# To season wood, must it be covered



## varna (Nov 23, 2009)

First off, Hello folks
Been doing a bunch of reading and this site is awesome.
Well, I am not new to the work involved in gathering and splitting wood. Did that as a kid for Pop but we only did it for a "fireplace" not as a heat source to heat the house. So, now I am heating with a OWB and am having a fun time gathering my wood. For my question:
The wood I am spitting and stacking for "next year" should it be covered? Left open to rain and snow? I have a shed for this years wood but not for next years. If wood is drying or "seasoning" and it rains on it, does that start the process all over again? Does dry seasoned wood act like a "sponge" absorbing any and all moisture it can? Sorry if this has been answered before but my searches haven't found the answer. I would be moving my wood to the roofed wood shed the summer before I burn it. Will that be sufficient to ensure dry seasoned wood for burning?
Thanks


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## wdchuck (Nov 23, 2009)

Welcome to AS.

Wood is hydroscopic.

Covering stacked wood with tin does allow full seasoning, and keeps it clean/dry.

Keeping your wood off the ground, like on pallets will probably be the one best thing you can do for seasoning wood. 

Availability to sun/wind all year will get you good wood in the shortest amount of time.


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## CrappieKeith (Nov 23, 2009)

wdchuck said:


> Welcome to AS.
> 
> Wood is hydroscopic.
> 
> ...



Good answer.
I know guys have said that their wood piled up below a tarp is wetter than the wood set on the tarp to hold it down.


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## scotvl (Nov 23, 2009)

No, But it's a good idea once it's seasoned to put it in a wood shed or cover the top of your stacks a couple of months before you burn it.


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## turnkey4099 (Nov 23, 2009)

Wood will dry to a level that stabilizes for your weather conditions. It will then vary somewhat season to seasonbut not by a lot. It pretty much only takes in water from the ends, not the sides. Thus while you pick up a 'wet' chunk when it is raining, it is all surface moisture except for alittle that has already absorbed in the ends. You can even burn off of 'wet' piles by just throwing the top layer or two aside and using the dry stuff under them.

Cover or not? Depends on your climate. If I were on the wet side of Washington state I would cover the top. I am on the dry side were we only get wet from about Nov-March. My stacks are left uncovered but the current season's wood is moved inside along about Sept/Oct. Then I fill the woodshed with stuff from the outside stacks.

Harry K


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## HillRat (Nov 23, 2009)

Hi & welcome 

I'm in NJ too, a bit north of Trenton along the Delaware. I stack fresh cut/split wood on pallets and leave it uncovered. I find it seasons just fine that way. It sits out in the open (but off the ground) for a year or more. 

When that stack is ready to burn, some time in the fall I cover it with a tarp to keep the rain and snow off, and it burns just fine all winter. Your plan to move the next batch of seasoned wood to a roofed shed is similar and should work just fine.

Which types of wood are you burning? We've got lots of ash and oak up this way.


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## SWI Don (Nov 23, 2009)

To reiterate. Get the wood off of the ground! Beyond that covering is dependant on climate.

Here in Iowa, I don't cover anything until it is ready to burn. Then it goes into the woodshed. My woodshed is three sided so there is not enough air movement for good drying so it is best to have it ready to burn when going in. 

If you do decide to cover your drying stacks. Be sure to only cover the tops. You need air movement to get it dry and a tarp will trap moisture under it also. 

Don


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## KsWoodsMan (Nov 23, 2009)

:agree2: Keep the weather off the top and let the wind/sun get to the sides. The less moisture it has to get rid of the faster it will be ready or the drier it will be when it is needed.


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## varna (Nov 24, 2009)

Thanks for the replies.
I do have my stacks on pallets, 4 long 1 on each end standing with posts to hold them up. I was going to see if I could gather up some old corrugated tin sheets or something just to cover the tops but now I'm not so worried that I "have" to get it done immediately.
Thanks again for the replies.


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## HOGBEAR (Nov 24, 2009)

Keep it off the ground, cover just the top to keep off the moisture but allow the sides to be exposed to wind and sun.


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## varna (Nov 24, 2009)

HillRat said:


> Hi & welcome
> I'm in NJ too, a bit north of Trenton along the Delaware.
> Which types of wood are you burning? We've got lots of ash and oak up this way.



I am mostly burning oak. All of my "free" wood I'm cutting off of a friends property. I'm only taking standing non-rotted dead and recent blow down trees right now. There is a few years worth of that easily. He has 200+ acres of woods. I'm sure there are some other types of wood but I am positive I'm not cutting any pine. I have 2 relatives who want their yards cleared almost exclusively oak. About 30 to 40 very large trees each. I just need to find the time to go cut them. We live in very heavily wooded areas of SJ where you need 5 acres minimum to build......some places 10.


