seasoning with a dehumidifier?

[CowboyAndy]

In an enclosed area, will a dehumidifier and a fan effectivly help to season wood? cherry and maple.

 

[smokinj]

In an enclosed area, will a dehumidifier and a fan effectivly help to season wood? cherry and maple.

Yes but is it worth the power its going to take?

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Yup. It may or may not do more than keeping it outside depending on all the factors of wind, RH, rain, heat, etc.

 

[gpcollen1]

My buddy and I split some Ash we came by - he took anything that was cut longer to use for boards for making misc thing in his shop. He used a big fan and dehumidifier for those boards and was using them in a week [not that they were perfect]. I know Ash dries faster than most but he did have very good results.

 

[CowboyAndy]

Well, the stuff I have in mind was cut april-june and is 2"-6" unsplit pieces. They have been in direct sunlight for 1/2 of each day (that it was sunny), but still seems to sizzle when it goes in. It has rained the last few day...

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I would have guessed those rounds would still be wet.

Tell you what- if you take a big round and split it into 4" pieces- I believe it will dry a lot faster than a stack of 4" rounds. The bark and the ring structure are pretty good at limiting moisture loss. Disrupt that and they dry much faster. I split anything smaller than my (huge) forearm, and dry for a full year.

 

[RedRanger]

No, the dehumidifier won`t work-period. Getting a year or two ahead on your wood supply will though.

 

[smokinj]

No, the dehumidifier won`t work-period. Getting a year or two ahead on your wood supply will though.

thats how they dry wood all the time but for burning it would run up the ele. bill

 

[iceman]

as someone mentioned earlier depending on your conditions.... if its something you wanna burn soon then yes go for it...
but it will cost you 35-50 bucks a month running dehumdifier (on avg) so if you can get say a cord to burn good for 35 bucks i'd do it...
becuase you will gain more heat..
prolly still save a ton of money
on the low end
dehumd =35
box fan =10-15
total =45-65
but this is with the thought of drying out 1 cd 1 month
both running 24hs dy

 

[Reggie Dunlap]

Yes, in an enclosed space it will work very well. Especially with a couple of fans. But it's expensive so you'll have to decide if it's worth it or not.

 

[CowboyAndy]

I have ran this dehumidifier before for 2 months straight drying out the basement before and the impact on our electric bill wasnt much... plus it will run on a 4 on/4 off cycle. Yes, the room is small (7hX5wX10d) and enclosed with the exception of the door (not there). I stacked about 2 face cords last night that was pretty rain soaked and within a few hours noticed it was already drying the outside. Plus as an added bonus the room is almost directly across from the furnace, about 5-6 feet away so I am getting some heat from that as well (when it is burning). The going for wood here is $65-85 for 1/3 face.

 

[gerry100]

You'll probably only dry the air in the room and the outer layer of the wood, since the structure of the wood will only give it up so fast.

Your electric bill will soar before your accomplish anything.

 

[iceman]

if its going to work you have to have fans as well get as many as you can the wind will help lift moisture off the wood and make the dehumidifier work easier
"but 2-3 fans at least.. thats whats actually gonna do the job.. fans "wick" the moisture away dehum. takes it outts the air and blows back dry air..
how do i know??? whe my wife flooded the basement the fire/water restore guy explained the whole thing 6 huge fans 3 giant dehum hooked up to a sink ..
the rh went from 60 to 80 as he said then was back at 40 5 days and bout a 100 gallons later

 

[CowboyAndy]

Well, day 2 of running the dehuimidifier and a fan. The wood was brought in while it was raining and had been raining for a few days, so my goal was more to get it dry on the outside, not really season it (its was cut in early spring). I had noticed that with it "rain wet" it was hard to get going, sizzled, etc (no surprise), but after it was dry it burned alot better.

Thanks all for being patient, this whole thing is a huge learning process! I have already been learning what I have done wrong and adjusted accordingly for next year.

 

[gyrfalcon]

Well, day 2 of running the dehuimidifier and a fan. The wood was brought in while it was raining and had been raining for a few days, so my goal was more to get it dry on the outside, not really season it (its was cut in early spring). I had noticed that with it "rain wet" it was hard to get going, sizzled, etc (no surprise), but after it was dry it burned alot better.

Thanks all for being patient, this whole thing is a huge learning process! I have already been learning what I have done wrong and adjusted accordingly for next year.

You definitely want to get that "water wet" wood dried out before you put it in the stove, but it really doesn't take very long. I found my moderately wet wood (from snowmelt) dried up almost entirely in my enclosed but well ventilated woodshed in 10 days to 2 weeks. Stacked very loosely indoors, it dried out in three or four days. Individual splits put around the edge of the hearth (outside the clearance circle, obviously) when the stove was going dried in hours.

Unless the stuff has literally been dropped in a standing pool of water for weeks, the "water wet" doesn't penetrate terribly far into the wood, so you're just drying out the surface layers, which doesn't take all that long.

Don't worry about asking questions. Every one of us has been there as a struggling newbie, some of us (ahem, like me) more recently than others.

Wouldn't it be nice if stove dealers included a booklet on firewood management, storage, etc., with every sale? It would save everybody a lot of grief, and surely save them a lot of phone calls from frustrated first-time customers who don't realize it's not the stove's fault when their unseasoned wood won't burn.

 

[CowboyAndy]

gyrfalcon, if there is one thing I have found out so far, is there is such a learning curve to burning wood!

 

[gyrfalcon]

gyrfalcon, if there is one thing I have found out so far, is there is such a learning curve to burning wood!

You said it. But it's a heckuva lot shorter with the help of all the incredibly smart and knowledgeable folks who hang around on this forum. Without them, last year would have been pure misery for me instead of just frustrating, and I don't think I would have been all that much wiser this year.

 

[ikessky]

Decided to dredge up an older topic and put in my two cents. I run the dehumidifier in the basement all summer long. I usually only have to empty it once per day (sometimes every 1-1/2 days if I really keep up on it). I stacked two cords of wood in the one room on Saturday morning and put a second dehumidifier in the doorway of that room. I have emptied each dehumidifier at least twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday, so I know they are pulling some of the moisture out of this wood. The only green wood in the pile is a white ash that had fallen over a few months back. The rest is hard maple that has been standing dead for a year or two. My thoughts are that the ash will be ready to go in January. The dehumidifier will help some and the dry air in the room once the wood furnace gets going will take care of the rest.

I don't think I would suggest this with anything other than ash or maybe certain splits that have only sitting for a few months. Any green maple that I end up cutting will sit for a year or two. I virtually have an endless supply of tops and butt pieces from logging landings though, so I don't see the need to cut any live trees down for the next few years.