yeah see if you can get a window fan and keep a fire burning too. Can you stack some next to the fire? The drier stuff? The radiant heat does dry it out.
I'd work on getting that standing dead tree dropped and split ASAP. Hopefully its dry enough to burn. If not, I wouldn't waste too much time and look for another. Get your stove running as soon as possible and run it hard. The radient heat should help further dry your wood. Keep moving a few days worth of wood close to the stove to expedite drying. Not too close though! Good luck!
Sweep yer chimney. And sweep it very often. You are likely to have a abundance of build up this year from your wet wood supply. Something to definitely keep in mind. On the other hand. Congrats on the place! 27 acres sounds wonderful. After you get up to speed on wood seasoning you should be in great shape. Hopefully you can get after the cutting, splitting and stacking right now for the future. Guessing your softwood may season if split and stacked properly for a year. Not sure. Storing in rounds is futile for seasoning in my experience.
You don't have time to move the stack back outside, but you have time to empty 20-40% of the weight of that stack via dehumidifier bucket ? What's the cost of running those dehumidifiers full blast ? 2 dehumidifiers and a fan is around 10 cents an hour at 15¢/kWh. That's $2.40/day. What does it cost to heat your house per day ?
Great point, i do realize the electric cost is something to keep in mind. Honestly it takes 30 seconds to empty the dehumidifier bucket so as far as time required goes it's negligible. My main question is : will it dry eventually if left there for the coming months? Yes i know it's not ideal but you learn from mistakes and i'm trying to make the most of it without undoing everything i did a few weeks before the real winter kicks in. I won't do that again let me tell ya.
Couple ideas to bounce around. Could you put up a plastic sheet in front of that pile to enclose the area? Then run your dehumidifier inside that small area? Better than trying to dry all the air in the basement. Preferably one with a hose connected to drain. You said the stove is in the basement but the basement doesnt get very warm. Is it a wood furnace with ducts then? If so any chance of pulling the ducts apart and reaiming the heat?
There is ONE duct and it goes upstairs directly above the furnace (this house needs some work lol, this duct was made with a hammer and sheet metal haphazardly kinda deal). I took it apart so now the heat does go upstairs through the grill but it's not FORCED there so it radiates in the basement also. It gets insanely hot upstairs, far less downstairs but still noticeably hot. Like i said, old windows and questionable foundation to house insulation which i will need to address. I like the idea of the insulation around the pile but it would be hard to do a perfect job of it as there is not much room between the ceiling above and the top of the pile to air tight this bad boy.
Welcome to FHC. As you can see, many knowledgeable and helpful people here. You will like it here. We do like pics, beer and dogs. My suggestion is to get a moisture meter. We recommend testing a fresh split and test it in the middle. Ends dry faster. Ideally you are looking at 20% or low
Not insulation, just a wall of plastic sheeting. Even a tarp would work. No need to go over the top. Just cut down the area your dehumidifier is working on. Maybe cover your grill for awhile. Let the heat stay in the basement.
I like that idea, will the tarp actually contain the moisture in the air? I have a cat but he shouldn't be able to rip through one of those blue tarps. As you can see on the picture there is a grill above the stack but i can just cover it upstairs.
First off, good on ya for admitting the mistake. A lesser person would be too ashamed. In the past I have cut and split wood in the winter that I thought was dry enough to burn right away. For this reason it went directly from the woods to the truck to the garage to save on handling. When I realized some of the pieces were 25%+ on the moisture meter I started standing them on end around my wood insert like foot soldiers. Splits will dry out pretty quick in the right conditions. My stove room, a small den with 7' ceilings, is over 90F/32C at least 12 hours a day. Humidity in that room is always under 20% when I am running the stove around the clock. The process is a little tedious. Generally I would let the splits bake for 12-24 hours. If I had 20 splits going at a time I only needed to supplement a small amount of good seasoned wood depending on outside temps. The way I see it, if taking the wood back outside isn't an option, slowing working through the stack while supplementing with seasoned wood may be your best bet. As mentioned previously, clean your chimney often, at least until you get an idea of how much creosote is building up.
Darn. But hauling it back outside to season for a year is probably the best solution. Call it lesson learned.
I would try to get some dead standing, eco bricks or both then take some of that pile and stack it away from the rest so it is in a single row and blow the fan on low through it with the stove running down there.
Do you have acess to pallets. Find as many as you can. Cut them up and burn them first especially during shoulder season the added time and the heat from the stove should help the drying wood. When needed add some of the green wood with the pallet wood. Not a perfect solution but will get you thru the winter. I have had to do this a time to two to get thru a hard winter. Pretty much got to burn what you got.
Martin Denis another option to help with drying is to split some of the larger pieces. Smaller dries quicker. One other thing I'd be concerned with is mold potential in the basement with that much humidity.
Or mold anywhere in the house at this point really. I think i might realistically be better off admitting defeat, get a friend and a case of beer and bring at least half the stack back outside in a makeshift shelter close to the house. Come to think of it, i have a section of a building on my property i could open up slightly to allow the air to escape but not the rain to affect it. We'll see what the weekend brings.
I have had a tree hit by lightning and it was dried almost instantly.. Blew bark off.. I would definitely focus on that one..
I would imagine plastic is better than blue tarp but either should be sufficient. Ya know hookedup24 made a good suggestion. Cook your wood. I’ve done that when I’ve been in your shoes. Can you put two stacks on either side of the stove? Use one while the other gets cooked, then vice versa. A couple days about 18” away from the stove will do a lot of drying. Figure a two day supply on each side. Much less work than anything else. I should add 18” worked good for me. Some were even closer. I have a infrared thermometer that I kept a close eye on them for awhile. Usually the splits hovered around 150 degrees. Saw a couple 180’s on the real close stuff. Your stove May be different. If you look at my avatar pic you’ll see my stove/fireplace. I stood splits in the back of the firebox several layers thick. Then laid more on top. Had a nice stack to the left too. Used a fire hydrant for an andiron and just stacked it up against the stone work. Gotta say, preheated wood with the outside surface bone dry really fires up nice.
