Got Ripped Off By a Firewood Dealer - Any tips for Drying wood quickly?

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I used to sell FW on the side. Me nor anyone I know plans on there being wood held back for next yr to sell as seasoned. Maybe other parts of the country have such suppliers. Even though grey wood should be considered a good thing most people like to see bright new freshly split wood.

Have you ever tried to explain to a buyer what the gray wood means?
 
Hi All,

I know it's a bad idea to burn wet wood in an insert, but I got burned by a local firewood dealer and now I'm not sure what to do. The outside of the wood reads 16-19% on the moisture meter, but the inside is 30-35%. I tried burning it, and it puts the fire right out. The outside will char, but mostly it will just smoke and smolder even with the damper fully open.

I guess it's bound to happen every now and then. The guy was very reasonable at first and offered to come pick up the wood and refund my money and I offered to load it for him. After I hadn't heard from him in over a week, I contacted him and he no longer wants to accept the wood back.

I can argue with him all I want, but I doubt it will get me anywhere. Now I've got 2 cords of chunk wood in my front yard killing my grass that I don't know what to do with. Is there any way to dry it out quickly so it can be used this year?

Thanks!


If you dry it inside, a dehumidifier will remove the moisture from the air and send it down the drain. If you just use a fan, expect the inside room to have much higher humidity. That moisture needs to go somewhere...
 
well, for starters you can stack it for next year and buy new stuff for this year.

I know its too late now, but this is why i buy my wood in the spring, sometimes for the upcoming year, sometimes for the next.

I have bought and gotten hosed like you did, not much to do. Life is hard, and you bit it. Post the guy's info here so we dont make the same mistake. Then move on, you wont get satisfaction from him.
 
Have you ever tried to explain to a buyer what the gray wood means?
Been a long time since I sold fw. What I do remember is price point and volume was what it was all about. Most suppliers weren't delivering honest cords so that became the biggest hurdle. How to charge fairly for an honest cord in a market plagued with cheaters.
 
Sorry to hear things didn't work out for you, Parkview, with one of my wood guys. It is a little late in the season to be ordering firewood for this year, regardless of location.

Did you get those Envi bricks yet??? Local suppliers will be running out of them, soon, as well.

There is http://www.lifirewood.com/kiln-dried-firewood.php . Give them a call. Some of that will supplement that less than favorable wood, which will season quicker if split.

I'll be doing a LOT of splitting this weekend, Thanksgiving, and the following weekend, of cherry, pine, & locust, which will season fast. I'll see what I can do with swapping you out some, so you can get by this year..... get on those Envi bricks, though. You can atleast mix it up.

Any one else on Long Island that can swap out some firewood???
 
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Parkview154. Try looking around for some dry stuff. Pallets are usually dry. You can get them for free at many places.(Home Depot, Lowes, UPS stores, and many other businesses that take a lot of "stuff" in. Another good source is building supply places, other than the big box places like H.D. and Lowes. The smaller places usually have scrap around that they are going to end up throwing away and it cost them money to do so.

+1 I drive by a couple of building supply stores almost daily on my way from work I get all my stacking pallets (no woodshed here) from 1 place in particular that sometimes has 50 or more out in a pile. I put what I can in the back of the truck a couple times a year. I have lots of dry pine, cedar for kindling so I mostly use them to stack wood, but they would burn hot and they're free and there's lots if you keep your eyes open. Also doesn't hurt to go ask the guy at the service / contractor's desk. Did this once and the guy sent me to the back of the yard where they had a bunch they were ready to toss out in the pile -grabbed some good ones.
 
If I were you, I'd find a source for some bio bricks, envi blocks, eco bricks, etc as Dix mentioned and use them or try mixing them with the driest pieces of that wood split down a bit smaller.

Also, get it split and stacked so it's dry for next year. Sounds like it's time to start planning on doing the seasoning yourself. Sadly, seasoned firewood that is purchased is rarely seasoned :(

pen
 
if you can store inside with fan and dehumidifier
if not loosely stack and put a fan on it when u can. crazy as it seems i would stack 2 rows apart the width of a box fan put a piece of plywood on top and after a while you could hear the cracks in the wood opening. then i would always put the next load into the room after every reload so it would get 10 hrs or so to dry out . that should work as your wood isnt that far off.
and resplit any large pieces
 
I have been down the wet wood road before not to fun.



