Can I have a fire on Christmas without going to the store for wood?

December 24, 2008 2:12 PM

Can I burn wet wood? I have a woodpile outdoors, uncovered and it's been snowing/raining. Is it possible to dry it off and burn it this weekend?

I recently bought a house with a built in wood stove. I forgot to buy firewood today but in exploring my back yard I discovered that the sellers left a pile of firewood. It seems pretty wet. How long does it take to dry wood to the point where you can burn it? If I bring it in tonight and put it in front of the hot air heating vent would that help?

posted by Melsky to home & garden (18 comments total)

there is no problem with burning that wood. It will 'dry out' as it burns and may snap and crackle, but it will burn. But bringing it in will help. We used to bring it in (and use it) covered with snow and soaked with rain. (Note, you obviously don't want to try to start the fire with wet wood, but once it's blazing it'll be fine.)
posted by dawson at 2:21 PM on December 24, 2008

If it's seasoned wood that just got wet, you're fine. The sooner you can bring it in to dry it out some and warm it out, the better. If it's fresh cut wood that is ALSO wet that be a little less optimal.
posted by jessamyn at 2:27 PM on December 24, 2008

It's much easier to burn wet wood if you've got a good fire going already. Hopefully you've got some fuel to start the fire with.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:39 PM on December 24, 2008

It can take some work to get a good burn going with wet (but seasoned) wood, but once you do, it should work fine, as long as you don't stuff too much additional wet wood in at once.

To get started, bring it in. If you can split some of it with a hatchet and expose some dry wood, it'll be easier to get going in the first place. Once things are underway, stack some extra wood close to the stove to dry it out not too close though, not less than 8-12."

Oh, if there is any pitch on the wood, gather it up and use it to help start the fire.

Also, just in general, you'll get a cleaner burning fire if you stack the biggest pieces on the bottom, with smaller and smaller pieces on top, then light it from the top and let it burn down. This way, the open fire heats the wood underneath, causing it to smolder and give of flammable gasses. Those gasses have the chance to mix with air and burn hot and well when they meet the open flame. If you light from below, the gasses cool on the wood above and never get a chance to burn completely, leading to a lot of smoke, creosote in your chimney, and less efficient combustion. This is even more the case with wet wood.
posted by Good Brain at 2:41 PM on December 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wet wood causes chimney fires. Chimney fires burn down houses.

Wet wood burns colder, producing more creosote, increasing chimney buildup, wasting heat, and increasing your chances of a chimney fire. The buildup takes a while, and regular cleaning will eliminate the creosote.

If you are just planning on the stove as a source of occasional ambiance and not a regular method of heating your home, a yearly cleaning would suffice, but for a wood stove as a heat source you really want a good supply of well seasoned wood, and a weekly super-hot blaze (a supply of oak or osage orange helps for this) to burn up some of your creosote before you get severe buildup, and regularly scheduled chimney cleanings.
posted by idiopath at 2:55 PM on December 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

Also, just in general, you'll get a cleaner burning fire if you stack the biggest pieces on the bottom, with smaller and smaller pieces on top, then light it from the top and let it burn down.

Is this a common theory? I've been lighting fires since I was very young, heating with wood for much of that time, and I've never seen anyone start a fire that way. I've always seen the reverse: newspaper below, then kindling; once that is burning you add successively larger pieces until you have a proper fire. I have seen people argue passionately for different shapes of kindling arrangements, but never for inverting the entire arrangement. Citations?

Anyway, it depends on whether it is well-seasoned wood that has gotten a bit of wet weather on it, or whether it is wood that is totally sodden. If it is the first, then it will burn ok (not ideally, but ok) once you have a fire going; if it is the second, it won't burn well at all. Although bringing it in now is better than bringing it in tomorrow, one night indoors won't dry the wood to the center if it is really wet.

