What if I put seasoned wood in a woodshed in a wet area?

[Poindexter]

Just thinking out load. I can season about six cords annually in my suburban back yard, but I burn about seven cords a year.

I stacked a test cord on the east side of my house this spring. It had my house to the west, maybe ten feet away, my neighbor's fence to the east about three feet away. At the north end I got a mature spruce tree and an enormous flowering bush my wife knows the name of. At the south end, 3 skinny pole birches pretty well block all the light when leafed out.

After out there all summer, bare dirt then landscaping fabric then 4" of gravel then pallets then sap up green wood on top of that with a layer of plastic on top to keep the rain off I got lots of visible mold and fungus on the ends of my splits. Splitting open a split shows me interior MC on this wood as 30-35%. So over an entire summer this cord got "dryer" than sap up, but isn't even down to the fiber saturation point.

If I build a wood shed in that same spot with a metal roof and a layer of impermeable plastic between the joists and floor - and then fill it with seasoned wood at 12-15% MC, what will happen to my seasoned wood over the course of a year or two?

I kinda need to put a woodshed "somewhere" so I can get ahead next time we have a dry summer; but it doesn't have to be "there".

Thanks. If the commentary is inconclusive I may stack a face cord of seasoned wood there next summer to see what happens to it.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Just thinking out load. I can season about six cords annually in my suburban back yard, but I burn about seven cords a year.

I stacked a test cord on the east side of my house this spring. It had my house to the west, maybe ten feet away, my neighbor's fence to the east about three feet away. At the north end I got a mature spruce tree and an enormous flowering bush my wife knows the name of. At the south end, 3 skinny pole birches pretty well block all the light when leafed out.

After out there all summer, bare dirt then landscaping fabric then 4" of gravel then pallets then sap up green wood on top of that with a layer of plastic on top to keep the rain off I got lots of visible mold and fungus on the ends of my splits. Splitting open a split shows me interior MC on this wood as 30-35%. So over an entire summer this cord got "dryer" than sap up, but isn't even down to the fiber saturation point.

If I build a wood shed in that same spot with a metal roof and a layer of impermeable plastic between the joists and floor - and then fill it with seasoned wood at 12-15% MC, what will happen to my seasoned wood over the course of a year or two?

I kinda need to put a woodshed "somewhere" so I can get ahead next time we have a dry summer; but it doesn't have to be "there".

Thanks. If the commentary is inconclusive I may stack a face cord of seasoned wood there next summer to see what happens to it.

I can only guess what will happen to your firewood, but if I'm understanding what you are saying about putting plastic between you Joists and Flooring, you will be trapping the moisture coming out of the ground on the top of your joists, and they will quickly begin to rot. Better to secure the plastic directly on the ground below the joists.

 

[paul bunion]

Read this for your answer. (broken link removed to http://www.esf.edu/scme/wus/documents/EMCofWoodFPL268.pdf). Your firewood will be slower to change than sawn lumber but the table on that paper shows where it will eventually drift to.

 

[Poindexter]

Read this for your answer. (broken link removed to http://www.esf.edu/scme/wus/documents/EMCofWoodFPL268.pdf). Your firewood will be slower to change than sawn lumber but the table on that paper shows where it will eventually drift to.

i was more or less afraid of that. Thanks for the confirmation.