I wish I would have had my camera along to take a picture of this..........
Was at the home of a customer and noticed a stove pipe sticking out of the middle of a covered wood pile and asked what was up with that. What the guy told me made sense so I thought I'd pas it along here.
He cuts his wood in spring (delivered in 8' sticks by a local logging company) and burns it the following fall. As in cut/split in April or May and starts burning now.
He stacks the wood and then covers it with a piece of black plastic tarp. Along the bottom he cuts a few slits in the plastic to allow air to move through. On the top of the wood pile he arranges some pieces a little higher than the rest of the wood pile to hold the tarp off most of the wood and create an air space. In the middle of the pile he placed a milk crate and used it to hold up a piece of what looked like 10" diameter stove pipe about 4' long, cut through the tarp.
In effect, he made a low temperature kiln which uses heat from the sun and natural air flow to dry his wood. Temps under the tarp during summer will hit 130-140* and he said on cooler mornings he has actually seen vapor coming out of the "chimney". Evidently the idea works because his moisture content runs 25% and less after only 4 months of seasoning and this is mixed hardwood such as oak, maple, cherry, beech etc.
Was at the home of a customer and noticed a stove pipe sticking out of the middle of a covered wood pile and asked what was up with that. What the guy told me made sense so I thought I'd pas it along here.
He cuts his wood in spring (delivered in 8' sticks by a local logging company) and burns it the following fall. As in cut/split in April or May and starts burning now.
He stacks the wood and then covers it with a piece of black plastic tarp. Along the bottom he cuts a few slits in the plastic to allow air to move through. On the top of the wood pile he arranges some pieces a little higher than the rest of the wood pile to hold the tarp off most of the wood and create an air space. In the middle of the pile he placed a milk crate and used it to hold up a piece of what looked like 10" diameter stove pipe about 4' long, cut through the tarp.
In effect, he made a low temperature kiln which uses heat from the sun and natural air flow to dry his wood. Temps under the tarp during summer will hit 130-140* and he said on cooler mornings he has actually seen vapor coming out of the "chimney". Evidently the idea works because his moisture content runs 25% and less after only 4 months of seasoning and this is mixed hardwood such as oak, maple, cherry, beech etc.