That looks like a fire waiting to happen this is how bad things start.
Mix it with bio or envi 8 bricks.They burn very hot and will ignite the splits.
 
Thanks everyone for the great advice! Sorry if I seem like I fell off the planet there for a little while. Too much going on with the holidays and work and stuff. We picked up a half ton of Envi-blocks the other day and still have to pick up the other half, but haven't found the time to do so.

My husband Tony and I split most of the wood into little pieces and stacked it on racks. Hey - at least I'll have plenty for next year right? I'm going to try the "drying wood by the fire method", but there is no way I'm going to stack it as close to the stove as that guy did. I'll let you guys know how it works out!

I'm going to keep my eyes open for pallets. We have electric heat in our house and I try to use it too much. When I do turn it on my meter spins so fast it looks like it's going to fly right off the house. But we're burning through the Envi-blocks a lot quicker than we were expecting.

Well, tis the trial and error of a newbie wood burner. Thanks again everyone
 
I have bought and gotten hosed like you did, not much to do. Life is hard, and you bit it. Post the guy's info here so we dont make the same mistake. Then move on, you wont get satisfaction from him.

Absurd. This is a case of simple inexperience and ignorance, not of one getting ripped off. "Seasoned" means entirely different things to different folks, and to most firewood suppliers means, "felled last year, split this year." Unless a specific MC% was discussed and promised, don't go trashing the suppliers name.
 
If you mentioned to the average wood burner in the PA area that wood needs to be split and stacked for two to three years before burning they will look at you like you have a third eye... and maybe a unicorn horn coming out of your forehead.

I've had multiple people tell me my wood will "rot long before I ever get to burn it." I've been told I am "wasting your time and money stacking all that wood."

So, seasoned differs greatly in the minds of many. Expecting a wood seller to have dry wood is a mistake on your part. Especially when it is delivered in November.
 
:eek: I don't know what kind of stove that is, but it doesn't even look side-shielded. Stove looks pretty hot, too.

It's a Tiger stove, made in China, very cheap, quite common in the UK.
 
This is exactly why I got into selling firewood to try and help, only to find people do not want to pay the extra $$$ for true seasoned wood in this area.

Another thing I have found, the educated burners that understand the value of seasoned wood cut/split their own.

Just means more wood for me.
 
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I had lunch with a friend today and I was telling him how wood heating is considered "green" because its carbon neutral and a renewable resource. He was dubious so I was doing a quick Internet search to send him a link. The photo below was in one of the first articles I found. That wood seems to be stacked awful close to that stove:


The autoignition temp of dry pine is 800F, so it's unlikely that the proximity of stacking wood close to a woodstove is going to be the cause of a fire. Still not smart due to embers, or a log rolling against the stove, but if space is at a premium, and your desperate its a way to dry the wood fast. If you want to be conservative you can lean a piece of shiny sheet metal against the piles to reflect back most of the IR given off the stove. This would keep the piles clost to room temp, but you could benefit from low humidity.

I really don't like the idea of keeping wood that close, but I know I've done it in the past when staying at a powerless cabin with no heat and only wet wood to work with.
 
If you dry it inside, a dehumidifier will remove the moisture from the air and send it down the drain. If you just use a fan, expect the inside room to have much higher humidity. That moisture needs to go somewhere...


+ The amount you are going to pay for electricity to dry a full cord with a dehumidifier will probably be much more than you are saving by burning the wood. Using whatever alternative source of heat... even if its oil... will probably cost less.
 
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+ The amount you are going to pay for electricity to dry a full cord with a dehumidifier will probably be much more than you are saving by burning the wood. Using whatever alternative source of heat... even if its oil... will probably cost less.

If you really want to go nuts you could put your wood into a vacuum chamber and boil all the moisture out at room temperature. No risk of fire, and with only a $100,000 investment in equipment, and copious amounts of electricity, you can stake claim to the lowest moisture content on the site!
 
The autoignition temp of dry pine is 800F, so it's unlikely that the proximity of stacking wood close to a woodstove is going to be the cause of a fire.

