wet wood

[maflake]

I have wood that has cured, split and stacked, for two years but I did not keep it covered. Can I rotate the wood into the house and get it try enough? What about using ACS as I burn…will that keep creosote from forming?


Here’s a pic of the chimney after two weeks of burning (inside stove):

 

[Kenster]

Move it inside. It will dry very quickly. Rain is just surface moisture. It's not going to soak in. I lean a few splits up against the hot stove and it's dry in no time.

 

[rdust]

I lean a few splits up against the hot stove and it's dry in no time.

This is bad advise! That's like saying lay a few splits on the stove top and they'll be ready when you load the stove the next time!

 

[Kenster]

I lean a few splits up against the hot stove and it's dry in no time.

This is bad advise! That's like saying lay a few splits on the stove top and they'll be ready when you load the stove the next time!

Why is that bad? The heat dries the wood. Can wood catch fire just by touching a 450-500 degree stove? Is the side of the stove going to be as hot as the stove top? I'm not arguing the point. I just don't know.

 

[rdust]

Can wood catch fire just by touching a 450-500 degree stove?

What is the side clearance to combustibles on your stove? I'm guessing it's not zero! Leaning wood against the side of the stove is not a safe practice regardless of it lighting off or not.

 

[FyreBug]

Ignition flash point for wood is a little over 400 f. Your stove comes with required clearances away from combustibles. Typically this is about a foot or more.

Leaning wood against a stove is potentially dangerous. Please for your own safety don't do it.

 

[FyreBug]

Ignition flash point for wood is a little over 400 f. Your stove comes with required clearances away from combustibles. Typically this is about a foot or more.

Leaning wood against a stove is potentially dangerous. Please for your own safety don't do it.

 

[Kenster]

Thanks, folks. I won't do it again. I've only done it a couple of times. I usually keep a cover on the wood next to the house that I'll be burning over the next few days. I leave the big stacks out in the woods uncovered.

Flyfish, disregard my suggestion to lean some wood against the stove. Bad idea. However, the other part of the advice, to bring some wood inside, still stands. The surface moisture will soon evaporate. And keep at least a few days worth of burn covered.

 

[branchburner]

The duration of time (and your ability to observe it) is the key to putting anything combustible near to the stove. Clearances can safely be ignored for very short periods, like loading the stove, for example. I consider myself combustible, and seldom forget to remove myself from near-contact with the stove.

Then again, I don't drink like I used to.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I have wood that has cured, split and stacked, for two years but I did not keep it covered. Can I rotate the wood into the house and get it try enough? What about using ACS as I burn…will that keep creosote from forming?

Welcome to the forum flyfish.

You have a good question and on some points we will probably all agree. On others, not so.

Personally, after splitting and stacking our wood in April, we leave the wood stacks uncovered.....until late fall or early winter. Then we cover the tops of the stacks. It is very important if you are covering to cover only the top and not the sides. Yet, there are others (quads is a one with a great example) who never cover their wood piles. Yet, quads I believe does bring wood to his covered porch for a while before it gets burned.

Point is, most folks will cover the tops of the wood but not all. Either way will work. However, it is still best if you can go out and get some wood for the stove and be able to carry in dry wood rather than wet wood.

Will the rain hurt my wood? No. Wood is not a sponge....unless it is already punky. Wood generally will not soak up water. The water will run off and we've found that the day after a rain, our wood piles dry of amazingly fast.

There are some folks who burn things along with their wood to try to keep the creosote from forming and I have no problem with it. However, a much better practice is to always have 2-3 years of wood split and stacked; always! That means the first couple of years of wood burning will cause you lots of work but when you have reached the point where you have good seasoned wood you will find that the extra work was well worth the effort. They way the wood burns when handled this way is awesome. Just ask some folks who burned green wood their first year or two but now have good dry wood and they will tell you they are amazed.

Simply put, if you burn good dry wood, you will get less creosote (or none), won't have problems keeping the fire going or even lighting it. You won't have problems on reloading the stove because you'll have a nice bed of coals which will ignite the new wood. But the very best benefit will be that you will get more heat from your wood and you will not burn as much.

Here's one example: We put in a new stove and a new SS chimney in 2007. This means we are now going into our 4th year with this stove and chimney. We have cleaned our chimney exactly one time....for about a cup of soot and no creosote. That makes for a happy wood burner.

