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Revisiting the Firewood Question
By John Gulland
For twenty-five years the standard
advice for seasoning firewood has been to cut, split and stack your wood in the
early spring and it will be ready for burning in the fall. But is that
really an adequate formula for dry wood?
To
season quickly, firewood should be stacked in an open area exposed to
sun and wind with tops covered. |
Bill Tully doesn't think so. As a
distributor of woodstoves in Ontario, Bill and his staff often have to respond
to dealer inquiries and user complaints, and the majority of those during the
fall seasons of 2003 and 2004 were linked to wet firewood. The summers of
both those years were cloudy and rainy in Ontario, with the result that even
"correctly seasoned" wood was too wet, meaning it had a moisture content of over
20 percent. "Summer weather is a major determinant of how much drying
takes place," says Bill.
"Garbage in; garbage out." That's
what Greenwood, NS dealer Steve Keeling says about wet wood. He means that
if the fuel is wet, the results are poor heating performance, more creosote,
more unburned char in the ashes and a dissatisfied user. Steve says
firewood should be stacked to dry for a full year. He has spread the word
at the dozens of Burn it Smart workshops he has delivered over the past
few years. "A moisture meter is one of the dealer's best tools for
diagnosing performance problems," he says. Dennis Fryers of Added Energy
in Winnipeg, MB says, "Only a small percentage of our customers have a problem
with wet firewood. If we sell the stove right, we don't have a lot of
people coming back with complaints.
He does agree with Bill Tully that selling
an upgrade from an older stove to an EPA certified model can lead to problems if
people's expectations are not met. According to Bill, this can happen
because older stoves, with their much larger combustion air openings, can
actually appear to burn wet wood more successfully than the finely-tuned new
stoves. Part of the selling process is to warn users that to get good
performance from their new stove, they may need to change their firewood
seasoning habits.
"Yes, wet firewood can be a problem here,"
says Randy Krueger, of JC Fireplaces & Spas in Chilliwack BC. "Even in
covered storage, wood can be slow to dry because of high humidity."
"Sometimes people need to learn the hard
way that wood should be put away a year ahead," he says.
Brian Dingee of Dingee's Energy Systems in
Centreville, NB says some users have trouble with wet wood and others don't.
"I don't see wet wood problems with most older, experienced users who seem to
know the score," he says.
But new customers, who have a system
installed in the late summer or fall as protection against high oil and gas
prices, haven't usually planned their fuel supply in advance. That first
winter they can be stuck with wet wood.
This seller's piles might look
neat and tidy, but won't dry in a single summer because these are very
large pieces of hardwood stacked too closely together and not covered. |
"I've also noticed that low-income people
sometimes run out of good wood, or can't afford to buy it ahead and find
themselves scrounging for firewood in mid-winter, when all you can get is green
stuff," he says.
Bill Tully says that stove dealers are
getting more attuned to the firewood issue and are now more likely to give their
customers some clear guidelines for seasoning. So committed is he to
firewood moisture measuring that Bill's company private labels and distributes a
moisture meter to make it easier to promote testing as a diagnostic tool.
One problem that stove retailers face is
that commercial firewood dealers tend to not sell properly seasoned wood,
despite their advertising claims. "Firewood suppliers are still in the
dark about wood moisture," says Tully.
Dennis Fryers agrees: "What they call
seasoned, we consider half-seasoned."
To be fair - and this was acknowledged by
everyone interviewed for this article - commercial firewood dealers would have a
tough time supplying fully-seasoned wood because covering large amounts would be
difficult, and providing enough space between piles for good ventilation would
take up a huge area of land for a sizeable operation. A two-year seasoning
cycle could work, but that would double the investment in money and land.
While firewood dealers may not be able to offer dry wood, Bill Tully says they
can do the next best thing by getting the word out to their customers to buy
their wood a year ahead.
Steve Keeling is expecting problems this
year because of the rush to buy stoves as a hedge against rising oil and gas
prices. "There will be major issues with wet wood this year because of
people deciding late to install wood stoves. I'm sure many of them won't
have planned their wood supply in advance."
- Copyright© Wood Energy Technology
Transfer Inc. (WETT)
- Article reproduced from WETT Ink
Newsletter, Winter '06 with the kind permission of
WETT
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