If your wood is really soaked, then the best solution is to buy some better wood ASAP. Around here, with the economy the way it is, there are lots of people advertising firewood, seasoned, split, and delivered. I'm sure that if you started phoning around, you'd find someone happy to deliver a cord on Christmas Eve or Christmas day for ready cash.
posted by Forktine at 3:04 PM on December 24, 2008

Here in Ottawa, Canada, most (all?) of the year's seasoned firewood is already sold to folk trying to avoid high heating oil prices.
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:30 PM on December 24, 2008

Once you get it going, you can stage the next logs you're going to use by putting them on top the stove to help them dry out. Though make sure you don't put them there in such a way that they themselves catch fire.

Also, if you don't use the top row of logs from the pile, but the rows underneath they will be dryer than the top row.
posted by jeffamaphone at 3:52 PM on December 24, 2008

Citation, Forktine? Sorry, nothing, other than the xerox from some trade magazine that the chimney sweep left 8 years ago that's in my file cabinet, somewhere. But I explained the theory, rather than making an appeal to tradition, and it is easy enough to try yourself. Calorimetry would take some work, but the difference is pretty obvious if you take smoke production as a proxy for inefficiency (a reasonable assumption).
posted by Good Brain at 4:04 PM on December 24, 2008

Citation, Forktine? Sorry, nothing, other than the xerox from some trade magazine that the chimney sweep left 8 years ago that's in my file cabinet, somewhere. But I explained the theory, rather than making an appeal to tradition, and it is easy enough to try yourself.

I'm a curious guy, so I'll give it a try within the week and report back. But like I said, I've never seen it done in thirty years of watching fires be lighted and lighting them myself; it goes against almost every single "how to light a fire" guide I can find on Google; and it strikes me as unlikely to work well because of how heat (and fire) rises.

I was able to find a couple of pages (eg link, link) arguing for the top-down lighting method for specific types of outdoor fires, particularly because fire burns down so much more slowly than it burns upward. But the guides I found from wood stove manufacturers (eg link) were consistent in their descriptions of lighting a fire the traditional way. (Wood stoves achieve slow-burning by controlling the damper, rather than from arranging the fire to burn downwards or other methods.)

This link in particular answers both the "how do I light it?" issue, and the OP's "should I burn wet wood?" question.
posted by Forktine at 4:37 PM on December 24, 2008

Thanks for all the answers. I'm pretty sure the wood has been out there since last season, so I'm guessing it's seasoned. I'm bringing some in and stacking it on the basement by the furnace.
posted by Melsky at 4:54 PM on December 24, 2008

Coincidentally, I also just purchased a home with a wood stove and wood the previous owners left outside that got wet.

Fortunately, I grew up very rurally, and I know firewood. Go ahead and burn it, assuming it's not punked (rotting and falling apart very easily). "Wet" firewood and the dangers thereof refers to unseasoned wood, not just wood that got snow and rain on it. It's hard as hell to un-season wood and get the wetness deep into the fibers.
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:59 PM on December 24, 2008

I grew up in rural Maine with a woodstove that we used for heating and hot water, and when we ran out of firewood in the middle of the winter we would have to go out in the woods and cut down some trees. The wood was wet and heavy as hell, and it took more work to get it going, but it worked.

Also, just in general, you'll get a cleaner burning fire if you stack the biggest pieces on the bottom, with smaller and smaller pieces on top, then light it from the top and let it burn down.

Do not do this. This is not how you build a fire.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:37 PM on December 24, 2008

Also, just in general, you'll get a cleaner burning fire if you stack the biggest pieces on the bottom, with smaller and smaller pieces on top, then light it from the top and let it burn down.

Reverse this and you'll be fine. I've never seen a fire that burned down - but maybe it's different in another hemisphere? (kidding). As for wet wood - bring in as much as you can to dry out in the house - split a big, well seasoned piece to get the fire going. Wood will dry out pretty quickly, but if it's not seasoned, you're in for trouble.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 6:58 PM on December 24, 2008

Also, just in general, you'll get a cleaner burning fire if you stack the biggest pieces on the bottom, with smaller and smaller pieces on top, then light it from the top and let it burn down.