Careful, there. Quoted autoignition temperatures are vary widely (I've seen estimates as low as 525F), largely because the age and condition of the wood can make a difference of several hundred degrees in the autoignition temperature. For example, exposure to elevated temperatures changes the characteristics of the wood, drastically lowering its ingition temperature with time. Rot, age, moisture content all add into the equation.

More importantly, we've seen many (one already this heating season) cases of hearth.com forum members having wood start to smoke or catch fire when stacked too close to the stove. These are first-hand accounts, which may or may not agree with your quoted number.
 
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Careful, there. Quoted autoignition temperatures are vary widely (I've seen estimates as low as 525F), largely because the age and condition of the wood can make a difference of several hundred degrees in the autoignition temperature. For example, exposure to elevated temperatures changes the characteristics of the wood, drastically lowering its ingition temperature with time. Rot, age, moisture content all add into the equation.

More importantly, we've seen many (one already this heating season) cases of hearth.com forum members having wood start to smoke or catch fire when stacked too close to the stove. These are first-hand accounts, which may or may not agree with your quoted number.

And member firefighterjake recently shared a particularly tragic fire apparently caused by combustibles too close to a stove (as I recall).
 
Careful, there. Quoted autoignition temperatures are vary widely (I've seen estimates as low as 525F), largely because the age and condition of the wood can make a difference of several hundred degrees in the autoignition temperature. For example, exposure to elevated temperatures changes the characteristics of the wood, drastically lowering its ingition temperature with time. Rot, age, moisture content all add into the equation.

More importantly, we've seen many (one already this heating season) cases of hearth.com forum members having wood start to smoke or catch fire when stacked too close to the stove. These are first-hand accounts, which may or may not agree with your quoted number.

In the 500 range is the temperature where off gassing occurs that has combustible vapors, so I'm with you there. Get the concentration right, and put a spark in the vicinity, and it's certainly a problem. I was assuming that there was enough airflow so that the vapors never got to the level where they could be a problem, so I tossed out 800F for dry pine as the temperature where no spark is needed to get it to catch fire. Your number is more conservative, and paper is 451F for autoignition, so with something as dangerous as a house fire its probably better to bank on the lowest number possible.
 
+ The amount you are going to pay for electricity to dry a full cord with a dehumidifier will probably be much more than you are saving by burning the wood. Using whatever alternative source of heat... even if its oil... will probably cost less.
Depending on the particular circumstances, I don't think I'd be too concerned about excess humidity in the house from air drying wood. Putting aside all the other problems associated with drying a cord of wood in the house (like possible spousal objections!), if you are trying to remove 10% of moisture from 2000# of wood, and if it takes 30 days to do it, that's only 6 or 7 pounds of water per day into the house.
 
Absurd. This is a case of simple inexperience and ignorance, not of one getting ripped off. "Seasoned" means entirely different things to different folks, and to most firewood suppliers means, "felled last year, split this year." Unless a specific MC% was discussed and promised, don't go trashing the suppliers name.
I agree that in the case of cordwood purchases, the buyer has to be responsible for what he/she gets, just like most any other purchase. If quantity is important, then specify, before purchase, 128 cf stacked. If moisture content is important, then specify a reasonable range or average. A meter costs $20 and is cheap assurance. The term "seasoned" means about as much as "great condition" means for a used car.

It's certainly possible to get well dried wood, but expect to pay a premium because it is going to cost a lot for a supplier to store it under cover and test for moisture, especially for a slow-drying hardwood.

Having said that, I know it still stings when you don't get what you expected, but when that happens to me, I just chalk it up to experience unless there has been a material misrepresentation.
 
Depending on the particular circumstances, I don't think I'd be too concerned about excess humidity in the house from air drying wood. Putting aside all the other problems associated with drying a cord of wood in the house (like possible spousal objections!), if you are trying to remove 10% of moisture from 2000# of wood, and if it takes 30 days to do it, that's only 6 or 7 pounds of water per day into the house.

During the winter months I think I'd appreciate a little extra humidity around. Perhaps I can convince my wife to let next seasons wood sit in the living room for natural climate control. She always comments on it being too dry in the house, so everyone wins!
 
During the winter months I think I'd appreciate a little extra humidity around. Perhaps I can convince my wife to let next seasons wood sit in the living room for natural climate control. She always comments on it being too dry in the house, so everyone wins!
Let us know how that works out for ya!
 
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