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## Grace Tree (Nov 24, 2009)

HOGBEAR said:


> Keep it off the ground, cover just the top to keep off the moisture but allow the sides to be exposed to wind and sun.


I just finished burning a bunch of cherry that was dropped and left laying on acreage that was logged at least 15 years ago. Whatever wasn't touching the ground was nice and dry in the heartwood; outside sloughed off when I split it. I did it more to clean up the woods than for need of firewood but it was a nice surprise.
Phil


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## gallegosmike (Nov 24, 2009)

In my area ,new mexico high mountains 7500ft. Ive normally got mild warm days and cool nights in the summer time with pretty low humidity. Thats till the monson rain season hits! I season my wood in the open with out any cover. The little rain that I get during the summer helps loosen up the bark on pinion pine that I burn. Come the monson season, I tarp up my wood and get ready for fall. Outside right now, it is a relative humidity of 20%. Ive seen it as low as 4%!!! Bone dry!!!


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## wkpoor (Nov 24, 2009)

Drying down lumber is somewhat like drying firewood. Its best to start outside with no cover. Moisture on the cellular level is what you are trying to dry not surface moisture. In Ohio my wood outside has stayed good for 3 yrs or more with no cover. But I also store my wood out in the wide open space where the sun and wind can get at it from all sides everyday. After a rain its not long before the wood is dry again. So basically I wouldn't move inside till the next year after its had time to dry down good.


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## dolmen (Nov 25, 2009)

varna said:


> . We live in very heavily wooded areas of SJ where you need 5 acres minimum to build......some places 10.



I'm looking for somewhere to relocate to and like the sound of that ... would you have any further details please ... I'm in the uk so all is new to me, thanks.

Cheers


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## varna (Nov 25, 2009)

Well, For new Jersey it is very wooded but in the grand scheme of things across the US, this is by far NOT the wilderness. I was born and raised here and "was" mostly farms and woods. Now, I can't wait to retire and get out of NJ. It gets worse every year. Yes, where I am I am fortunate to not be located right upon my neighbor, but take a road a few miles in most any direction......you will come across a development.
Search elsewhere my friend


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## HillRat (Nov 25, 2009)

The state of New Jersey has some positives that might interest you-- much of it is within commuting distance to New York City or Philadelphia, and the job markets in the cities and in the nearby suburbs in NJ are pretty healthy.

There are some nice rural areas of NJ. Hunterdon, Sussex, and Somerset counties still have a somewhat rural character. Within an hour's drive you can hike the mountains, walk in the woods, or walk the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. You can drive to NYC and visit some of the finest museums in the world, catch a Broadway play, and find any type of food you can imagine. (The southern third of the state I'm not as familiar with, but others here should be able to give you some more details.)

The downside is: many areas are very densely populated, the traffic can be bad, property and income taxes are high, home prices can be high, and the state's politics are extremely corrupt. (Taxes are relative; coming from the UK, you may not find them excessively high. Compared to other states in the US, they are among the highest.)

Now that I've said all the nice stuff, I have to say that I've had enough of the negatives and am on my way out of here after having lived here for ~40 years. The negatives, for me, have been too much for too long... but there are positives to the state, and I know lots of people that are pretty happy here! 

Hey, would you like to buy a nice three bedroom ranch with a wood stove on 4 1/2 wooded acres?? :biggrinbounce2:


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## dolmen (Nov 25, 2009)

Thank you very helpful info ... I'm sorry to have side tracked the thread, but I got excited at the thought of my own 10+ acres of woods!

Some have told me to look down NC way in the mountains nice in summer and not too cold come winter? Its difficult doing all the research from this end, its such a big place I need to weed out the possabilities on paper first.

DW and myself would be looking to early retire and have at least 10 acres hopefully more, small highly insulated home that could be left during the winter if need be. I like it rural but not too remote, somewhere ready to go would be perfect ... but anyhow DW is heading over in May 2010 and may see something she likes.

Cheers


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## savageactor7 (Nov 25, 2009)

I probably wouldn't cover if I lived in Jersey cause the snow doesn't last long and rain water don't mean jack s.


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## Uncle John (Dec 8, 2009)

Just wondering why its important to get it off the ground when its all off the ground but the bottom layer any how.


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## howellhandmade (Dec 8, 2009)

Kingfisher said:


> Just wondering why its important to get it off the ground when its all off the ground but the bottom layer any how.



