Dumb question on firewood

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I tried covering some last year and decided it wasn't worth it. More of a hassle dealing with the wet icy tarp pieces than with the snow on the wood.
Warming up for the weekend here, so I grabbed a few armloads of older walnut yesterday from the 'not for prime time' stack. A little soft on the outside and covered with wet snow. Borderline punky and spongy on the outside to be honest, and pretty wet.
Put it next to the stove for the night and it's burning just fine today, with a little help from the small splits of better stuff.
10" of snow melted off the tops of the stacks in the last 24 hrs, and it's been sprinkling rain a bit today. Top rows look pretty wet but the second row down is ready for the stove.
If I had room for a shelter I'd do that in a heartbeat. In the meantime I keep a snowbrush handy.
 
I think covering is a waste of time with as windy as it gets around here. I have 4 plastic barrels that I fill with wood. I fill the barrels from the stack of wood on the edge of the driveway and move them under the porch then I keep one barrel inside full of wood. A wood shed would be nice, but I'm not building some piece of **** to set beside my house and I'm not building a nice one only to be taxed on it.
 
Cover your wood!!
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Great advise for many aspects of life !!! haaha

But seriously..all i do is let the firewood season for 6 to 8 months ...stack on pallets with no cover through the summer....Then as fall approaches I throw a tarp just over the top of the stacks to keep the rain and snow offf of the top . Always keep the sides open to air movement so the wood can continue to dry . Works every year !
 
I make a lean-to from black plastic that covers the top and south sides of an east to west stack. The plastic is held up off the wood with plastic pipe, any condensation that forms on the cover runs down and drips on the ground. The bottom edge is open to allow the sun heated air to flow up and thru the single line stack. Most of the time rain is blown from the southwest. After a year or so a new stack is started south of the first and the plastic is moved to the new stack. The dry stack is left uncovered except for a couple of 2' X 8' pieces of plywood covering the next to be used part of the dry line.

Of course I've got about three years worth of wood lined up so the plastic won't be used for the new stacks that have been started.
 
hardpan said:
Depends
On how far ahead your stacks will supply. I've thrown away a lot of wood that rotted in the pile before it is needed.
On how consistent your winters are. Mine vary a lot, moderate to cold, wet to dry.
On how you stack. Single rows with air ways between or 4 rows tight together?
On species of wood. Hedge or soft maple or white oak or sycamore?
On whether your wood is off the ground.
On your climate. Humid or dry, hot or cold.
On whether the bark is removed, back to the species. Some loses the bark easy, some sticks forever. Bark slows drying.
On the diameter of the rounds. Small diameter stuff has a high percentage of sapwood which rots fast.
On how small you split. The bigger they are the slower they dry.
On stack location. Open area on top of a hill will dry better than a shaded area with stifled air movement.
On how much wind you are willing to address with your temporary covers, tarps, roofing sheets/panels.
There are more. We do what we can afford to do and what we are willing to do. I have been heating with wood for 38 years from an uncovered wood pile, on a hill top, that sits on the ground. I cut almost any wood that hits the ground or dies while still standing. I like the work and the heat. I have budgeted for material to build a 480 square foot wood shed when the weather breaks in the spring. LOL
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It never ceases to amaze me how convinced people become that their ways with respect to firewood are what everyone else should do just because it works for them. Many of these people have been on this site for years and, one would think, should have picked up on this concept by now.

An uncovered stack of anything other than locust on most of my property WILL become mush in very short order:

- Very little or zero wind on most days.
- ZERO sun. Some people have these things called mountains that completely block sunshine in their area, especially in the winter months.
- Lots of springs pumping moisture into the ground. During the winter, that moisture doesn't evaporate much and is a constant source of humidity in the air.

Wet mush doesn't burn too well ( try it and see! ) and it's also dern tuff to sell ( try it and see! ). If y'all like, I can send you some wet mush. I am also always interested in obtaining new buyers of wet mush, no waiting list.

Once wood in my neck gets rained on or covered with snow it stays wet a long time and the only way it's ever going to get bone-dry is to bring it indoors. Those nice spongy stacks are also heaven to insects around here, and they all come back out to play when they get heated up again inside.

So you might not need to cover your stacks where you live or what your situation allows, but I'll take the inconvenience of covering mine any day.
 
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I doubt any of the posters describing what they do with their wood are wanting to dictate what others do. There are a few hollars on my place that would be awful hard to dry wood in, I don't stack wood there!
 
cheeves said:
Cover your wood!!!!
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trojan-fire-and-ice-lubricated-condoms.jpg


Yup
 
woodchuck357 said:
I doubt any of the posters describing what they do with their wood are wanting to dictate what others do.
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Yeah I know, and I worded that a bit more harshly than I intended to, in that we all tend to forget what others deal with in different parts of the globe, country, state on down the line.
 
branchbuzzer said:
Yeah I know, and I worded that a bit more harshly than I intended to, in that we all tend to forget what others deal with in different parts of the globe, country, state on down the line.
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If I had to buy wood then yes I would probably waste time making nice pretty stacks and covers, but I can burn until the year 4000 and not run out of firewood. I drop trees and cut them up then push them in a pile with the grapple bucket and go back and get them a year or so later to bring to the house. Most of the time I fill the buckets or dump trailers and end up making another big pile by the house. Last week I actually did stack it up nice though.
 
branchbuzzer said:
Well, wait just a darn minute here. It ain't possible to smoke cigs unless you're alive.

Some people can smoke after they're dead, but once the ole stove gets a rollin' that goes away.
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I think the real question is, do you throw a tarp over them or just let it alone.
 
Ive got 8" of snow and ice on my stacks right now. I'm almost out of the supply I moved onto the patio so I need to replenish. Before the burn season started I placed 2x4 sheets of plywood on my single row stacks because I knew I would need them later. Guess what? I need them!
Because of some very simple planning I now just flip the sheets off the stack and do not have to deal with ice and snow. Once the crap melts off of the other stacks I will put the plywood on that part.
Do what you think you need to, according to what you have learned through your prior experience as well as what you will learn tomorrow and the day after.
aga3a5us.jpg


Sent from my SM-T217S using Tapatalk
 
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Yeah... I know I always say I don't see the "need"... and I still don't believe there's actually a need...
But, because of the early and prolonged cold, I'm gonna' run short in the house this year. We ain't had a "big" snow storm yet, but a bunch of little ones has put a good 6 inches of snow on my stacks... 6 inches of snow I'm gonna' likely have to deal with. If I wait for it to melt off before bring more wood in, we could get buried, making it difficult to access the stacks. We ain't seen much sun... and we ain't been above freezing since Halloween... I've still got 2½-3 cord in the house... but there's a decision to make. Guess I'll bite the bullet and start brushin' snow off this weekend, maybe move a cord or so in before "the big one" hits... or, I could hope for normal the January thaw??
 

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