Backwoods Savage said:
I've said it many times and will repeat: wood is not a sponge and will not soak up the rain. Rain hitting the sides of the stacks will not soak in but will run right off and an hour or two of wind will completely dry it.
Amazing how everyone seems to accept the doctrine of long drying times being necessary, but that many still adhere to the notion that getting the wood wet again undoes all the seasoning. Wood will act like a sponge, but the rate of water re-entry is so slow that it is negligible when it comes to firewood. Now if you submerged the wood for months at a time it would be a different story, but rain water runs right off due to our friend gravity, so there's little time for it to soak back in.
Wood dries much faster on the ends than it does along the split faces, about 10-15X faster. That's why the ends crack, because they shrink so much relative to the middle that the grain gets torn apart. But it also soaks in 10-15X faster on the ends. If you doubt this, get some water-based stain and douse a split with it, then rip it down its length. The stain will penetrate deeply (perhaps as much as 1/8") on the ends and not much at all on the split faces. So I have to ask why the cracked ends don't swell back up and "heal" themselves when the wood gets rained on? The reason is, as long as the wood is stacked on its side, the rain water runs off as fast as it falls down. Only the thin film of water left on the surface remains. That disappears in a few short hours of sun and breeze and the seasoning continues.
As far as the height goes, I don't believe it makes a difference. IMO, no wood should go into the shed until it is 100% dry, and that takes at least 2 years in sun and wind, stacked loosely, hopefully in well spaced stacks facing the prevailing wind direction in your area. Any kind of enclosed space will inhibit the air movement necessary to dry the wood effectively. Even large air spaces between boards won't help. Go out to your shed on a windy day, then step back out into the wind and tell me how much air movement is going on inside. Heck, even the mosquito netting on Lady BK's gazebo has a remarkable breeze dampening effect... enough to blow the damn thing right over and cost me $60 in Chinese replacement parts. That's why you'll never see me store wood in a shed. It stays outside uncovered until I can get it into the desert like conditions by my basement stove in the winter, with fans blowing on it like in a kiln. AFAIC, a shed is a man cave to store and work on your wood processing equipment, not to store the wood itself, but whatever works for other folks is what they'll do, even if it's wrong. ;-P
Fossil, I thought I built a pretty nice shed until I saw yours. Best I've seen by far on this forum. I just found out I can buy a small 100' x 100' plot by my beloved Battenkill River for $6K. The guy says he's pretty sure I can build up to a 100 sq.ft. lean-to type building without a permit. If I go ahead with it, I'm gonna be looking at your design very carefully. Make it a little higher and I can put a sleeping loft in it and hang out for days, watching the fish rise and sipping some bourbon while puffing away on a fat Honduran stogy. I'm going to take a peek at the property today.
Lots of great shed ideas here on the forums. Build what works best for you. Rick
