Many will say (and I'm guilty of it too) that wood will not dry until split. Well, that is only partially true. Wood will start to dry as soon as it is cut. However, the drying happens only on the ends of the logs. This is what causes the cracking we see and mistakenly leads many to think their wood is dry because they see the cracks. Well, the cracks tell us that the ends have dried but it says nothing about the center of the logs. There is no question that wood will dry much faster in summer than in winter. It still can be a problem in some areas like the Pacific NW and eastern Canada and even some of New England.
Dennis… I got a pretty good lesson in exactly what you're saying with the logs we cut off the stump in March of 2013, and stacked them for a year like that. I just CSS these logs and the oak (especially) looked exactly like the oak we cut this March… and, it was obviously still full of water. They were incredibly heavy for the size of the rounds compared with ash from the same 2 years. Only thing that was different was the bark was coming off the 2013 wood. I'll never store wood for any longer than 6 months before CSS now. BTW… nice to have you back Sav…
Stinny, we don't have a problem with leaving the wood uncovered over the summer and fall in that first year. I think it aids in the evaporation. But once covered, it stays covered. Well, sometimes I do have to "adjust" the covering after a big wind. I found one stack yesterday that had to have some fixing done.
Not to bring up an old thread, but I'm doing it anyways. Another thing I've been wondering as I'm css some oak right now, while this freshly css wood is about as wet as it gets, I'm curious to hear thoughts on being as it's so wet, will this winter (in Wisconsin once its below freezing it pretty much stays way until spring) dry out a good majority of the moisture? Not sure how to ask the question lol. Is it reasonable to think that freshly css wood will season any faster than half seasoned wood in the winter? Say if it's (I don't own a moisture meter so don't judge me if my numbers are way off of the norm) 40% moisture fresh and a semi seasoned piece is at 30% would they both drop the same 5% or am I correct in thinking maybe the 40% may drop maybe 10% while the 30% drops 5% since there is less moisture to be lost? Now that I've confused myself and probably a few of you, what your thoughts??
If wood only dried from the ends it wouldn't make sense to split it right away. It dries faster from the ends, the ends will also reabsorb moisture and this constant changing in dryness causes cracks, which is why you paint the ends to r e t a r d that process and minimize the cracking if you don't want cracked ends . If you figure one inch of drying depth per year ( actually varies ) you can adjust your split diameter for the time you have or allow more time for the size splits you want for your particular stove. Plus the variable of how dry you want the center of a split to be. Wind aids sublimation. We dry clothes outside on a clothes line (in large part ) because of detergent allergies. Clothes dry in the Winter. The process accelerates with wind speed and a nice sunny day helps too. Depth of cold becomes a factor as well. Clothes do NOT dry on a hot Summer day when there is no wind, no sun and the humidity approaches 100%. They can hang there for days, soaking wet, a fantastic media for mold. You'd think a dryer would carry detergent residues away just as well as line drying but it doesn't. You'd think an extra rinse cycle in the washer would help as well but it doesn't. Or not good enough. You'd think maybe light was a factor but we've hung clothes out at night.
You are on the right track. The fresh piece of green wood is going to lose a lot more water a lot faster than the partially seasoned piece (same species and all every thing else the same). I’ve messed with weighing splits from fresh cut trees and have found that the first half of what it can lose is gone within a month or two in the summer. And the rest in the case of oak is another year or two. It all slows down in the winter but the fresh cut wood will still be able to lose a lot more than the partially dry.
That's what I was hoping for, it made sense that would be the case. So that being said, do you think, wood css in the fall and checked one year later may yeild better dryness than wood CSS in the spring and checked 1 year later? More bang for the buck in the winter when it's fresh cut, and summer would just round it out? Of course, assuming the same weather species etc.
free water is lost faster than bound water. If you estimate when a split will be ready based on only the first three months of water loss rate you'll be pleasantly surprised to find your estimate fails. Oak trees have a high ratio of bound water to free water due to cellular structure and why they take so darned long to season. ( edit: Deciduous ) Trees survive Winter by converting starches to sugars which act similarly to anti-freeze. You collect those sugars from maple trees when the sap starts running again in the Spring. Trees don't "dry out" in the Winter. Unless they're dead, then the bone chilling winds of Winter suck the water right out of them. There might be a little bit less water in a tree in Winter due to pressure loss but there isn't none. Some trees the bark will crack in the Spring with a cold snap if the sugar content is gone or diluted.
