Drying Firewood In a Greenhouse – What You Need to Know
Isn’t it amazing that we, wood burners, come up with so many great ideas regarding our never ending passion for firewood?
Today’s topic is about drying firewood inside of a greenhouse. For some, this idea might seem plain stupid, for others, an actual plan of action, and why wouldn’t that be?
Greenhouses stay warmer than the outside pretty much the whole year, so it would make sense to think that if you store the freshly split wood inside of there, it’ll season quicker, right?
Indeed possible
Let me get this out right from the get-go – yes, it is certainly possible to dry firewood inside of a greenhouse; in fact, it can be even quicker than doing so regularly outside.
With that said, a standard greenhouse as it is won’t work – you will have to apply some modifications for it all to work.
Ventilation is the key
The goal here is to turn the greenhouse structure into something of a solar kiln – in order for that to be the case, the most important thing to keep in mind is ventilation.
Common greenhouses, be it the hoop house or what have you, get notoriously hot and humid. In these conditions, wood that’ll be used for heating purposes will not get seasoned properly.
To have fresh air coming in, it is best to have at least one opening, preferably closer to the top. On the other end of the greenhouse, a fan should be used to move the moisture out when needed.
But that’s not it – you have to take care of the ground as well. What i mean by that specifically is covering it with some sort of material, to act as a vapor barrier.
You can go as far as piling the whole soil with gravel, or even pour concrete (forget about growing anything inside of there any later then!), although you don’t need to do even that – regular plastic sheeting can work good enough.
The goal here is to prevent the exposure of soil inside of the structure – if you don’t do that, there is no way in world you’ll be able to control the inside humidity levels to the needed point.
Keep the wood off the ground
Another crucial thing to follow is making sure the wood is stacked on something which allows airflow to go through and around it – hands down the best material for that sort of thing are pallets.
If you don’t elevate the firewood off the ground, the lower and inside parts of the stack will either not get seasoned enough, or will stay damp for the entirety of time.
Considering the fact that fresh air will be somewhat scarce in an environment like that, going an extra mile and making sure you are really thorough during the whole stacking process can work wonders.
But this is a waste of time…
Now even though seasoning your firewood supply right inside of the greenhouse may sound like a great idea, in my mind it is definitely not.
To begin with, you’ll be wasting a rather big amount of time figuring out how to do all of the building. Sure, it won’t be as bad if you already have a greenhouse you can utilize for this sort of thing right away, but all of the additional work you’d be putting here could be invested in something better, like cutting, splitting and stacking more wood instead!
I mean, if you’re behind the wood preparation for the upcoming season, stacking wood inside of a greenhouse might not be a bad go at all; that said, if you got your time in check, please just stick to the ol’ wood rows right out in the open (that’s how i do it).