I found a guy selling oak at $195 a cord delivered and now have to decide if I want to get it from him or wait and try to find something that will season faster than oak in the solar kiln.
C/s/d here for green Oak is $195/cord. I can get it for a little less, but it's usually starting to punk, or it's pickup only. Price has gone up in the last few years, but probably not to keep up with inflation. Oak, to me, is worth it. You need the time for drying though. Like loon said, tuck it away for later if you can afford that. I've said it before....if I'd known, I would have bought my way into the 3 year plan by purchasing c/s/d, to save the grief I went through for almost 4 years.
He only deals in oak he said "none of that mixed wood bulls@#$" I have not used a solar kiln before this will be the first time but everything Ive read about it tells me that it should work pretty good. Im going to make something like this http://www2.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/info/pubs/Harvesting/CC Accelerated Seasoning of Firewood.pdf Ive also found another dealer that has two year old gum for $125 a cord delivered so I think Ill be scooping up several cord from him and then later on some of the oak to stash in the back for down the road.
$195/cord for green oak seems reasonable. Around my way, unless you know your supplier really well, you will get a hardwood mixture including oak. Chances are the oak will not be ready to go.
Gum @125 is steep IMO - really depends on delivery radius I'd guess. It really doesn't burn as bad as the old timers reputation would have you believe, I put close to 1-1/4cords through the stove this past season - it was 1yr c/s/s a few of the pieces that fell off the stack are now covered in shrooms so cover it as soon as it's stacked
I have something exactly like that in progress on a small pallet. I would suggest two slight refinements. First, have very little gap up top. You want to hold the heat in. There will still be quite a bit of convective air current with a small vent. Second, stack the single row to the back side of the pallet. Then put black plastic or similar on the pallet in front of it and tent the clear plastic over that. That should capture more heat and get it lower into the stack. I haven't tried the second idea yet but it seems like it will be an improvement.
I've been thinking about doing this, stacking on pallets, on the cement driveway, 8 to 12ft long, 2 or 3 rows, with space between the rows. Probably work even better on blacktop, but I don't have blacktop. It still gets hot out there in the cement driveway
I have thought of doing that on my driveway, blacktop on a southerly slope. I'm thinking of putting a single layer out on stringers when we go away for two weeks this summer. Put a drop cloth on top and see what it does.
