posted 2 hours ago
I think this has happened to everybody that heats with a wood stove. You're cold and the only wood available to you is green or wet.
Of course, all of the advice is about having a first class wood shed and stocking it to the roof two years ago. But you're cold now.
We need to dry that wood in a couple of hours. That is what I'm going to spell out. I need to say that before this next sentence.
Never burn green or wet wood. Usually, it won't work because it won't ignite. But some people have come up with ways to do it. This is the recipe for a chimney fire which could burn your house down and kill you.
Also, there are some people that actually advocate for burning green or wet wood. They suggest that this is the way to have an all night fire. I need to point out that while they can sometimes pull off the novelty of having fire for a really long time, this is a really bad idea. I'll need to write another article to address that.
Burn only DRY materials
how to quickly dry green or wet wood in a desperate situation
Note that drying firewood is referred to as “seasoning firewood” by some experienced wood burning folk. Speaking of “seasoned firewood” - you might be reading this chapter because you bought “seasoned firewood” from an “experienced wood cutter” only to discover that it is too green to burn. You’ve been ripped off and you are going to try to make the best of an awful situation.
A general rule of thumb for dryer climates is to have all of your wood in the shed by Easter. Summer heat and wind will serve up dry firewood by fall. So wise. (soggier climates might need two years or more!)
At the same time, people get into a sticky situation and then they are trying to heat their home with green or wet wood. Not only do you need ten times more wood to heat your home, but the wood is heavier because of the water - so you are gonna put in ten times the work to get your home warm.
I want to propose a collection of strategies that will add work over perfectly dry wood, BUT the total work will be far less than if you try to burn green wood with the added bonus that your house doesn’t burn down.
Let’s talk about how to go about drying this wood fast. Maybe getting it to be dry in two days. In other words, burn ONLY dry wood. Only, only, only dry wood. We just need to put in the work to dry it quickly.
kindling dries faster
If you need to burn in two days, you are gonna make teeny tiny kindling. Pencil thickness or smaller. And then do all the other tricks listed here also.
An eight inch thick block of wood is gonna need more than a full summer of heat and wind to dry enough to be used. That same wood made into pencil thickness could dry enough in a week of summer heat and wind.
If you have pencil-thick kindling that is 15.5 inches long, and you cut that into three inch long pieces, and mange to expose it to summer heat and wind (or the interior of a dry house with a fan), your wood will be ready in two days.
stack it on end
Think of wood as a big bundle of thin straws. If those straws are full of water, and you place the wood on its side, like most people do, then the water doesn’t come out easily. But if you stand the wood on end (without plugging the bottom of the straws) then the water comes out quickly.
I have some wood crates that I got super cheap from the craft store. I throw weirdly shaped wood into the crates and burn that stuff first. But if I needed to stack firewood on end, I would place it all in one of these crates. I might put some hardware cloth (that wire mesh stuff) in the bottom to keep from plugging the bottoms of the wood. Maybe even two or three layers for more air circulation.
bring it indoors
Bring lots of firewood indoors. A warm home in winter tends to be mighty dry. A lot of firewood indoors helps create an indoor mass. Maybe store ten days worth of firewood indoors, and each day replace what you used that day.
(warm dry) air circulation
If I hang wet laundry on a drying rack indoors, it is pretty dry in a day. Bone dry in a day and a half. If I hang it outdoors when the air is still, maybe a day. With a breeze, it will be half a day. If I hang laundry outdoors in the windy part of Montana, it will be dry in half an hour - maybe less.
If you have a bunch of firewood in your home and you are trying to dry it, a fan pointed at that wood will be a big help.
convective oven trick
If you need firewood TODAY, you could cut your firewood into pencil thick kindling, and then cut it all to about 3 to 4 inches long. You now have kindling the size of french fries. Now place these “french fries” onto a cookie sheet all higgle-dee-piggle-dee. Mound a couple of inches deep. Place in a convective oven at 115 degrees with the convection turned on for about four hours.
be careful storing firewood near the wood stove.
If you set up a stack of firewood near your wood stove in such a way that the wood has an unencumbered view of the stove, you will need to keep that wood at least 2 feet away. Masonry (brick, rock, cob, cement) can be four inches away and the wood can touch that.
While it is true that moving the wood closer will dry it faster, it is also true that wood that close can ignite. Be safe!
You could set up a flat stone on your wood stove and then put some firewood on that
But it is critically important that there is an air gap between the stone and the stove. Suppose you have a big chunk of 1 inch thick granite. If you place a piece of angle iron near the left edge of your stove, and another near the right edge, and then place your granite on top of that, you can stack firewood on top of the granite. The granite will warm slowly and not only warm the wood, but cause air to be warmed and rise up through the wood.
[possible future image goes here]
A few “smart” people have put firewood directly on top of the wood stove. Their house burned down. Be the “smart” that doesn’t have quote marks.
create a lot of really good firewood racks
Indoors and outdoors. Good, solid racks are the foundation for firewood drying habits. If you find yourself so desperate for fuel that you are attempting to turbo dry green or wet wood, this is the perfect time to do the math that points out the real problem: you need more firewood racks.
If you build them they are a thousand times more likely to magically fill with firewood.
You can do this. it will be more work, but it will actually be less work. In the long run you will have lots of excellent wood sheds and the only wood you burn is stuff that is very dry. That is the least amount of work.
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