible. I tending towards believing these days that the location with the lowest humidity is the best place, and sometimes that can be inside if it's raining, or it might be outside if it's below freezing. No data to support that hypothesis, though.

That stuff is so porous I think you'll recover in a week or two.
 
I have some very dry cherry that I am burning right now that was soaking wet two weeks ago. I stacked two wheelbarrow loads in my shed
It's now very dry again and feels like old dried out sponge consistency. It's burning though. I put the MM on it...12%
 
I've heard wet wood will ruin your cat, any truth to this?
 
Surface moisture is irrelevant, it's the internal moisture to be concerned with.
 
I keep my wood on my porch. It's 60 ft long and 10 ft wide on the EW side, on the north side same width...30 ft long. We got 13" of snow Sunday. Wednesday it melted. Thursday it rained all day. The east side wood is got soaked with blowing snow and rain it doesn't seem to quite light off too well. Which sucks. It's mostly cherry. It's supposed to be in the 60's the next couple of days.

Shut it down and let the wood dry out?

When rain or snow comes, it is mostly with an easterly wind and many forget this. That is why when we used to stack on a different porch from where it is now, we always hung a tarp in the early winter once we
 
This was straight from north. That's why it got wet this time.
 
I keep my wood on my porch. It's 60 ft long and 10 ft wide on the EW side, on the north side same width...30 ft long. We got 13" of snow Sunday. Wednesday it melted. Thursday it rained all day. The east side wood is got soaked with blowing snow and rain it doesn't seem to quite light off too well. Which sucks. It's mostly cherry. It's supposed to be in the 60's the next couple of days.

Shut it down and let the wood dry out?
Your gonna need to get some wood inside, although i really hate this, you must protect the wood you plan on using now especially if it has not been CSS for atleast 3 years, tarp it 90%, before the bad weather hits, if it rains 3 days or more, it's going to set your wood back for sure if its not protected properly. Wet wood sucks in these new EPA stoves, I clearly see a difference when using damp wood, I've been lucky that its been windy and that helps dry off the surface moisture. We are expecting a weeks worth of rain and snow, so I covered up what I need to get through January and February....you should do the same if its dry enough.... Good luck, burn dry wood....
 
Status
Not open for further replies.