I mentioned in another thread that my previous employer told me that he would pour glasses of water in his wood box if the wood was “too dry” he was serious as a heart attack. Because he signed my pay check I smiled and nodded biting my tung.
That is the way the sellers are around here. Wood cut last winter, sold this fall as seasoned wood. Unseasoned wood, green wood, may still have some green leaves attached.
Maybe he saw the pics of log piles they put sprinklers on and thought that was what your supposed to do!
Every once in a while I ride my motorcycle over a route leaving Brattleboro VT toward Mass. Rt142, there is a large lumber mill there. and huge stacks of logs and also cut lumber. They have these huge sprinklers going, spraying water all day long over this wood. I have no idea why. Anyone else ever seen this? Could they be keeping it wet so it doesn't warp or something like that?
Ok. You asked for it remember. I will try to keep it short and simple as possible. First, my observation: when my cut, split, stacked wood is outside drying uncovered in the summer and they get hit with a summer rain storm (they are called “monsoons” here) and then followed by a day or two of sun and wind I notice the ends will check (split and crack) more so than if they hadn’t got wet first. Now before anyone starts making the “well-then-we-should-just-all-dry-our-firewood-under-water-in-a-swimming-pool” comments the wood has to get wet and then dry off first before getting wet again. I remember my dad saying something about this one time that it helps wash sap and oil off. I have actually read on a couple pages on firewood sites short comments about this but without explanation or detail as why. My two theories if this is true as to why is 1) the wash the oils off theories my dad mentioned and/or 2) it has something to do with what I will simply call “drying momentum” possibly very similar to why hot water freezes faster than cold water which was just mentioned a few posts previously. Maybe kind of like when you get a new soft dish sponge and the more times you wet it and it dries out it seams to shrink up more and more the older it gets. Maybe that’s a bad comparison but maybe not as I don’t know for sure. Or 3), Could also have to do with osmosis and water transfer between ph or salinity differences between rainwater and water in wood cells. I remember doing an experiment in high school biology where we exploded and imploded Plant cells under a microscope by flooding the slide with a few drops of salt water from an eye dropper.
Maybe this, Water in the end grain evaporating pulls water by friction from deeper in the wood? Friction is the wrong word. Think of siphoning gas. The line works better full. Too much air and it stops. Actually siphon is a better word than friction
if I had to guess I’d say they were trying to keep it wet to avoid checking/ drying until they could mill it and get it in a controlled kiln.
jo191145 , Friction/siphon. Are you, ahem, saying there is a giant sucking sound when drying this way?
It’s been known to happen, especially on my birthday. Now if some scientific type could count the growth rings of wood really accurate you may never know what we might witness that night. Maybe the Wizard of Oz and Lord of the Rings weren't all make believe.
I debunked that when I was in my twenties. I took two equal sized containers and filled one with cold water from the tap and the other with hot water from the tap. Set the two of them outside on a bitterly cold and calm night and the cold water container froze over far before the hot water one did.
