What exactly is “seasoned” wood?

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

I have never had issues with my cap screen clogging. I am going on three years without cleaning the screen, so about 10 cords of wood, and it is still as clean as the day I put it on. It just has a blackish tint. When it rains, that tint rinses off and it becomes silver again.

I know everyone has different experiences but cap screens can be kept clean with proper burning techniques and properly dried wood.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

I have found exactly the oposite. In my experince uncovered can take as much as twice as long to dry. My thinking always was if you want something to dry out keeping it dry is a good start.

As far as sparks starting fires no it is not.that common but it absolutly happens. But that isnt a spark arrestor anyway. They are smaller and clog all the time.

Ditto the top covering. I have had red maple that gained moisture due to not top covering during a rainy stretch. Alternatively, I have had wood dry surprisingly fast with top covering. My thought on it is this: let’s say you have wood uncovered and 2 days a week you get rain. IMO, it takes a good day of dry weather to evaporate that rain water. All of which time internal moisture is not leaving the wood. So out of 7 days, your getting 3 days of drying of internal moisture. Now if you had the same wood top covered, you probably would not get much drying of internal moisture on the 2 rainy days, but that wood would begin drying out as soon as that rain went away. You’d then have 5 days of drying of internal moisture instead of the 3 if uncovered.
Nothing scientific here, but my take on things.
For an extreme test of this, use white pine. In my experience, white pine will be below 20% in one summer season if top covered. If uncovered and live in anything but a dry climate, that pine may dry very little.