Good luck.

 

[gyrfalcon]

"Just ask some folks who burned green wood their first year or two but now have good dry wood and they will tell you they are amazed. "

You rang?

Can't say I'm amazed because I've been reading here the whole time, but very, very happy and gratified.

And here's another vote for not bothering with the hassle of covering the wood, even on the top. The surface moisture from rain or snow dries out in a few days under cover in the woodshed (I'm fortunate to have a smallish enclosed attached one) or on the porch, and maybe a day indoors, a few hours if stacked just outside combustible range near the stove. You just have to have a habit of bringing wood down from the stacks a few days ahead so it has time to lose that surface damp before you throw it on the fire. To me, that's a heck of a lot easier than wrestling with tarps.

 

[gyrfalcon]

I have wood that has cured, split and stacked, for two years but I did not keep it covered. Can I rotate the wood into the house and get it try enough? What about using ACS as I burn…will that keep creosote from forming?

Not sure whether you intended this or not, but water-wet wood is not what causes creosote formation in your chimney. If your wood has been split and stacked for two years, you won't have much of a creosote problem if your set-up is good, and surface moisture on the wood won't increase whatever creosote you get from burning it.

 

[corey21]

So if your wood does not hiss in the fire its dry.

 

[maflake]

Thanks everyone for all the advice. I was hearing different things on the forum and got concerned about the wood I’m burning. It seems that some individuals use the term wet wood to describe green wood. That’s what got me concerned after reading all the horror stories about chimney fires. I’m trying to do things right and not burn down my house! I’m cutting wood like a wood chuck as we speak. I’ve put the word out that I’m looking for downed trees and lots of people are offering me free wood if I want it. I’m in the process of making a small extension off my storage shed to make a better shelter for storage. I plan on hitting the roof when the rain stops just to see how the unit is doing. I’m hoping the catalyst unit I purchased will help with any creosote and I’m planning on getting a chimney brush to clean out the pipe from time to time this winter. This forum has been a gold mine of information but at the same time a little scary with all the horror stories.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Flyfish, it sounds like you will do just fine!

 

[48rob]

Flyfish wrote;
This forum has been a gold mine of information but at the same time a little scary with all the horror stories.

I'm quite new to the wood burning forum, so cannot speak with any authority to the stories you've heard here, but since I'm not new to life in general, I can tell you that "horror" stories abound in any hobby or practice in which people partake in the unknown.

"Most" horror stories (problems) occur from jumping in head first without a clue...
People that ask for help and try to learn generally aren't plagued with such results.

Welcome!

Rob

 

[gyrfalcon]

It seems that some individuals use the term wet wood to describe green wood.

Exactly. It is confusing sometimes when you're trying to learn the ropes. Read carefully and ask questions when you run into the terms "wet" and "dry" to be sure what people are talking about. I always try to remember to say "water-wet" and "seasoned" instead of wet or dry, etc., but I don't always remember.

BTW, downed trees are necessarily going to be seasoned wood, and on the other end, can actually be well on their way to being rotted, so be alert to that if you're looking for wood to burn this year.

If you have some extra cash, you might look into whether any mills in your area are selling kiln-dried firewood. One of the big lumber operations in my area has started selling it because the construction industry has fallen off so badly, and they don't charge all that much more for it than regular firewood suppliers do. I ended up getting some this year, and man, it's a dream both to burn and to store because it's both perfectly "seasoned" and dry as can be, very little bark, clean, and of course no bugs hitching a ride into the house.

 

[firefighterjake]

Move it inside. It will dry very quickly. Rain is just surface moisture. It's not going to soak in. Good advice. I lean a few splits up against the hot stove and it's dry in no time. Bad advice . . . glad to hear you've changed your way-ward ways.

 

[katwillny]

Flyfish, just an anecdote of something that happened to me one day. I was bringing wood into the house that was slightly wet so I decided, being the newbie to wood burning that i was, hey why not use the hot stove to dry off the water on the wood. I did that a few times and it worked great. One day I did the same thing, however this day i was very tired and fell asleep for a nice afternoon nap. I was awaken by the smoke alarms in my house after the wood caught on fire. Luckily i was there to wake up and deal with it, had i left the house and forgotten about it, God only knows what may have happened. point is, we are human and we sometimes forget to do simple things, so we need to protect ourselves from ourselves.
Welcome to the forum.