That is a description, I think, of how I light fires. I build a cross-lattice of big wood at the bottom grading to smaller wood on top then light the small fire within that platform. It actually works fantastic and you get a lot less ash because more oxygen gets in to the bottom of the fire.
posted by fshgrl at 7:48 PM on December 24, 2008

Wet wood causes chimney fires. Chimney fires burn down houses.

No. No. No. GREEN wood is what you are talking about. The OP has seasoned wood which is wet. This is fine so long as the moisture is surface moisture. As other posters have said, add it to an already-burning fire, or (more simply) bring it inside and let it dry off for a day.

Invest in a stove thermometer which will tell you if you are burning hot enough to avoid creosote and cool enough not to destroy the stove and chimney.

The time you are really in danger of a chimney fire is burning the first fire of the year in an unfamiliar stove. In fact, all the chimney fires I have seen (several!) have been in this situation. Number one, get the chimney cleaned if you didn't witness the last cleaning (stove owners LIE bout the last cleaning, always). Number two, get the chimney cleaned if it was last cleaned more than a year ago. Number three, err on the side of hot fires rather than cool fires once the chimney is clean. Number four, DO NOT use the Chimney Sweeping Log, which will cause chips of creosote to fall from you chimney and congregate in crooks and bends where they will CAUSE chimney fires. Most important of all, never burn green wood.

Finally, if you ever have a chimney fire, call 911 IMMEDIATELY. Shut off the stove damper. If you have a fire extinguisher, put out the stove fire with it. Water in the hot stove once the fire is out will send water vapour up the chimney and may limit the fire. Move all living beings out of the house, as the prognosis very distinctly includes the house burning down to the ground, especially if it is old and wood-framed.

If you are lucky enough that the FD arrives before your house burns to the ground, do not complain when they squirt water down the chimney, flooding your entire house with filthy water.

Yes, that chimney cleaning is well worth it!

I love woodstoves. Mine's burning right now dead on 350 degrees.
posted by unSane at 8:35 PM on December 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

If the wood has been sitting outside for over a year, it's going to be a lot more than surface moisture that you'll have to burn off.

Generally speaking, wet wood needs dry wood to get started. If you don't already have a good, hot fire to counter the moisture in the wood, it'll never reach ignition temperature. On the other hand, if you've already established a good base of burning embers, the wet wood will be steadily consumed down to ash.

If you don't have any dry wood to start the fire, start burning the pile from smallest pieces to largest.

Do not do this. This is not how you build a fire.

I think the thinking behind "small pieces on top" is that you can reach ignition point more rapidly due to the greater amount of air available. The problem with the kindling-on-top method is that fire burns up, not down, which means you have to quickly re-arrange the wood after you've got your small fire going, or place a larger piece on top of the kindling after it has ignited.

If, as everyone has been countering, you build a fire in the "traditional" manner--kindling on bottom, larger pieces on top--you risk starving the fire of air before it ever gets started. This is why care must be taken to arrange the wood so there's a conduit for oxygen to feed the flame. My SO makes a killer camp fire by employing the "teepee" method of interlocking sticks that get larger as they work outward. She makes a little opening in the middle ("inside" the teepee) where she puts birch bark and other quick-burning materials.

If you're ever in the woods and need a freakishly large camp fire very quickly (20 ft. flames), this is the method I recommend.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:58 AM on December 25, 2008

If that wood is covered with snow, and your climate is cold enough, that wood is fine.
It's still dry.

In defense of good brain, there is a situation where I use his method.
If I am going to burn a pile of "brush" outside in the winter, which is composed primarily of
"sticks" in a several cubic yard pile, I start the fire on top, with some newspaper and kindling.

If you light said pile from the bottom, the smoke is terrible. If you light it from the top, the
fire is almost smoke-free, and radiation drys out the brush below the flame zone.

I've never seen anyone use this method in a fireplace if they have access to seasoned wood,
but in this modern age most people don't know anything about fires or fireplaces or heating
with wood. If you assumed that most people were making fires with wet fuel or
unseasoned wood you wouldn't often be wrong.
posted by the Real Dan at 10:42 AM on December 25, 2008