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-   -   March 16, 2013 - Give her some wood! (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=28778)

SPUCK 03-17-2013 12:52 AM

March 16, 2013 - Give her some wood!
 
Wet firewood can cause heavy creosote build-up in chimneys that can eventually ignite with disastrous results. To get the moisture out of firewood people typically just stack firewood up in rectangular stacks.

But some people - add some extra class.

http://cellar.org/2012/Firewood3.jpg


http://cellar.org/2012/Firewood2.jpg


http://cellar.org/2012/Firewood1.jpg

Clodfobble 03-17-2013 07:05 AM

So how come the wood doesn't stay wet, being stored outside in the snow? Even if it's on a covered porch or in a shed or whatever, it seems like the air is still pretty damp.

orthodoc 03-17-2013 07:14 AM

As long as air can get around all of it, it'll dry. You also orient the pieces on the top with the bark side up, to shed water.

Those are amazing! Okay, I may be ortho the easily amazed but those woodpiles are art. It wouldn't even have occurred to me to create images like that. It would make me sad to take them apart to use the wood ...

Griff 03-17-2013 07:47 AM

Cold air holds less moisture. So what you want is airflow through your wood pile, any organized stack that minimizes constant exposure to water will do okay. I have a slat sided woodshed with a roof to maximize air flow and minimize the precipitation exposure. Everybody has a preferred method. This guy has a good one, but I've done this done on pallets with a perforated pipe up the middle to increase air flow.

footfootfoot 03-17-2013 12:54 PM

Without getting into an extensively technical treatise on wood and moisture content (remember the cucumbers? It's more complicated than that) Freshly cut wood has a lot of water, some of it is bound up int the cells and some is "free" i.e. between the cells.

The Moisture content of the wood is significantly greater than that of the air and the moisture of the wood eventually reaches equilibrium with the air (or very close)

Once the bound water leaves the cell, it doesn't really enter the cell again, it mostly will saturate the wood fibers between the cells. It doesn't take a whole lot of air circulation to dry out wood. Wood loses most if its moisture through the end grain, not through the side grain. Stacking the wood on its side with the ends exposed to air will bring the wood to equilibrium MC pretty quickly. Especially in winter.

Gravdigr 03-17-2013 03:06 PM

I give Baby wood.

But she gives it to me first.

;)

ZenGum 03-17-2013 06:09 PM

I would feel ashamed to pull those wood stacks apart.

Also, those first ones look kind of dangerous, as in wood-slipping-off-the-top and whacking-you-on-the-head dangerous.

Aliantha 03-17-2013 06:30 PM

It's been a long time since I've seen that much wood in one place.

footfootfoot 03-17-2013 08:15 PM

You Australians have been profligate with your forests lately, haven't you? Or is that conflagrate?

Aliantha 03-17-2013 08:38 PM

Well, there really wasn't that much wood here when us white fellas arrived in the first place, but we've done our best to get rid of what we found.

Luckily for our gum trees, they're not much good for anything except feeding koalas and providing shade and keeping soil together, so they get left in peace mostly. The wood is not even that great to burn because of the eucalyptus causing it to explode more than other wood.

ZenGum 03-17-2013 10:45 PM

I disagree on both counts. ;)

We've cleared something like 85% of the native forests/vegetation since settlement. That includes things like mulga and mallee scrub which are tree-ish but rarely more than 4 to 6 metres high.

Also, well dried eucalyptus is my firewood of choice when I go camping, especially redgum. Dense wood, long burn time. Maybe it's different for fireplaces in houses though.

Aliantha 03-17-2013 11:35 PM

We've been a pretty treeless place in comparison to most other continents for a very long time Zen. That's what I was referring to. By very long, I mean tens of thousands of years. And I did say that we've done our best to get rid of most of what we found, and yes, I was referring to indoor fireplaces. I don't know anyone who would choose to burn gum tree timber indoors.

eta: Reasons people choose not to burn gum indoors is partly due to the potential for explosion, and largely because gum is notoriously difficult to mill, and tends to wreck blades, so can't be cut to size very easily.

