Wood won't dry!!!

[skinnykid]

With all this darn heavy rain, My wood is soaked and staying soaked.

One of my piles actually fell over

I am debating covering them but want the sun and wind to get at them (if it doesn't pour alot like it has been)


What to do, What to do???

 

[savageactor7]

Have faith the wood will dry...just don't cover it now. Please trust me I live in CNY ...the cloud grave yard.

btw it rained 3 times here today.

 

[BrotherBart]

We haven't had three days without rain since the first week in April. Sometimes three inches a day. My wood is looking dry and fine under it's rubber top cover.

Ever wonder why people that tell ya not to cover the wood build woodsheds? ;-)

 

[skinnykid]

wish I had the room for a shed.

 

[Rockey]

If you really want it to dry quick then dump a gallon of oil on it and throw a match at it. I bet someone has been mad enough to try this before.

 

[savageactor7]

Skinnykid I don't have a woodshed I jsut pile (not stack) my wood up 8ft tall on a pad of run a crush and it dries...been doing it for years. In one windy sunny day all that surface wetness will dry up...it's a force of nature, like gravity.

 

[elmoleaf]

Locate your stack on a southern exposure, in an open area exposed to wind. If you cover, cover only the top....nothing should hang down over the sides.

 

[Jerry_NJ]

I cover my stack with a tarp when rain is expected. And, uncover it the rest of the time. I have weights on hooks to "tie" the cover tarp down, so it all goes fast, under 5 minutes.

 

[skinnykid]

I cover my stack with a tarp when rain is expected. And, uncover it the rest of the time. .

Lately it it has been sunshiney days,then all of a sudden I can hear a storm chuggin across the lake! It POURS then it is all done.

Kinda can't plan for it

 

[WOODBUTCHER]

I just cover the top with over hangs........works for me.

WoodButcher

 

[bbc557ci]

Have faith the wood will dry...just don't cover it now. Please trust me I live in CNY ...the cloud grave yard.

btw it rained 3 times here today.

I'm also in CNY. Seems like we sure have gotten more than our share of rain in the last few weeks. I stacked 17 face cords 2 - 3 months ago and doesn't look like it's drying as well as it should. It is kind'a scary .............

 

[dsil]

cover...uncover...cover...uncover...

 

[stanleyjohn]

I may be going against the rules here!but my wood is covered most of the time with tarps.I have it set up for some ventilation to flow threw but no rain touches the wood.Winter and the stove will tell me if it was all worth it!I check on the piles once in a while and all seems bone dry.I have more wood on the way and that will go into the new woodshed.Covering it may be wrong but this way i dont need to worry about the rain!let it pour all it wants

 

[BrotherBart]

I just cover the top with over hangs........works for me.

WoodButcher

You got it. Dry your wood one time.

 

[Carl]

I certainly wouldn't hesitate to cover the top of it, keeping the rain from soaking into it. A little blown rain on the sides wouldn't hurt much.

Can't understand this thinking of not covering the top of it. If the top is covered and not the sides it will get the same amount of air circulation but not the continual soaking of rain. Good luck with your drying quest. For years I would stack the fresh cut, split wood right into our woodshed and it always seemed dry by fall and burned well..........soooooo I would say cover just the top of it like others have shown. Much better than leaving with no cover in my opinion.

 

[iceman]

well the powers that be here convinced me to stack uncovered .... after about ohhh 10-12 inches of rain the past 7 days i am covering ... this is bs .... i saw the forecast and rain to cover my wood.... but today i modified my stack and yes the floors are still wet from rain before i covered it last week so.. tomorrow i will come up with a better system to cover my wood and leave it that way till its ready to burn... hopefully august will be 70-90 and dry and windy
i am thinking of ordering a clear tarp to allow more sun on the wood

 

[downeast]

Not to worry about covering your wood...now. Our woodshed takes about 5 cords, the "storm shed" with a door to the house takes another 1/2 cord for those snow days when we can't or don't want to get out for the couple of days' wood for our 2 stoves.
There's no room for more inside stacks so the remaining couple of cords are stacked in the open for the first months of fall and early winter. Those are mostly the lower BTU hardwoods such as Paper Birch. We've done this for many years since the beginning %-P .

