Wood question

[mnovak13]

I purchased some wood that is apparently not seasoned enough to burn effectively right now. Some of it seems okay but the rest seethes and burns poorly. My question is: is it effective to place semi-wet logs into the fireplace next to the fire to help them dry? I see people do this all the time and wonder whether it works or not.

Also, any other tips on drying wood quickly so it's burnable?

 

[mnovak13]

No help?

 

[MontanaMan]

I purchased some wood that is apparently not seasoned enough to burn effectively right now. Some of it seems okay but the rest seethes and burns poorly. My question is: is it effective to place semi-wet logs into the fireplace next to the fire to help them dry? I see people do this all the time and wonder whether it works or not.

Also, any other tips on drying wood quickly so it's burnable?

Whenever I go camping in the rain, I always do that. Put the wet logs near the fire to dry. You can see the steam coming off the logs, and they burn much better afterwords.

I don't know if that will help to "season" green wood though.

 

[ciscoguy01]

Yes it works

It most absolutely does work. It's like kiln drying them. Tell you what you do, always stay 2 days ahead on the wood you have near the stove and you'll burn just fine. Keep them close to the fire, they dry fast. I use a dehumidifier also. Works like a champ...

 

[Brushwacker]

I have an old barn that is very dry and well ventilated being as it is mostly open on one side and has many cracks and holes in the sides. The wood finishes drying out quite a bit in a couple weeks in these conditions. The dirt floor is so dry it seems to help suck out moisture. I sell most of my firewood and much what I burn goes from a dead tree straight to the porch and if it feels moist I dry it overnight alongside my stove. 1 of my customers has a metal rack that holds firewood logs vertically near the stove. Splitting it small helps it dry quicker also.The bark coming off the wood also speeds up drying time. Pallets under the wood also help,especially the bottom layer. Keeping the wood off the wet ground is a big help. Limb wood off the top of a dead standing tree is better if you take it straight to the stove after cutting it rather then let it set on the forest floor several days.

 

[SRT-Tech]

i can have dry wood (98% moisture free) in less than 24 hours, my wood is stored in a heated room with fan circulation, and a big dehumidifier that extracts moisture.

freshly felled trees, blocked and split, bone dry by the next night.
I want to adapt this to a very large scale firewood operation (warehouse), it will speed up firewood sales and delivery. from tree to fireplace in less than 30 hours.

 

[PA. Woodsman]

i can have dry wood (98% moisture free) in less than 24 hours, my wood is stored in a heated room with fan circulation, and a big dehumidifier that extracts moisture.

freshly felled trees, blocked and split, bone dry by the next night.
I want to adapt this to a very large scale firewood operation (warehouse), it will speed up firewood sales and delivery. from tree to fireplace in less than 30 hours.

WOW! If you could perfect that system you sound like you'd be very, very busy cutting wood all the time! It sounds very interesting-good luck!

 

[SRT-Tech]

yea its a little ghetto right now... :biggrinbounce2: but the customers LOVE the wood.

 

[mnovak13]

I wish I had the room/dehumidifier/wood shed to pull these ideas off.

Any other ideas for drying wood semi-quickly?

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

i can have dry wood (98% moisture free) in less than 24 hours, my wood is stored in a heated room with fan circulation, and a big dehumidifier that extracts moisture.

freshly felled trees, blocked and split, bone dry by the next night.
I want to adapt this to a very large scale firewood operation (warehouse), it will speed up firewood sales and delivery. from tree to fireplace in less than 30 hours.

I know somebody is going to come along and call you a liar. So let me be the first...


...to say I believe you. I hear people saying it takes two years to dry oak, and I wonder what world they are living in.

GET IT OFF THE GROUND AND KEEP THE RAIN OFF AND KEEP THE RAIN OFF AND IT MIGHT JUST DRY A BIT QUICKER!

I'm drying wood in a "solar oven" right now, and it's working great.

There's a farmer an hour south of me who build a cinderblock building with a big, steep, slanted roof of glass. Dries all his timber that way. He buys oak logs by the truck, mills his own lumber (fence posts, boards, & beams) that way.