If the bottom layer rots and gets infested with termites, then the next layer is sitting on rotten, termite-infested wood so it will get rotten and infested, and so on. Depends what kind of soil and drainage you have under it and how long you leave it, I guess. Seems to me that drying is faster when air can circulate underneath, that wood piled on the ground seems to get ground moisture up through the pile and mold, but that's not scientific, just what I think I've observed. I know some folks who have a gravel area for wood, seems to work fine, and some use it fast enough it doesn't matter. When I moved into my house there was a woodpile on the ground in the back yard, don't know how long it had been there but it was mostly just bug food.

Jack


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## Grace Tree (Dec 8, 2009)

Kingfisher said:


> Just wondering why its important to get it off the ground when its all off the ground but the bottom layer any how.


I don't know the technical reason but we have a junk woodpile for our tree service wood for the willow, cottonwood, pine etc. We leave it sit to dry out for a few months before we throw it in our giant wood burner/disposer and the difference between wood that's touching the ground and wood that's off the ground is dramatic. Huge difference.
Phil


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## svk (Jun 6, 2016)

Well after reading on here about everyone seasoning their stacks uncovered I had to try it for myself. I had been trying to season some black ash for the last year 21 months. As of yesterday it was still pretty wet. Stacked off the ground in partial sun but not covered. Finally said heck with it and covered the top.

Seasoning without cover may work further south or in areas of full sun but up here the warm season is just too short. Covered stacks for me from now on.


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## woodbooga (Jun 6, 2016)

svk said:


> Well after reading on here about everyone seasoning their stacks uncovered I had to try it for myself. I had been trying to season some black ash for the last year 21 months. As of yesterday it was still pretty wet. Stacked off the ground in partial sun but not covered. Finally said heck with it and covered the top.
> 
> Seasoning without cover may work further south or in areas of full sun but up here the warm season is just too short. Covered stacks for me from now on.



I like to toss a cover on come Oct. to keep the wetness out before brning what's in the dooryard.

One thing to keep in mind is not all moisture's created equal. Green moisture's part of a recently living plant. The log's hanging on to it for dear life like clutches. Dead moisture's a different matter. It wicks away realtively quick. 

I'm in NH at the foothill of the Whites. Far enough east we get ocean moisture. Far enough north the arctic blows off from Mt. Washington. Damn too far north to have my firewood hissing at me on a depth of February sub-zip night.
If you got rain coming, toss on a tarp. At 21 mos, that ash will check at the ends soon. Give a few days/weeks to wick off and get it under your barn. Like the others said, the cellular fiber will equilib to what's ambient moisture in time.


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## Ted Jenkins (Jun 7, 2016)

For me in Southern California at 6,000 it all depends on the year. I remember one year when we had 90 inches of rain for the year and dry wood was like refined gold. An older guy told me several years ago he went out to his woodpile every couple of days and watered his stack so it would season faster. I think his wood was green and it helped to break down the pitch in the wood. Some how he always had dry wood. Water is very expensive here too so have not tried that. If it looks like rain or drizzle I will be getting the tarps out regardless of the time of day or night, but just the top of the stacks. We are not allowed to have piles so always stacks. If the weather is predicted to be below freezing I start up my fans with timers to expedite the process. I can dry out 5 or 6 cords in less than a week for maybe $10 in electrical cost. That translates to at least $500 extra income. I never put the wood directly on the ground. I have an abundance of oak leaves so I make a bed of leaves at least 6 inches thick. Some times I will compact them to make a solid base to stack on. Getting seasoned wood is often not a problem here, but getting really dry wood is. Thanks


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## ChoppyChoppy (Jun 7, 2016)

svk said:


> Well after reading on here about everyone seasoning their stacks uncovered I had to try it for myself. I had been trying to season some black ash for the last year 21 months. As of yesterday it was still pretty wet. Stacked off the ground in partial sun but not covered. Finally said heck with it and covered the top.
> 
> Seasoning without cover may work further south or in areas of full sun but up here the warm season is just too short. Covered stacks for me from now on.



I don't cover my wood. Not sure where you live but summer here is pretty short - about 3.5 months.


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## Uncle John (Jun 7, 2016)

I season it uncovered. Then move it under a carport.
Extra work, I know. Good exercise!


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## MattG (Jun 7, 2016)

Hello from the UK. I leave the wood in the elements after splitting uncovered for several months - bearing the snow, rain, wind and sun. Then a few months before use we take what we'll need into a shed to dry. My belief is that the weathering process really helps the wood cells inside breakdown. A lot of seasoning aint just about drying, it's about letting water escape from the cells trapped within, and it needs the weathering process to do this IMO.