Think of the wood moisture or sap as having a higher viscosity and more embeded in the wood cells as someone here said. Rain is not a problem except in the PNW ( Pacific NW ) where the mosture is suicidal. Rained on but seasoned wood will still have only superficial moisture...good to go for the stoves.

We see too many piles of firewood either smothered under full tarps, or draped to hold the moisture. Good recipe for quick rotting. For 24/7 wood burning, open stacks with covers are a PITA especially with any kind of snow. It's time to build yourself a real woodshed if you're serious about wood heat ; there are plenty of plans online, examples here, or at the ArboristSite. Not a big deal really if you've got the space. Besides, those open stacks in the woodshed give you time to indulge in the OCD of Woodpile Addiction: lurking, checking it out, drooling over those lovely lovely symmetrical geometries of beauty. :sick: :red:

 

[myzamboni]

I won't cover until Sept (but we haven't had rain since early April and won't until Oct.)

 

[woodconvert]

I certainly wouldn't hesitate to cover the top of it, keeping the rain from soaking into it. A little blown rain on the sides wouldn't hurt much.

Can't understand this thinking of not covering the top of it.

The wood will not soak up the rain. Yes, the wood will get wet but the wood will dry out in no time when exposed to sun/wind. It does not soak deep into the wood.

 

[Carl]

well the powers that be here convinced me to stack uncovered .... after about ohhh 10-12 inches of rain the past 7 days i am covering ... this is bs .... i saw the forecast and rain to cover my wood.... but today i modified my stack and yes the floors are still wet from rain before i covered it last week so.. tomorrow i will come up with a better system to cover my wood and leave it that way till its ready to burn... hopefully august will be 70-90 and dry and windy
i am thinking of ordering a clear tarp to allow more sun on the wood

For me the only thing the sun does for the wood is to heat it causing it to dry faster. With a black tarp (or blue, or green)on top only it would still heat up the pile very well. I don't think clear would be any benifit. This isn't an exact science as some may think. In todays world we want to do the best, be the best, and worry about being perfect. I would just get it covered and walk away from it, checking back every once in a while with a beer in my hand.

 

[BrotherBart]

Heck get 30 year's expericene in one year. Cover half and leave half uncovered.

See ya back next year when you are covering it year round. :lol:

 

[woodconvert]

The fact of the matter is some places, on average, are better at drying wood than others. If you take rain out of the equation (which is a wild card from year to year), if you've got high humidity you are going to play hell trying to dry wood. Period. Covered or uncovered.

In my locale, we get it all, rain, dry, hot n' humid, cold n' damp. It works the best here to stack it and forget it till November. If you lived in Flagstaff....i think it would be dry before you had a chance to debate covering it.

 

[Backroads]

This weekend we had terrible rain and downpours. I had a tarp covering half and nothing on the rest. The stuff that got rained was blocks and I went to split them today and let me tell you it absorbed more water than I thought. I split a bunch of it up and spread it out over a small area. I'll leave it there till Wed. and stack it, because more rain is coming. :long:

 

[iceman]

well the powers that be here convinced me to stack uncovered .... after about ohhh 10-12 inches of rain the past 7 days i am covering ... this is bs .... i saw the forecast and rain to cover my wood.... but today i modified my stack and yes the floors are still wet from rain before i covered it last week so.. tomorrow i will come up with a better system to cover my wood and leave it that way till its ready to burn... hopefully august will be 70-90 and dry and windy
i am thinking of ordering a clear tarp to allow more sun on the wood

For me the only thing the sun does for the wood is to heat it causing it to dry faster. With a black tarp (or blue, or green)on top only it would still heat up the pile very well. I don't think clear would be any benifit. This isn't an exact science as some may think. In todays world we want to do the best, be the best, and worry about being perfect. I would just get it covered and walk away from it, checking back every once in a while with a beer in my hand.

my thought was clear would let more sun in....... what do you think

 

[billb3]

My rows get top covered like Woodbutcher's (except his are nice and neat).
I'm not taking the tops off in the Summer and have to find someplace to put them.
I figure every day spent drying off the wet from the rain is a day not drying the wood. Might be, might not be.
The top covers are enough for me all year.
Rarely get that much driving snow.
Rarely have to bust out frozen splits with a maul.