Drying Wood for the Next Load

[wkpoor]

Was over at the niegbhors today and noticed he had a metal milk crate right on the stove top. I asked what that was there for and he replied thats where I dry the next pieces that are going in the stove. Seems novel? Anyway I kinda do a similar thing only not on the top. If I have rain soaked wood I get the next pieces ready by leaning them against the wall around the stove. It only takes about an hour to dry off the wet surface of the wood ( this is already thoroughly seasoned wood that is just wet from snow or rain).
And one other thing. Some will remember my ranting recently about stove top vs pipe surface temps and how the best I can do a 2:1 delta. Well, his old smoke dragon is exactly the opposite. It runs a 1:2 delta. Go Figure His pipe typically is almost twice as hot as the stove top. He has a 8" straight up chimney and the stove has no heat baffles.

 

[glassmanjpf]

Usually place pieces on the hearth pad for few hours to get the wetness off if they got rained on. Not sure if putting the crate full of wood on the stove is the way to go. I'm sure that's not in the manual.

 

[HotCoals]

You're better off then he is.
Most of his heat is going into outer space.
On a long run I have around 350 stove top and around 175 in this warmer weather...2/1..same as you.

 

[wkpoor]

Usually place pieces on the hearth pad for few hours to get the wetness off if they got rained on. Not sure if putting the crate full of wood on the stove is the way to go. I'm sure that's not in the manual.

Not in the crate, on top of it. Sorry I didn't explain that very well. The crate is upside down on the stove.

 

[corey21]

Usually place pieces on the hearth pad for few hours to get the wetness off if they got rained on. Not sure if putting the crate full of wood on the stove is the way to go. I'm sure that's not in the manual.

Not in the crate, on top of it. Sorry I didn't explain that very well. The crate is upside down on the stove.

On the top of the stove is a bad idea i think. I do set wood about 2 feet away from the stove but not to long.

 

[wkpoor]

Usually place pieces on the hearth pad for few hours to get the wetness off if they got rained on. Not sure if putting the crate full of wood on the stove is the way to go. I'm sure that's not in the manual.

Not in the crate, on top of it. Sorry I didn't explain that very well. The crate is upside down on the stove.

On the top of the stove is a bad idea i think. I do set wood about 2 feet away from the stove but not to long.

My guess is he his there because its in the shop where he works. BTW is see in your sig you've got a Magnolia. In a couple of weeks I'm going to bring on in the house I bought a couple yrs ago. Its still new in the crate. How do you like it?

 

[Todd]

Tell your buddy to install a pipe damper to keep some of that heat in the stove.

 

[corey21]

Usually place pieces on the hearth pad for few hours to get the wetness off if they got rained on. Not sure if putting the crate full of wood on the stove is the way to go. I'm sure that's not in the manual.

Not in the crate, on top of it. Sorry I didn't explain that very well. The crate is upside down on the stove.

On the top of the stove is a bad idea i think. I do set wood about 2 feet away from the stove but not to long.

My guess is he his there because its in the shop where he works. BTW is see in your sig you've got a Magnolia. In a couple of weeks I'm going to bring on in the house I bought a couple yrs ago. Its still new in the crate. How do you like it?

Runs great after i got past the switch from pre epa stove to epa stove.

 

[flyingpig]

This was discussed before in either hearth forum or wood shed. Bottom line is you should keep the minimum clearance to combustible. Too close and you risk your house on fire.

Cheers.....Som

 

[wkpoor]

Well yes thats quite obvious. However I just thought about something we experiments with last yr. Ever sprinkle saw dust on a hot stove top. We did and it didn't ignite. Just browned a little.

 

[bboulier]

I usually bring in some firewood to warm up to add to the next load. Might be some interesting physics here: the fire is being used to heat up cold wood. Is it better to heat up the cold wood in the room or later in the fireplace? I am guessing that the net heat generated is the same, but one gets a faster burn (and fewer emissions) with the wood preheated. Am curious about other opinions on this one.

 

[VCBurner]

When I was heating from the basement I had lots of wood near the stove. About .5 to .75 cord. Now in the livingroom I'm limited to a couple of totes.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Was over at the niegbhors today and noticed he had a metal milk crate right on the stove top. I asked what that was there for and he replied thats where I dry the next pieces that are going in the stove. Seems novel? Anyway I kinda do a similar thing only not on the top. If I have rain soaked wood I get the next pieces ready by leaning them against the wall around the stove. It only takes about an hour to dry off the wet surface of the wood ( this is already thoroughly seasoned wood that is just wet from snow or rain).
And one other thing. Some will remember my ranting recently about stove top vs pipe surface temps and how the best I can do a 2:1 delta. Well, his old smoke dragon is exactly the opposite. It runs a 1:2 delta. Go Figure His pipe typically is almost twice as hot as the stove top. He has a 8" straight up chimney and the stove has no heat baffles.