One thing with using a dehumidifier, I wonder what the cost is for the electricity.

 

[computeruser]

24 hours?! Heck, I've found a way to take wood from fresh cut to 100% dry in less than an hour. As an added bonus, this technique substantially reduces the weight of the wood and also makes it easy to move with a shovel and store in buckets!

 

[scottr]

Quickly

I wish I had the room/dehumidifier/wood shed to pull these ideas off.

Any other ideas for drying wood semi-quickly?

mnovak13 , end drying of logs or lumber is anywhere from 10 to 50 times faster than side grain drying . If you have 1" cross sections (cookies) they will dry in hours sitting near a fire .

 

[MS-310]

yea its a little ghetto right now... :biggrinbounce2: but the customers LOVE the wood.

At my shop we have a small kiln (4000 bf) and I have cut live trees (i didnt know till my buddy fell it), bucked it up and put the wood in racks and turned the heat to 180 and vent on full. 50% MC to about 10% Mc in about 36 hours, works good I know of a company that is doing this full time. We use wood heat to dry are wood so I think its worth it.

 

[SRT-Tech]

^ now add a heavy duty 5000cf per minute carpet dryer fan to rapidly circulate that heated air. Key is circulation of the heated air, and removal of the moisture (dehumidifier). yea you pay a few pennies for the electricity, whoopde do. I'm running my fan and dehumidifier off the garage plugs. I also split my wood a bit smaller, most of my customers have small wood stoves, not fireplaces. So the smaller pieces dry rapidly.

 

[ciscoguy01]

Fans

What I do to get mine to dry quicker is after it's sat in the sun for a few days, I put it in a room with a couple fans on high directly blowing on it for like a week. I never woulda guessed it would have worked, but it's done well. How I discovered this was I saw a bunch of moisture on my ceiling of my basement, there was so much that I thought I broke a water pipe or something. I did the previous, and no joke, that was like a month ago, I'm burning it right now. Course all the wood had been down for some time, but it had alot of surface moisture I believe. It's burning extremely well I might add also. Hope you saw that post from the blueridge dude also, I think that's a great idea with the plastic and all...

 

[mactel]

I know somebody is going to come along and call you a liar. So let me be the first...


...to say I believe you. I hear people saying it takes two years to dry oak, and I wonder what world they are living in.

GET IT OFF THE GROUND AND KEEP THE RAIN OFF AND KEEP THE RAIN OFF AND IT MIGHT JUST DRY A BIT QUICKER!

I'm drying wood in a "solar oven" right now, and it's working great.

There's a farmer an hour south of me who build a cinderblock building with a big, steep, slanted roof of glass. Dries all his timber that way. He buys oak logs by the truck, mills his own lumber (fence posts, boards, & beams) that way.

One thing with using a dehumidifier, I wonder what the cost is for the electricity.

explain your solar oven... please

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

How about some pictures instead?

http://www.arboristsite.com/showpost.php?p=508609&postcount=77

 

[scottr]

Ventilation

Mark , it looks like your solar wood oven needs more ventilation and some room so the wood does not touch the plastic . Do you remember this Solar Firewood Dryer ? http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=34210

 

[SRT-Tech]

ok someone commented to me on this forum that my idea of using big fans and dehumidifiers to dry wood "was an absurb claim".

to which i reply:

dont knock it until you try it.

there is a REASON that flood cleanup companies use big exhaust fans and dehumidifiers in their line of work.......to EXTRACT water from the surrounding environment (carpets, walls etc). Split firewood IS NO DIFFERENT...moisture can be extracted, and rapidly. (esp in a small room using a LARGE exhuast fan)

try it, put a stack of fresh split wood in a room, take a moisture reading of several samples, orient the heavy duty blowers so the air is exhausted from the room, and heated air is allowed into the room. The fans i was using are 5000 cubic feet per minute industrial extraction fan, 110volt/14 amp draw. The heat source in the one room is a water radiator.

dont knock it until you try it.

 

[Puumies]

I wonder if anybody has used microwaves to dry wood in large scale? My friend tried it with microwave owen (with a little piece of green wood) and it was really fast. Also it doesn't take a lot off energy to provide results.