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## svk (Jun 7, 2016)

Where my wood piles are located receives partial sun at best and that is not something I am willing to change as I want close access to the stacks when I am running the sauna stove and firepit. I cut a lot of wood and have no problem stockpiling two years worth to get it to dry but I do expect it to dry eventually.

Before I came on here I always had the understanding that in my conditions, softwood like aspen would rot before it would season and this has been confirmed. I had done this little uncovered experiment after reading many threads on here about seasoning uncovered.

Of course if I stacked it up the hill in full sun it would be a different story but I don't want to carry wood 150 feet every time I have a fire.


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## cuinrearview (Jun 7, 2016)

Here in the lower mitten my stacks fully exposed to sun and wind have no problem drying fully in one season or less, but I give them two or more anyway. In Oct I move 3+ cord under a screened in roofed porch on the second floor. The stacks are still exposed on three sides but basically top covered. I will also pull snow covered wood from from the stacks over winter as needed to replenish my store under the porch. I notice very little difference. I think of a stick of wood as a bundle of little tiny straws. The moisture pretty much can only leave through the ends of the straws. When precipitation occurs it wets the ends of the straws and creates a siphon that through osmosis or the creation of an equilibrium pulls moisture out.


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## Homeowner (Jun 8, 2016)

Keep top cover bit above the pile, put branches / small trees on top of wood pile so that whatever cover you put is lifted from the wood, air circulates under the covering, but snow does not make wood wet. 

As many has said, keep wood off the ground, pallets are good, pallets on top of concrete blocks better, add tarpaulin to ground below those pallets and moisture from ground will not get to wood at all and no grass etc. grows under so air moves under the wood pile, which helps air to move from bottom of pile to top of pile as sun heats the pile, I guess English word is convection for that effect, gravity operated air movement, it is like having slow fan at bottom of pile to blow upwards. Concrete blocks help even there would be tarpaulin under on ground.

Here I face my woodpile south to west, sun helps with drying and I don't have cover during spring and when it does not rain during early to mid summer, when it rains I cover my wood... right, at autumn I don't take cover off, air starts to be so moist that wood is not drying any more and wood is covered until next spring and dry air. 

I do keep sides uncovered of course so that air moves trough the pile and under the cover. 

My place is in swamp, so drying firewood is sometimes bit of an challenge, for example birch that is 3ft long and stacked to very loosely, each layer 90 degrees different direction and 1-2ft between each split log, it tends to mold and even after a year, when I remove bark, it is wet under the bark, so it takes at least 2 years for those to dry up here. 

Might dry faster if I take bark off completely, but it should dry when it is split and no new water has entered into wood, but not on my yard, despite the sun and wind. 

In our climate, from March to June is usually best drying season, other times it is bit hopeless to get wood dry, so I try to get best of this time frame, ideally I should have all firewood made by beginning of March, but in practice there is so much to do that I chop wood year around. 

Old guys say, that you should have at least two years worth of seasoned firewood all the time and you make wood for 3rd and 4th year in a future, not sure how true this is for where you live, our climate is unpredictable, we can have very cold winters or winters without much chill at all, so better have extra firewood for that cold spell. 

Hopefully some of this has some use for you, different wood, climate etc. of course requires different approaches. If we all could just season our firewood in Death Valley, seasoning would be not an issue


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## svk (Jun 12, 2016)

Put the moisture meter to the black ash I had been storing uncovered since October of 14' and it was still 35 percent measured on a fresh split. That's going to take some time to dry yet.


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## buzz sawyer (Jun 12, 2016)

Lots of good advice in this thread - showing how geographic area makes a big difference. I don't burn as much as I used to but stack my wood on pallets and cover the top with a tarp. I'm about two years ahead and the wood comes out bone dry. 
btw, the word is "Hygroscopic"


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## svk (Jun 13, 2016)

Well I put my cabin stacks in full sun and stacked North to South so I would expect they will dry much better than the sauna stacks that are in 85% shade. Will be interesting to see how quickly they dry. Even it late afternoon they had full sun exposure.


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## Ted Jenkins (Jun 14, 2016)

I have issues with wood during the winter with very unpredictable weather. Much of the time my income is related to what I can sell and when. Selling damp or wet wood while it is raining does not work so well. I have not had too much of a problem with the wood being on the ground or slightly above ground, but it makes no sense not to cover wood when it rains or snows. Snow causes the wood to get wetter than rain because it can take several days to completely melt. I capitalize on freezing days or dry days with fans. When conditions are right I can turn several cords of wet wood into nice burnable wood in a week. Yes it does take extra effort, but sometimes very worth it. Thanks


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## svk (Jun 14, 2016)

I have a wood fired sauna. Should really design racks so I can kiln dry my wood each time I fire it up.


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