I have a woodstove but all my firewood is still green. My friend suggested I dry it out indoors. He said I should put a few fire bricks on top of the stove, then stack green firewood on the bricks, around the single-wall chimney pipe.
Is this a good idea?
Proper seasoning is going to take longer than that. Most experts recommend you buy green firewood in the spring, to let it season in the rack over the summer. A minimum of 6 months' drying time, leaving it exposed to the sun and protected from moisture, is needed to "cure' firewood.
DO NOT burn your green firewood. It will smoke, smoulder and not heat the chimney properly for good draft, so you'll get backdrafts into your home. I had this problem even with seasoned but dampened logs from my rack outside; the wood wouldn't burn properly even with a nice hot bed of coals under it, and we got a lot of smoke coming out the front of the fireplace (and up into the upper story of our house).
I think you are trying to speed up the drying process by attempting a low brow "kiln" by using the heat of the stove to dry out the wood. The rate at which wood dries depends upon a number of factors, the most important of which are the temperature, the dimensions of the wood, and the relative humidity.
Using the stove could work to speed up the process, although your wood stove "kiln" is less efficient than a true kiln.
In general, I usually dry out wood outside because:
I have a stack with a tarp over it. I've set up the tarp like a tent so that the airflow goes through the pile. Totally covering the stack with a tarp will reduce airflow and seasoning effectiveness.
Wood drying WIKI link, there some math/formulas up there for figuring out how long it will take to dry.
Not a good idea. Doing dangerous things over time builds up increasing lack of caution. You'll leave it unattended one day, something will fall against the stovepipe and we'll be reading next about how it was found to be a bad idea.
Fuels are supposed to be kept away from woodstove installations for a really good reason. We already had a house burn down in our county from having kindling right next to the stove. Sparks fell in, the house was on fire a couple hours later.
The risk to My House, Family & Belongings is far too great for me to risk a fire.
I have a Boiler Stove, so the sides and rear don't get any hotter than 85 deg C. However I still do not store or dry any logs inside the house. I am sure that evaporating all that water from the logs cannot be good for the plaster on the walls and the health of your Lungs. I air dry my logs by stacking them outside for 4-6 months, then put them in the garage for 3-6 Months.
I have piped up the gravity side of my boiler stove to 2 Radiators in the garage. My logs get dried out quickly, safely and with no chance of any termites eating my house. When I move a nights supply of logs into my house I have a nice large wicker basket and line it with a flexible builders bucket, just to reduce the risk of critters finding there way into the house.
All good answers, but ignores the question: can one preheat one's firewood over a wood stove? In my opinion why yes one can, to a degree BUT safety first, and other steps are very important, life and death so...
If you have NO other choice except moving to a shelter, then you can help yourself a little. Sometimes applying for heating assistance or moving out is safer but clearly not everyone can do so. I live in the woods but life was rough last year so I got to visit this question again this year. My 35 years of wood burning experience has been refreshed now:
Here are several steps that one should take.
A waste perhps but important. Still going to take a few weeks.
Alternate sources of dry wood such as hardwood pallets or better yet biobricks should be found, this wood isn't going to burn without help. If you bought this wood, half of your money will be wasted in burning the water out. Expensivesteam. If you have money, biobricks or an electric heater is actually cheaper.
This final note: When the fire is out, remove the flue at the stove top and with a mirror look up to the top to see if there is a creosote build up. If you cannot check this, better to not try indoor drying at all. Good luck.
Friends used to stack wood next to stove until las night when these stacked logs caught fire in the night after having the stove lit the night before.
Simple rule buy well seasoned wood and keep covered outside. You will only wish you hadn’t stacked it next to the stove once!!!
My father and I stack green wood next to the wood stove and leave it for about a month when we are almost out of seasoned wood.it a mix of iron wood and hard maple.mostly small limb wood. It burns great and keeps it about 80or 90 degrees Fahrenheit.the main thing is to make sure you have enough stacked up to heat for a month so you can season another pile. We are heating a double wide trailer.