Sounds like your neighbor burns green wood and knows nothing about seasoning. His method certainly could not be recommended!

His flue is twice the temperature as his stove? That just shows that his wood is not seasoned and he has to keep it hot like that to burn. In the end he will burn over twice the amount of wood he would burn if he seasoned it. He also has 8' straight up?! Minimum us usually quoted as 13-15' and not 8'. Just another problem he has.

 

[logger]

Might be some interesting physics here: the fire is being used to heat up cold wood. Is it better to heat up the cold wood in the room or later in the fireplace? I am guessing that the net heat generated is the same, but one gets a faster burn (and fewer emissions) with the wood preheated. Am curious about other opinions on this one.

I dont think its worth the math or physics headache. I can assure you that with properly seasoned and covered wood, its gonna make an insignificant smudge of a difference if I sit my wood by the stove first or not. Its gonna go right up either way when it hits the fire. Why would the emmisions be any different? If they are, its probably by .0000000001% or something.

This brings me to my next point, why do some of you have wet wood? I keep at least a cord or two covered, as well as the splits in the wood ring on my back porch. Saves the whole drying by the stove tactic all together. With any type of wood, you're eventually going to run into ants or some type of insect. Wood in the house greatens their oppurtunity to infest your home. Just my two cents.

 

[corey21]

Was over at the niegbhors today and noticed he had a metal milk crate right on the stove top. I asked what that was there for and he replied thats where I dry the next pieces that are going in the stove. Seems novel? Anyway I kinda do a similar thing only not on the top. If I have rain soaked wood I get the next pieces ready by leaning them against the wall around the stove. It only takes about an hour to dry off the wet surface of the wood ( this is already thoroughly seasoned wood that is just wet from snow or rain).
And one other thing. Some will remember my ranting recently about stove top vs pipe surface temps and how the best I can do a 2:1 delta. Well, his old smoke dragon is exactly the opposite. It runs a 1:2 delta. Go Figure His pipe typically is almost twice as hot as the stove top. He has a 8" straight up chimney and the stove has no heat baffles.

Sounds like your neighbor burns green wood and knows nothing about seasoning. His method certainly could not be recommended!

His flue is twice the temperature as his stove? That just shows that his wood is not seasoned and he has to keep it hot like that to burn. In the end he will burn over twice the amount of wood he would burn if he seasoned it. He also has 8' straight up?! Minimum us usually quoted as 13-15' and not 8'. Just another problem he has.

So if your wood is wet your chimney will run hotter?

 

[ckarotka]

Was over at the niegbhors today and noticed he had a metal milk crate right on the stove top. I asked what that was there for and he replied thats where I dry the next pieces that are going in the stove. Seems novel? Anyway I kinda do a similar thing only not on the top. If I have rain soaked wood I get the next pieces ready by leaning them against the wall around the stove. It only takes about an hour to dry off the wet surface of the wood ( this is already thoroughly seasoned wood that is just wet from snow or rain).
And one other thing. Some will remember my ranting recently about stove top vs pipe surface temps and how the best I can do a 2:1 delta. Well, his old smoke dragon is exactly the opposite. It runs a 1:2 delta. Go Figure His pipe typically is almost twice as hot as the stove top. He has a 8" straight up chimney and the stove has no heat baffles.

Sounds like your neighbor burns green wood and knows nothing about seasoning. His method certainly could not be recommended!

His flue is twice the temperature as his stove? That just shows that his wood is not seasoned and he has to keep it hot like that to burn. In the end he will burn over twice the amount of wood he would burn if he seasoned it. He also has 8' straight up?! Minimum us usually quoted as 13-15' and not 8'. Just another problem he has.

So if your wood is wet your chimney will run hotter?

With wet wood you will have to leave the air open further to get it to burn hot. This allows more heat to escape up the flue. Take note if you have dry fuel what happens when you start reducing the air to your flue temps.

 

[nate379]

I have my wood covered but the tarps blow around at times so snow gets on it. Hard to holds tarps down in the high winds we get (have seen 80mph gusts before).

Anyhow I have a bin by the stove and it holds a few days worth. Nice to have the wood right there and not have to run outside everytime I need to grab wood!

As far as the comment on chimney length, there is no writen "law" on that. My Dad used to have an 8x10ft ice fishing shack with a small wood stove (like took 12" length logs small) and the chimney was maybe 7ft long total. That stove burned great. We would be out there all day with the shack at 80* on a 5 gal pail worth of wood.

 

[Slow1]

Hard to holds tarps down in the high winds we get (have seen 80mph gusts before).

... Nice to have the wood right there and not have to run outside everytime I need to grab wood!

I imagine so with cold temps and wind like that I'd want to be able to choose when to go outside too... give it a day to blow over before heading out, or at least time it a little!

