Wood shed ventilation?

[Max W]

My woodshed is not very open to sun and wind. I am looking at making some louvers for the peaks at the gable ends to move more air and maybe pull away moisture. The shed is open to the northeast. The prevailing winds are from southwest and northwest. The shed can hold four cord each side with space between tiers. Right now I have well seasoned wood for the next two years as long as I continue to use our mini split heat pump. I will be adding three cord of fresh cut shortly. I am wondering how much difference adding louvers would make.

 

[EbS-P]

I’m just guessing not much. It is an open front means it’s going to swirl out the front some. Anything stacked up really high will just block any new flow paths. But I could be completely wrong. I would put the extra effort in to some other project to help keep you warmer.

 

[ericm979]

In addition to the one side being open there's gaps between the siding boards and big spaces between the rafters. It's going to get plenty of air.

If you're worried, try putting a cheap thermometer/hygrometer in there (in the stack if you want) to measure humidity and another one just outside for comparison. I bet there won't be much difference if any.

 

[stoveliker]

I'm with ebs-p. Don't spend money on this. You are Keeping the rain off. If you really sleep better after doing something about the shed, take a ladder, a 1" forstner bit and drill 10 holes below the ridge on each side. Louvers etc are too much effort for any return there may be.

 

[Max W]

Thanks all. I guess my thinking on this has been a little convoluted but if you want to go along for the ride I’ll try to describe it. If every thing stays the same my next load of wood will have plenty of time, two, years to dry. I have no reason to think my heat pump won’t continue to give good heat and keep my firewood use pretty much as planned. Still the idea of having enough wood to be independent of heat sources like heat pumps has long been important to me.

I can get along fine if I have to burn wood dried for one year with my Waterford cookstove so the new wood going in the shed would be good enough no matter what. After discovering 2 badly cracked liners in the aprox 40 year old stove and learning that they would cost 350 each from one popular source and 450 each from another it was time to get serious about finding something new. Previously, looking for more heat capacity for our house we explored going to a heating stove and looked at a promising Jotul f45. We couldn’t find a cook stove with a heating sized fire box that suited our needs. Until the liners we had made the decision to stay with the aged and not tight Waterford. It is rough but we love how it cooks and bakes. If it had to heat all on its own, well for those few days when its capacity would be taxed and if there was no back up, we do have sweaters. With the discovery of the liner‘s condition everything changed. I don’t feel comfortable running the stove through the winter and it’s just doesn’t seem worth putting that money out on the old stove.

Thinking we may have the Jotul one year dry time in the shed likely isn’t enough. That’s what got me thinking how to improve drying and one idea was louvers. Well this tale takes another twist, one much to our liking and solves the drying question as well. Just this morning I saw a lovely twelve year old enameled Waterford Stanley cook stove on craigs list complete with warming oven and side rack. The price wasn’t cheap but it felt like with what we didn’t spend on liners gave us a seven hundred dollar head start. We bought it today and will be bringing it home when able in a few weeks.

 

[FTG-05]

Spend the time and money to build another wood shed, then fill it. Time dries all wood.

 

[lml999]

@Max W Can you respace the side boards? That would provide a lot more airflow. See how I spaced mine, below... (work in progress). I also used clear roofing for a bit of sun heating (and am changing the front lip to clear...). My floor decking also has some spacing...and my roof has enough overhang that rain won't intrude (the right side will have a storage shed sistered, so there's no gap in those boards...). I've also added bin separators so I have three discrete bins, both for tracking/separating wood shipments, and for providing some flow through ventilation. I'm using double horizontal 2x4s, spaced by a 1/2 2x4 mounted on the verticals...

 

[Kevin Weis]

May be water under the bridge now but a metal roof could heat it up some when the sun beats on it. Unless it never does.

 

[lml999]

May be water under the bridge now but a metal roof could heat it up some when the sun beats on it. Unless it never does.

For the OP, and for me, I think a clear roof would work better than a metal roof. ICBW.

Interestingly, for the storage shed sistered to my wood shed, above, I decided to go with a metal roof. Had to decide between red and green, went with the latter as the shed is tucked under pine trees. The red was awful purty, but would have stood out a bit too much.

 

[Max W]

[] Can you respace the side boards? That would provide a lot more airflow. See how I spaced mine, below... (work in progress). I also used clear roofing for a bit of sun heating (and am changing the front lip to clear...). My floor decking also has some spacing...and my roof has enough overhang that rain won't intrude (the right side will have a storage shed sistered, so there's no gap in those boards...). I've also added bin separators so I have three discrete bins, both for tracking/separating wood shipments, and for providing some flow through ventilation. I'm using double horizontal 2x4s, spaced by a 1/2 2x4 mounted on the verticals...

I think that resetting and spacing even just the vertical boards on the back wall would catch the prevailing summer winds and make a difference. When I built the shed I thought if I spaced the boards it would let snow blow in. I nailed them close together and of course nature helped some by opening what gaps there are in the wide boards. I think now that snow should not offset the big advantage of air flow. As far as spacing and roofing I had another consideration. The shed sits across from the house close to the road and I was going for a traditional looking shed with shingles that match the house. It turned out form somewhat over function.

"

 

[TomMcDonald]

My woodshed is not very open to sun and wind. I am looking at making some louvers for the peaks at the gable ends to move more air and maybe pull away moisture. The shed is open to the northeast. The prevailing winds are from southwest and northwest. The shed can hold four cord each side with space between tiers. Right now I have well seasoned wood for the next two years as long as I continue to use our mini split heat pump. I will be adding three cord of fresh cut shortly. I am wondering how much difference adding louvers would make.

View attachment 303242

If that were me, and I had the inclination to mess with that shed, I would open up the south side and close in the north side, or even just keep both north and south open.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Thanks all. I guess my thinking on this has been a little convoluted but if you want to go along for the ride I’ll try to describe it. If every thing stays the same my next load of wood will have plenty of time, two, years to dry. I have no reason to think my heat pump won’t continue to give good heat and keep my firewood use pretty much as planned. Still the idea of having enough wood to be independent of heat sources like heat pumps has long been important to me.

I can get along fine if I have to burn wood dried for one year with my Waterford cookstove so the new wood going in the shed would be good enough no matter what. After discovering 2 badly cracked liners in the aprox 40 year old stove and learning that they would cost 350 each from one popular source and 450 each from another it was time to get serious about finding something new. Previously, looking for more heat capacity for our house we explored going to a heating stove and looked at a promising Jotul f45. We couldn’t find a cook stove with a heating sized fire box that suited our needs. Until the liners we had made the decision to stay with the aged and not tight Waterford. It is rough but we love how it cooks and bakes. If it had to heat all on its own, well for those few days when its capacity would be taxed and if there was no back up, we do have sweaters. With the discovery of the liner‘s condition everything changed. I don’t feel comfortable running the stove through the winter and it’s just doesn’t seem worth putting that money out on the old stove.

Thinking we may have the Jotul one year dry time in the shed likely isn’t enough. That’s what got me thinking how to improve drying and one idea was louvers. Well this tale takes another twist, one much to our liking and solves the drying question as well. Just this morning I saw a lovely twelve year old enameled Waterford Stanley cook stove on craigs list complete with warming oven and side rack. The price wasn’t cheap but it felt like with what we didn’t spend on liners gave us a seven hundred dollar head start. We bought it today and will be bringing it home when able in a few weeks.

Vent the back of the shed. The back of mine is plywood and the 3 pieces are lovered to allow the summer winds to move through the stacks and out the back.. you can literally stand behind my shed and feel the air move through it

 

[KDubU]

Air and sun, two keys to getting nice dried wood so open her up.