Drying my wood pile(s)

[EForest]

Over the past month I've bucked and split 24 full cord of hard and soft woods. Everything has been stacked on 4x4 skids in full sun (mostly rain these past few weeks). Each skid is stacked one layer north/south the next east/west to a common height of 4 feet.
There is 1 to 3 feet between stacks. My plan was to band every skid with steel banding for easy moving with skid-steer. Yesterday a friend stopped by and suggested I wrap each skid with shrink wrap leaving a gap at the bottom and the top open which would create a chimney effect and speed up drying. Has anyone tried this? It sounds good and would be great come winter with a tarp over everything but what about all this rain? Won't it stay trapped in the shrink wrap cocoon? Any advise would be great.

thanks, Ed

 

[Willman]

Any advise would be great.

I would wrap one pallet with shrink wrap as a test. weigh and check MC on a split in the same areas,levels of piles and compare to your conventional pile.Not certain I would do them all. If it works next year do em all. I lay plywood on top of my piles to keep off some rain while sides are open to the breezes.

Will

 

[DaveBP]

The chimney effect is created by hot air rising against cooler air. I think you'll get more airflow restriction with stretch wrap than just leaving it open. I'd definitely put some kind of cover on the top to keep rain off but leave it open. How about just wrapping each pallet as you move it with something reusable? I'm thinking my usual dump-scrounge sort of thing like a 4ft. wide strip of old carpet or tarp wrapped around and c-clamped together at the ends to hold it while you move it. Or if you were thinking about shipping a bunch of these at once stretch wrap them then.

 

[69Stingray]

This may be an old wise tale, but I recall hearing that letting drying wood get wet is a good thing because it actually dries quicker. Seems silly to me. I wonder if it was made up by farmers who didn't have barn space to store the drying wood.

 

[backpack09]

#1 its a wives tale.

#2 I wrap my pallets with heavy duty chicken wire, I works great for keeping them upright, but I am not sure how they would do on a forklift.

 

[EForest]

I'm going to try using a piece of chain link fence and a couple of come-a-longs to pull it tight. Then I should be able to safely move each skid to new location with the skid-steer. If it works I'll do same all winter long to bring skids into the garage as needed. I'm not trying the shrink wrap idea. Thanks for the replies.

 

[pybyr]

for "big civil works" projects where you see stone piled in those woven metal box cages, those things (the cages the rocks are in) are called "gabions"

I have no idea where or how you'd get the cages without the rocks in them, or what they'd cost (although I work with some people who may be able to find out if I can remember to ask them) but for those with a tractor and forks big enough to move them, they might be the cat's meow for both drying and moving wood.