The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Techniques and skills => Topic started by: johnmac on August 13, 2011, 08:44:33 pm
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(http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e340/johnmac1979/9ab25fdb.jpg)
A friend who lives at Loch Awe tells me ge can season logs in a cheap polytunnel inside six months?!?
Wondered if he is having me on. Now that the harvest is well under way, created a bit of space in the greenhouse and have spent a couple of hours cutting and splitting a couple of wind fallen trees that I obtained. Moisture content is between 35% and 41% I split the logs into sixths and eights instead of halves and quarters to speed up drying in the hope it's ready for Jan/Feb 2012... Or earlier! It's all hardwood... Alder I think?
Anyone else tried this or similar and does it work??
I have eight cubic metres stacked along the house which is about 16% moisture content and all hardwood ready to burn! :-)
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Which moisture meter do you use, please?
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I want to move our logs so I can use the store that they are in, its def is interesting!
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Makes a lot of sense to me Johnmac. We used to take wet timber and stack it by the fire alongside the hearth and it would dry out in a few days. trouble is it brought a lot of creepy crawlies in as well. Guess the optimum drying rate will be when the greenhouse is hottest with a slight change of air through it.
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is that willow?
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Good idea - i hope it worked
I am lucky as I have a large hanger that the wind blows thru - it is probbley a bit warmer here before the bitter winter kicks in.
below are the logs stacked in October. I reckon I have just 2.5 m3 left and I am bringing next years wood undercover now.
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I just have to show my hubby as nothing else gets his attention, nothing better than a man proud of his logs ::)
I have to check before I use them too ::)
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is that willow?
larch, i think.
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Hello,
Insufficient air circulation in there. Wood stacked next to plexiglass wall will retain and even absorb condensation. Most greenhouses are configured for heat and moisture retention not dehydration, even with a draft going through evaporated water is not carried off efficiently. Solution: remove wood from greenhouses and stack it outside, covered, and in a wind exposed location. One could expect Alder to dry out within six months in even less than ideal conditions as it is, similar to poplar or willow a light and soft wood.
Greetings,
Don
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I have to agree - air irculation or a fore 10 gale blowing through a well stacked pile is better. I don't cut green wood. We are lucky that as we have a lot of sweet chestnut - if the main tree is cut then long polesshhot out to ompete for light. Those that die off stand tall and not on a wet floor. We cut these - split if needed and stak for next year. So about 6 months being wind dried ( it is hot in the summer though).
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Hi all... Sorry for the slow reply... Just re-found this post!
In answer to the question about the moisture meter... I bought one of eBay... £8 I think? Two prongs, does the trick!
Next point... The logs are now gone! I was burning them by December the same year! About three months in the greenhouse and they were between 12% and 18% moisture. It was Alder by the way!
I left the greenhouse door open, two windows and had a few panes missing in the side from last years storms! So air flow wasn't an issue.
I'll be doing the same again around August. I think the fact they were only stacked one log deep helped the drying... Any more and mould and mushrooms might have been an issue!
Try it! ;-)
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Wow Mak! Now thats what I'm aiming for! Great pic. *log pile envy*
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Great that you had good results with the wood drying but I would need one hell of a greenhouse to dry the wood we need for a winter here. I have been pulling up tree roots left from felled or fallen trees. My old neighbour owns a wood and she receives tree roots as rent from the wood. The roots are dense and slow burning with good heat yield - darn difficult to cut up and even harder to stack.
Oh - I burnt all except a m3 or so of the wood shown in the picture above. We had to burn wood to heat snow in the garden kitchen when the mains water supply froze ! I try to cut wood each day and haul it home on a large hay barrow. Keeps the weight off !!
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Hi MAK,
Just spotted your picture! Now that's a wood store!!!
I wish I had the land and space for something like that. I only need about 5m3 a winter plus coal to get through.... So I don't need a huge amount of storage space, but I have an endless supply of trees, and would season far more if I had the space.... Maybe even sell some for petty cash! :-)
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Hi johnmac - I have the space but not my own woods - one neighbour (aged 83) lets me collect wood from just across the lane but this is on a 50:50 basis. But a secong neighbour has a very large wood and tells me I can take as much as i want. The problem is I have to track up a hill, cut and gather it then down the hill with a large hay barrow.
I am going for dense slow burning roots just now. These are pretty aged after the trunk was cut a few years ago and although damp soon dry out in the wind and heat. These are harder to gather and don't stack too well on the cart. Economy of effort tells me I need to cut 180 cm lengths of straight wood - cart them down the hill then cut these into 60cm logs that I can stack in long 1,8 m heigh rows of about 8-10 meters in length. My target is to get 5 or 6 such rows in case we have a "grand froid" again. this will save me > 1000 euros.If your wood is free then maybe stack some outside then move them under cover as you make space with burning the dry store. We see masses and masses of cut logs that sit along the sides of fields to dry for a couple of years before being storred under hangers like mine ( above).