air drying maple

[tharreld]

I cut down a silver maple tree from my yard. I'm keeping the wood to use as firewood. How long will it take the wood to air dry?

[tyb525]

The rule of thumb is generally a year or more. You could burn it sooner but it still might be a little wet. Wood that is still green causes creosote buildup.

[John Mc]

Wood that is still green causes creosote buildup.

Not to mention you lose up to 40% or more of the BTUs burning green wood vs properly seasoned.

[John Mc]

How long it takes depends on what you do to it. Leaving it in tree length, or even in 4 foot lengths will have a HUGE effect in how long it takes to dry.

For fastest drying, it's all about heat, air flow, and exposing the maximum amount of surface area to air: Cut to length and split it. Stack it off the ground (on top of an old pallet works well, or lay a coupe of saplings down parallel and stack on that, with the cut ends exposed to sun and prevailing wind. Stacking in a single row will dry faster than multiple rows stacked together. If you cover the stack, leave the sides open. (A tarp all the way down to the ground just traps the moist air in with the wood.) You don't get much drying when the temperatures get much below freezing... you may get rid of surface moisture, but you won't have much luck drawing water out of the wood.

Following the tips above, I got fresh cut Beech and Red Maple dry to about 15-18% moisture content (pretty good for burning in a wood stove) in 6 months (May - October). That was during a wetter than normal Vermont summer. The Beech did better, but it starts out a bit drier than the red maple anyway (Red maple was 18-20% in the middle of a 16" piece, down to under 10% an inch in from the ends). From October to March, the moisture content changed very little.

I prefer to allow more than a year - then I can get away with less than ideal storage and stacking. In some European countries, I believe the law is that you can't burn wood unless it has been properly stored and seasoned for 2 years.

[DouginUtah]

The question cannot be answered without knowing your geographical location. In Utah any wood cut today will be as dry as it is ever going to be by September.

[SwampDonkey]

I get all my wood cut in the winter, split and stacked in the springtime and it dries for almost 5 months out in the sun uncovered. I don't meter it to see the MC, but it's well seasoned in my opinion and after a month in the basement with the furnace going it gets even drier by October and bark slips right off it. Bark makes good kindling, but the fire never goes out until May.

[John Mc]

I don't want to give he impression that I regularly meter my firewood for moisture content ... I'm not that hung up about it. I was curious to see how accurate my guess was that it was ready to burn. Especially since It had only been seasoning for about six months. It's not that often that I know exactly when a stack of wood was cut and under what conditions it has been stored - I lose track after a while.

I wondered if I did everything as well as I could to get it dry, could I get it ready to burn in six months. The answer was "yes". Nice to know, especially since we're not in a particularly warm, dry climate here.

I've heard that in some European countries (Germany ?) it's the law that you can't burn wood until it has been stored and seasoned properly for at least 2 years. There are also regulations about how it can be stored.

John Mc

[tharreld]

Good information, thanks.

I have the wood split and out in the Minnesota sun. Top covered but sides open. When I dry oak in this manner it takes 1.5 - 2 years to dry properly. I was hoping that the maple would dry sooner. It sounds like that is the case.

[stonebroke]

Maple will dry much faster than oak. Also if you split it smaller it will dry faster, more surface area.

Stonebroke

[chevytaHOE5674]

I get all my wood cut in the winter, split and stacked in the springtime and it dries for almost 5 months out in the sun uncovered.... and after a month in the basement with the furnace going it gets even drier by October and bark slips right off it.

Thats how I do it. Put a pile of wood in the basement and let the stove blow on it. Its like a dry kiln down there.

[John Mc]

I have the wood split and out in the Minnesota sun. Top covered but sides open. When I dry oak in this manner it takes 1.5 - 2 years to dry properly. I was hoping that the maple would dry sooner. It sounds like that is the case.

Oak is famous for holding on to the moisture. There's not much around here that takes longer to air dry.

White ash is great if you have to burn green - it doesn't have much moisture in it to begin with. Beech is not bad either... not as dry when fresh cut as white ash, but not bad.

A site with good info on heating with wood: www.woodheat.org

John Mc