 

[joefrompa]

Stoves wick humidity out of the air like crazy. "it's a dry heat" and all that.

Keep a few days by the stove and bring a fresh load of rain soaked wood into the same room as the stove, and within a few hours the rain will have evaporated.

I won't comment on seasoning, but surface-damp wood will dry out FAST when around a wood burning stove.

 

[Battenkiller]

Many moons ago I got the bright idea to take two 1"x3" steel bars and place them on edge on top of the stove in my basement workshop. I then took three good size splits of green wood and laid them onto the bars to dry out. I put two splits about 4" apart and then put the third one on top of them, pyramid style. I went upstairs to answer the phone and got side-tracked by the conversation. Next thing you know, I'm smelling smoke. I ran downstairs and was amazed to find that the wood was in active flames. It didn't take that long at all.

I figure the radiant heat kept getting the wood hotter because the wood itself is a pretty good insulator for the heat trapped underneath. I had inadvertently made a highly insulated combustion chamber... outside the stove itself. Scariest thing of all is that the smoke detector that goes off every time we light the kitchen oven wasn't fazed in the least by smoke pouring up the stairs and pooling around the detector.

Bottom line, it's a piss-poor idea IMHO.

 

[firefighterjake]

Random thoughts . . .

I cannot ever advocate putting wood closer to the woodstove than the minimum clearances state -- regardless of whether someone is right there to watch things . . . my own experience is that myself (and many other folks) may have the best of intentions, but it so easy to forget or to get distracted. I could not agree with your neighbor and his milk carton idea.

Now bringing the wood inside . . . sure . . . as long as it is stored the recommended distance from the stove. I do this myself . . . mainly because it is a lot more convenient for my wife and for me to simply reach over and grab some wood out of the woodbox vs. trudging outside in the cold to get the next load of wood. It has nothing to do with warming up the wood or getting it totally dry . . .

Speaking of pre-warming the wood . . . I suppose one could argue that pre-warming wood would help you reach the ignition temp . . . but honestly the effect of this would be very minute unless we're talking wood that is in the sub-zero temps . . . and even then once a good flame is applied with kindling, Super Cedars, etc. the ignition temp would quickly be reached. I don't believe warming up the wood would make much of a difference . . . I mean, heck, in the past I've hauled wood from outside and put it into the fire and it has caught right away . . . the true meaningful figure is not the temp of the wood, but how well seasoned the wood is . . . and I think I posted my pic of the Masonic Hall fire in Bangor a few weeks back . . . that fire burned and burned . . . on one of the coldest days I have seen here in a long time . . . lots of frozen drifts from our deck guns.

And about wet wood . . . not talking unseasoned wood . . . just talking about wood that is wet from snow, ice or rain . . . sure . . . there will be a bit of delay in getting the wood to catch . . . this is another reason I built my woodbox . . . to allow ice covered wood to dry out a bit . . . but again it doesn't take long to dry out the wood . . . and the real factor here in terms of getting the wood to catch is not how wet it is on the outside, but how dry it is on the inside. That said . . . I still like covering my wood . . . tarp in the first year and a woodshed in subsequent years.

Bugs in da house . . . I store a day's worth of wood in my house. I have yet to see a single bug in my house during the winter time. While I see many bugs in the course of processing my wood a year or two prior . . . including carpenter ants . . . they tend to vacate their former homes when I rip through their bug bungalows with my 350 and then start subdividing their suburban American dream with my MTD splitter . . . by the time I haul the wood inside a year or more later they have left for greener pastures a long, long time ago.

 

[wkpoor]

This brings me to my next point, why do some of you have wet wood? I keep at least a cord or two covered, as well as the splits in the wood ring on my back porch. Saves the whole drying by the stove tactic all together. With any type of wood, you’re eventually going to run into ants or some type of insect. Wood in the house greatens their oppurtunity to infest your home. Just my two cents.

Well for me I do keep a little over a cord under cover in an old baggage car from the airport. And I do try to refill on dry days. But I burn about 4 cords a year and just don't have enough dry storage under roof yet. Plus in a blizzard or strong blowing snow storm all bets are for dry wood anywhere but the house.

 

[wkpoor]

This brings me to my next point, why do some of you have wet wood? I keep at least a cord or two covered, as well as the splits in the wood ring on my back porch. Saves the whole drying by the stove tactic all together. With any type of wood, you’re eventually going to run into ants or some type of insect. Wood in the house greatens their oppurtunity to infest your home. Just my two cents.

Well for me I do keep a little over a cord under cover in an old baggage car from the airport. And I do try to refill on dry days. But I burn about 4 cords a year and just don't have enough dry storage under roof yet. Plus in a blizzard or strong blowing snow storm all bets are for dry wood anywhere but the house.

 

[DavidV]

.[/quote]
So if your wood is wet your chimney will run hotter?[/quote]

Hah.....hahhhahahahah. hah