Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Jan 15, 2009, at 12:16 PM, EarthNSky wrote:

> Yes, I do believe that wood can be too dry, not too dry to burn, but  
> too
> dry to put off any real heat for the length of time it burns.  It  
> burns
> too fast.

Benny and I just did a five-mile hike. While out there in the  
mountains I thought up this ditty just for you:

FIREWOOD
If you want steam, then wetter is better;
If you want heat, then drier is finer.

>  Since it is our sweat that goes into cutting loading hauling
> splitting stacking and moving wood, I want it to be just right.  I  
> want
> it to be good and heavy when I pick in up, not light and airy.

I keep reading that your body is hurting. Do you really prefer to  
handle heavier wood?

>  The more I have to open the woodstove to put in wood, the more heat  
> I lose up the flue.  I have an old woodstove, no blowers, no  
> fans,,,,it just burns wood and heats up the stove/rocks so that heat  
> radiates.

Does your stove have an air-inlet control, a damper? And maybe a  
second one either at the back of the stove or in the flu pipe? The  
woodstove gods made dampers to control the flow of air. Low oxygen  
input means a slow-burning fire. Yes, with dry wood. Now, if the stove  
is real leaky, then yes, the wood would burn faster. The thing to  
remember is that if you rely on the Btu's in the wood to drive out the  
water then you are losing those Btu's as heat. They can't do two  
things. They can make steam or they can make heat. They have to drive  
the moisture out of the wood fibers before those fibers will burn. It  
is a waste of heat.
> We do use the lightweight-too dry wood to start the fire and early in
> the life of the fire, but we just don't rely on that to put out any  
> real
> heat.  We do mix the woods, heavier with lighter, depending on the  
> time
> of day and such, but still, for heat, we prefer the heavier, wetter,
> wood with some 'life' still there.

I suggest you try larger chunks with the flat sides placed against  
each other for slower burning. Pack them in tight and then use the  
dampers to control the rate of burn.

>  They say that 20% is the goal for
> firewood.  I don't have a way to measure wood, but I have plenty of 2
> foot in diameter oak logs out there that were cut in the fall.  If  
> they
> had 60% moisture to begin with, they are probably still close to that
> now.  I don't believe it will really start noticeably drying until  
> it is
> split.

Drying depends on humidity and exposure to air flow. The best wood  
shed has minimal siding; many are open-sided. Fastest firewood drying  
is single-depth rows with chunk ends to the prevailing wind, covered  
with roofing tin and rocks to hold the tin on.
> Another thing, Gene, is I really don't want 10 cords of wood split and
> laying around.  Bugs and termites and critters will reduce it to  
> nothing
> in 3 years.

I don't know your specific conditions but if the wood is up off the  
ground it should be okay. Lots of bugs are in and under the bark;  
splitting might actually lessen their numbers. But, frankly, I think  
the woodshed packed with wood is more bug-prone than open rows exposed  
to the winds.
> As for the difficulty in splitting, that is the downside, but we  
> have a
> hydraulic wood splitter.  If ours can't get the job done, our  
> neighbor's
> wood splitter surely can.  His would split a pickup truck, I think. :)
> If I start splitting in April, that means that the wood is about 8-9
> months old.  What is the difference between wood stored under my shed
> and standing dead wood from a tree that died last summer?

Well, my friend, Mark, the forester I mentioned who girdles trees and  
lets them dry standing, is a tough, low body fat, strong-muscled guy  
who thrives on hard work. (He's married, girls, though not happily.)
> And go ahead and persist..<g>..

Oh, good. I was nervous about whether you were going to be defensive  
and all that kind of difficult stuff.

Here's my last thought for now: splitting and stacking wood during  
cold winter weather is easier on the body than during warmer weather.