Seasoning wood in a wood shed?!?!?

[Soadrocks]

Dear Veterans,

This is our first year with the Jotul Castine. We ordered "seasoned" wood from a local man. All the wood seems to be seasoned according to our cheap wood moisture meter (15% - 20%), but I am curious about how accurate those gadgets are.

Anywho...we have all our wood in a shed stacked. Will this wood get more seasoned as time goes. There is one window and the screen door's top half is completely open all the time. Will it get any more seasoned????

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[gpcollen1]

If the shed is in the sun, I say yes but the drying will be minimal. You really need some openings in the bottom and venting in the top to get some air flow. Even all that said, you need to make sure that that wood is indeed seasoned enough if you are going to leave it in there.

If you want to season wood in a shed, it needs tons of airflow.

 

[dvellone]

I'm with CTwoodburner. My woodshed is completely open all around with a nice southern exposure. If I stack green wood in it the inner rows will still have an excessive amount of moisture after nearly two years (hard maple). So I stack long individual rows out in the open and put them in the shed once they're seasoned. I expect that if your shed isn't too deep the wood might season faster. A deep shed will have inner rows with a lot of mass around them keeping wind and sun away. I have to add that our warm season here is fairly short and sunny days can be few and far between.

 

[LLigetfa]

Simply putting wood in a shed doesn't make it a woodshed. A woodshed is a shed that is well vented, not just a window and a door. If you build your shed out of wood, you have a wood shed.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Wood will season in a wood shed, but it does take a lot longer. The best way is like dvellne stated: season it out in the air and sun (especially in the wind) and then move it into the shed. It is extra work but it works out well in the end.

A caution here would be if someone is buying their wood cut and split: Do not expect that wood to be seasoned no matter what the wood seller says unless you really know what good seasoned wood is like or know for sure how long he has had it cut to length and split. Most wood sellers split the wood just before delivery and many will cut it to length and split just before delivery. They seem to think if wood is cut into, say, 10' or 12' length that it will dry. Not true. It will be dry only on the very end that was exposed. Get the inner wood exposed and it will dry; until then, only minimal drying occurs.

 

[firefighterjake]

What more can I say that hasn't already been said.

Yes . . . the wood will continue to season . . . but in the case you described it will season very slowly. Heck, even with my woodshed which has ventilated sides and an open front I don't put the wood into the shed until the Fall . . . I let it sit outside most of the Fall, all Winter and Summer before I load up my woodshed.

While I believe any shed can be a woodshed . . . I also believe the best woodsheds are the ones which will continue to allow the wood to season by allowing air flow through the wood even after it has been loaded into the shed.

 

[billb3]

Growing up we put seasoned wood in a generously sized chicken coop.
They're not the tightest built sheds in the first place, but they sure are dry 24/7. One thing a stack out side is not.

It had open soffits so there was quite a breeze flowing through, at least on the ceiling/roof.

 

[pyper]

If you leave wood piled outside uncovered here it will rot pretty quickly. We get about an inch of rain a week, so the stuff in the pile would probably never be dry.

I've got some that's outside, with a piece of plastic on the top, but open sides. I've got some other under pieces of metal roofing.

The stuff I've been bringing home most recently I've been putting in my shed. It will be interesting to compare how it drys with the others. My shed has a gap at the bottom and also open soffets.

After reading everyone's opinions, I'm kind of thinking of putting a solar heater on the west wall to create a good draft.