Who dries/season wood by leaving in a pile

And, try getting a couple folks to help with the stacking. We had a couple cord in a pile, and wanted it stacked. A storm was coming, and we stacked, two of us, in about 2 hours, and had it hastily covered as well.
If you have 3 peeps and a farther distance to throw to where that stack is, have a fire line.
Our pile was right where we were going to stack, so we were not throwing that far. Feed them lunch and beer or whatever, I bet you'll have it stacked in no time, even if it a couple different days.
Wish we were closer, we'd be good for that kind of fun.
Sca

 

FWIW, I decided to stack. Stacked 1 cord so far. Gotta get back to work stacking. Wife will soon be home to help and she likes to work in the wood.

 

Don't know about softwood... but I tried ash, maple and red oak in a pile of 12'-14' logs... for a little over a year. All of the bark fell half way off and the logs looked like I'd just cut them. No drying. From my experience, wood has to be CSS before much drying will happen here in Maine.

 

Or any place else….

 

Just by it's geometry, a pile is a bad idea for seasoning. Wood at the top (the smallest amount) may get lots of sun and air but that at the bottom and center (the largest amount) gets little sun or air and is also subject to drawing moisture from the ground. Stacks minimize the amount of wood close to the ground and maximize the amount exposed to the air and sun. Why do you think stacks were invented?

 

The wood on top is gray it must be drying some….

 

Graying just means its been rained on repeatedly, not that its necessarily drying (although I'm sure the top layer is)

 

Yeah, wet clothes!

 

I was under the impression the sun causes the wood to turn gray

 

I'm sure that's part of it too...but IME, stacks where the wood was exposed to sun, but not rain/water, it grayed much slower...and on the north side of the stack, where it gets very little sun, but some spots could still get rained on/wet, that wood grayed much faster than the wood that was protected from water.

 

Here is another example...notice the siding under the overhang has not grayed like the rest...except a little at the lower corners where water has splashed up on it...also, look at the siding under the window...less gray where the sill has somewhat protected the siding from rain.
You'll see the same thing on buildings that have 1-2' eves and natural wood siding...it grays much faster down where the rain can hit it.

 

Is this your building? Just curious. I would also venture to say the lower part isn’t getting any sun or rain.
From my personal experiences, I have splits sit out a better part of winter and they don’t turn gray much but fresh splits in summer turn much faster

 

It is not. But I've had the exact same experience on a barn where the siding got plenty of sun, but the roof overhang protected the upper siding from rain...it didn't gray there...same on both north and south sides...although the south did gray quicker.
On the above pic, ok so lets say that the lower inset wall doesn't get any sun and that's why its not gray...what about that light spot under the upper window?
And if you look at the right side of the building where roof has just a tiny bit of overhang...wood is less gray there too.
I'm not saying the sun doesn't play a part, because it certainly does...but the water is a bigger part in the graying...I've heard it said its because of the tannins being washed from the wood...but I dunno

 

If that’s true, and I’m not saying it isn’t, I suppose some wood would turn gray quicker due to more tannin.

 

You guys are both wrong. The wood turns gray from getting old

 

Smart ash
Guess that's better than being a dum bass, eh?!

 

On the subject of tannin...could that be a source of creosote/soot build up in my chimney? The reason I ask is that I have some ash that I CSS back in 2012 and it went directly into an old corn crib. It was live ash that I CSS throughout the whole year. Probably close to 9+ cord. Plenty of air flow as it is now down to around 12-15% moisture, but has never seen rain nor sun. Burns great, but I have to mix it in with other wood as the chimney will get build up in it if I burn too much of it. The wood looks almost exactly like the day I split it, in that there is no "graying" on any of the splits. I know this has been defined and debated before, but I think seasoned firewood needs to be both "gray" and dry. After the experience I have had with this wood that is dry but hasn't seen sun nor rain, I would be very hesitant to use kiln dried firewood.

 

I had a mound of splits from January of last year. Sugar maple, black birch and some cherry. Split it fresh cut green. I never stacked it. Checked a couple months ago and not dry enough. Had i stacked, it wouldve dried.

 

That's interesting

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I don’t think ash has a high tannin content like cherry and walnut do. Those woods aren’t known to cause creosote buildup either, so I suspect your creosote problem with sub-20% ash might be caused by burning it at too low a temperature (air choked down too much)
When you checked the moisture content, did you split it first and check a fresh face? I would think a decade in a barn like that should have thoroughly dried it, but if there wasn’t much airflow in the stacks towards the center, I could see that not working out so well.