Seasoning sitka and larch

[Dan Maynard]

20 minutes ago, JDon said:

In my front garden there's not much space so I was thinking of devoting half my garage to storing it. Obviously it will be covered with little air flow. Will this still dry out OK within a summer or so?

Around a third of the weight you're holding is water that needs to leave, through flow of air is vital for drying.

 

If you can take out windows and/or doors then could be ok but a closed garage will just get really damp all round.

[openspaceman]

On 18/12/2022 at 14:03, Conor Wright said:

Both dry quickly. Anywhere with a cover over them, dry floor or elevated on pallets etc and plenty of airflow.

Downside of sitka is it burns fast.

 

 

 

Yes and yes

34 minutes ago, JDon said:

In my front garden there's not much space so I was thinking of devoting half my garage to storing it. Obviously it will be covered with little air flow. Will this still dry out OK within a summer or so?

If we are still talking fresh felled sitka then it will half its weight as it loses moisture from 60% to 20% best for burning. All that water has to be carried away by airflow so as Dan says the garage will need openings at both ends all summer at the least.

[Donnie]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

Yes and yes

If we are still talking fresh felled sitka then it will half its weight as it loses moisture from 60% to 20% best for burning. All that water has to be carried away by airflow so as Dan says the garage will need openings at both ends all summer at the least.

It has tiny little 6x2 inch openings for venting air in and out the garage but I'm guessing this will never be enough 😂

I'm in it every day and night to be fair, just don't fancy taking up all that space in the garage for logs that aren't going to burn well enough. 

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, JDon said:

It has tiny little 6x2 inch openings for venting air in and out the garage but I'm guessing this will never be enough 😂

I'm in it every day and night to be fair, just don't fancy taking up all that space in the garage for logs that aren't going to burn well enough. 

Well ambient summer air has easily enough moisture capacity to do it so getting it past the logs is the only problem.

 

Black chimney attached to the 6 X 2 openings??

[Donnie]

44 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Well ambient summer air has easily enough moisture capacity to do it so getting it past the logs is the only problem.

 

Black chimney attached to the 6 X 2 openings??

I did actually think of a getting one of these diesel heaters for heating the garage through the winter and drying out gear etc. Not sure how well it'd dry out logs as well if they're in there at the same time. 

 

To be exact this is the same kind of vents I have to the right of the door and at the rear of the garage. 

 

[openspaceman]

Not much point heating it and having nowhere to let the moist air out and those bricks don't look like they will pass much air.

 

Say you have a stack of about 1.5m3 of small split sitka, that will need to lose 500kg of water.

 

In summer at about 20C and RH of 50% each m3 of air will pick up around 10 grams of water until saturated at RH 100%, so 50,000 m3 of air would need to pass through the stack and leave it saturated and I cannot see that happening.

[Macpherson]

My neighbour stacked a couple of cubes of split wood { birch ] in a large double garage against my advice, it did eventually get to the point where it could be burned after a couple of years but it got very mouldy and some which was against the wall had started to rot, so not really a good idea imo.

 

 

[Steven P]

I wouldn't store them in the garage.

 

If you can stack them outside in the sun that is better. The sun isn't as important as wind - logs will dry to a point in the winter and rain, so long as there is wind flow through a stack of them. Not sure how you are set up with your house but can you find an area or the logs? 1m x 1m stacked 1m high is a 1m cube, 1/2m wide x 2m long, 1m high or even about body width the length of a car and not quite 1m high all 1m cube, should be able to squeeze them in somewhere (having said that, half the garage to logs, that could be a lot of logs)

[neiln]

If you've little space in the garden how about a small solar kiln, then transfer to the garage?  If you can find a sunny spot to stack just a cube, make a cheap kiln from poly sheet and garden canes, plastic pipe or scrap timber (whatever you have). You could get the wood down to burnable or close in 4-6 weeks I'd guess, move to the garage and repeat.

Solar kilns work.  If it interests you then I'd suggest go to hearth.com and search for solar kiln where you'll find several threads by a guy called Poindexter and another guy that give really detailed explanations of their set ups and results.

[devon TWiG]

Stack them a bit like building a dry stone wall against a fence / wall , cover just the top ...even in the garage , only one log deep and they will dry fine ...move indoors late summer for best results ..