Damp winter, hard on wood

[hemlock]

Hello,
I'm having a frustrating winter with my firewood. It is nicely seasoned, but the "winter" here has been nothing but heavy rain and wind. All of my wood, even the covered stuff, has absorbed the wet, damp air like never before. Makes for poor fires, and creosote. What's worse, is there is little I can do about it. Anyone else have a similar experience?

 

[oldspark]

Sounds to me like it was not that seasoned in the first place, seasoned wood does not absorb that much moisture back into it.

 

[ISeeDeadBTUs]

Sounds to me like it was not that seasoned in the first place, seasoned wood does not absorb that much moisture back into it.

Wet here too, but a week next to the boiler does wonders.

 

[thewoodlands]

Hello,
I'm having a frustrating winter with my firewood. It is nicely seasoned, but the "winter" here has been nothing but heavy rain and wind. All of my wood, even the covered stuff, has absorbed the wet, damp air like never before. Makes for poor fires, and creosote. What's worse, is there is little I can do about it. Anyone else have a similar experience?

We've had some splits with surface water from rain but can still reach stove top temps of 700 and up if we want. Have you tried splitting it down smaller.


zap

 

[hemlock]

Sounds to me like it was not that seasoned in the first place, seasoned wood does not absorb that much moisture back into it.

It was seasoned (one year). We recently had 22 days of steady, fairly heavy rain (with the occasional brief cloudy break). Trust me - it will absord it. You're right about dry wood not holding moisture well, usually I have no trouble - a day or so by the stove and it's all good - but not this year. The wet and damp has been relentless.

 

[hemlock]

Hello,
I'm having a frustrating winter with my firewood. It is nicely seasoned, but the "winter" here has been nothing but heavy rain and wind. All of my wood, even the covered stuff, has absorbed the wet, damp air like never before. Makes for poor fires, and creosote. What's worse, is there is little I can do about it. Anyone else have a similar experience?

We've had some splits with surface water from rain but can still reach stove top temps of 700 and up if we want. Have you tried splitting it down smaller.


zap

That's what I've been doing with some success. It's just rather irksome having to resplit your already split wood.

 

[thewoodlands]

Hello,
I'm having a frustrating winter with my firewood. It is nicely seasoned, but the "winter" here has been nothing but heavy rain and wind. All of my wood, even the covered stuff, has absorbed the wet, damp air like never before. Makes for poor fires, and creosote. What's worse, is there is little I can do about it. Anyone else have a similar experience?

We've had some splits with surface water from rain but can still reach stove top temps of 700 and up if we want. Have you tried splitting it down smaller.


zap

That's what I've been doing with some success. It's just rather irksome having to resplit your already split wood.

Last year was our first heating with wood, the wood was only seasoned for 6-8 months (Cherry) so I resplit any cherry we used. Most came in with a moisture content of 22-24 and after being in the house for a week it came down to 20 percent, well worth the resplitting. Very little build up in the chimney when I cleaned it in the fall of 2010.



zap

 

[oldspark]

Sounds to me like it was not that seasoned in the first place, seasoned wood does not absorb that much moisture back into it.

It was seasoned (one year). We recently had 22 days of steady, fairly heavy rain (with the occasional brief cloudy break). Trust me - it will absord it. You're right about dry wood not holding moisture well, usually I have no trouble - a day or so by the stove and it's all good - but not this year. The wet and damp has been relentless.

One year is not good enough for all woods, if you dont believe me do your own research, unless it is punky it will not absorb that much moisture to were it will not dry out quickly in the house. I still think it is some what green. Some of it was covered, that really tells me it is green.

 

[oldspark]

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/67443/

 

[Danno77]

you said "wood" and "hard on" in the same sentence...giggle...

 

[Thistle]

you said "wood" and "hard on" in the same sentence...giggle...

hehehe uh hehe Beavis :lol:

 

[ikessky]

you said "wood" and "hard on" in the same sentence...giggle...

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought that!

 

[hemlock]

Sounds to me like it was not that seasoned in the first place, seasoned wood does not absorb that much moisture back into it.

It was seasoned (one year). We recently had 22 days of steady, fairly heavy rain (with the occasional brief cloudy break). Trust me - it will absord it. You're right about dry wood not holding moisture well, usually I have no trouble - a day or so by the stove and it's all good - but not this year. The wet and damp has been relentless.

One year is not good enough for all woods, if you dont believe me do your own research, unless it is punky it will not absorb that much moisture to were it will not dry out quickly in the house. I still think it is some what green. Some of it was covered, that really tells me it is green.

I do believe you. I've had Red Oak that was a good two years before it was ready. This is the first time I've had this experience with my usual maple/birch before, though (following my usual "routine"). The only difference I can see is that this winter has been abnormally wet and damp. Perhaps the wood did not season as well as before, compounded by a really wet fall/winter.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I do think that if you have the wet period while waiting for the wood to dry in just a year you definitely could have problems with it. Just one more reason I say to be 2-3 years ahead on your wood pile all the time. Better still is to have it even longer in the stack. Then, no worries and forget the moisture meters too.

 

[tfdchief]

Last year was extremely wet for us here. I am with Dennis, I don't think it affects seasoned wood much, but a whole year of wet weather sure plays havoc with seasoning wood.

 

[billb3]

Yeah, seems like this year I need just a little more pine kindling on a cold start to get the hard wood going.
Much more fungi growing on the ends, too. Bigger ones if not more of them.

The cut-offs I was saving from building a new garage are getting used for starting fires instead off for the short quick burns in the Spring to take the edge off in the A.M..

 

[FLINT]

if it is just wet from rain like you said,

try to bring some in and leave it next for the stove for a day or two before you burn it. That should dry out any water.