This was a large part of the reason for the settlement on Norfolk Is when Australia was first settled by the Brits. They thought there was plenty of timber for dwellings but when they tried to cut the mostly gum tree forests, all they did was destroy their blades. Norfolk Pines were found to be much more suitable so they decided to go chop all of them down instead.

JuancoRocks 03-17-2013 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenGum (Post 857319)
I disagree on both counts. ;)

Also, well dried eucalyptus is my firewood of choice when I go camping, especially redgum. Dense wood, long burn time. Maybe it's different for fireplaces in houses though.

I agree.......We have a lot of Eucalyptus here in Arizona (I have 10 that are about 85 feet) and I find that it burns clean and hot. I take it camping and use it to bring mesquite and oak to proper coals for cooking.

Although some think of the widowmaker reputation of Eucalyptus (dropping branches) I prefer to think of it as free firewood.:rolleyes:

JR

footfootfoot 03-18-2013 12:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenGum (Post 857319)
I disagree on both counts. ;)

We've cleared something like 85% of the native forests/vegetation since settlement. That includes things like mulga and mallee scrub which are tree-ish but rarely more than 4 to 6 metres high.

Also, well dried eucalyptus is my firewood of choice when I go camping, especially redgum. Dense wood, long burn time. Maybe it's different for fireplaces in houses though.

So you admit to being responsible for the clearing Tasmania of its off the maps?

ZenGum 03-18-2013 01:09 AM

The clear felling of the Map of Tasmania is a different issue altogether, and one in which I have had no hand. ;)

xoxoxoBruce 03-18-2013 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aliantha (Post 857317)
The wood is not even that great to burn because of the eucalyptus causing it to explode more than other wood.

Jesus, fish that eat boats, crocs that can swallow a car, spiders that eat sheep, venomous everything, drop bears, road trains, and exploding firewood. :eek:

SPUCK 03-18-2013 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 857328)
Jesus, fish that eat boats, crocs that can swallow a car, spiders that eat sheep, venomous everything, drop bears, road trains, and exploding firewood. :eek:

You forgot Dingos that steal babies.

:bolt:

xoxoxoBruce 03-18-2013 02:31 AM

Oh shit, that's right. :smack:

Aliantha 03-18-2013 06:16 AM

They do explode. lol In bushfires a whole tree can be blown to smithereens if there's a large build up of oil. Not sure why some trees explode and others don't, but I assume they must sometimes get pockets in the wood and then blow up in extreme heat. Not an expert. I just know it happens.

sandypossum 03-18-2013 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aliantha (Post 857317)
Luckily for our gum trees, they're not much good for anything except feeding koalas and providing shade and keeping soil together, so they get left in peace mostly. The wood is not even that great to burn because of the eucalyptus causing it to explode more than other wood.

I'm with Zen on this. we live in the sticks and in our area about half the homes are heated by wood stove, and the best (and most expensive, if you buy it in) is red gum. Yellow box (another local eucalypt) is the second best around here. Haven't heard of any of it exploding.

Also, there are loads of eucalyptus plantations in Victoria.

xoxoxoBruce 03-18-2013 01:00 PM

Probably depends on how dry it is, and how small it's split. I've seen other types of wood explode, especially conifers.

Nirvana 03-18-2013 01:09 PM

Thank goodness the gumtrees are safe! Where would Kookaburra sit?

footfootfoot 03-18-2013 05:09 PM

cigarette loads?

ZenGum 03-18-2013 06:39 PM

In bushfire conditions, trees can explode, I think from the liquids inside boiling catastrophically. The volatiles then get released as a flammable gas, which as soon as it gets enough oxygen, will also explode.

These trees explode twice.

Last winter I went to a camping mini-festival (about 40 people) in a state forest in Victoria. About the third thing we did was to get two tonnes of Redgum and Yellow box firewood delivered. We were only there three nights! Three toasty warm, well lit nights!


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