I've been contemplating a solar kiln to dry my split logs we use to heat the house. Our stove is extremely efficient and burns cleaner than many traditional furnaces. But this all comes at the trade off of requiring very seasoned -- dry -- wood. My zero tech solution requires chopping wood for two years in advanced. Not a big deal, having two years of fuel on hand is a very nice feeling. But it does mean moving wood around a lot. I'd be nice to just kiln dry my wood and then know that all the logs I have are stove ready.
FYI - if you don't have a lot of time, you can get away with a much simpler solar kiln than the one in this article, which is still a huge improvement over the natural seasoning process. I highly recommend it with a newer-style wood stove that prefers very dry wood.
We built one last year that was essentially only the frame of this design (but less sturdy), and wrapped it with clear plastic sheeting. Super scrappy, built from 2x3s on top of a pallet. No plywood sheathing (although we did put bubble wrap around the walls), not even painted black. I eventually put an old computer fan at the top of it to blow outward, but originally it didn't even have airflow. It took oak splits with ~30% moisture content down to <20% in a matter of weeks. That wood burns hot!
It's my gym. Chopping wood and fixing old tractors/trucks are two of my favorite things. They both leave me feeling like I really put in a good day's worth of work.
A neighbour nearby has pallets on the ground ringed with wire fencing. After he splits the wood, he throws it haphazardly into the cage and then tarps the top. It sits like that for a full year before he stacks it in the queue for winter burning.
Not sure how that compares to your process, but it seems about as efficient as possible in terms of moving wood around and I think it would be a lot less work than a solar kiln.
I use pallets too. They're great, I put the kids to work and they stack it as I split. Then I shuffle the pallets around. They all sit in a shed, but I have to rearrange that them in the shed since the driest is at the back. My thought is if I could make a kiln that'd hold two or three pallets of wood (a year's worth) than every pallet that goes into the shed would be stove-ready and I wouldn't need to shuffle them around.
Only issue is that behind the shed is sloped a good deal and the forks (for lifting pallets) won't pick up pallets that aren't on the same grade. I'd have to build a retaining wall to access from the back side.
Get wood in early spring at most, felled in winter, if you get it chopped while it’s still cold it’ll be sub 20% moisture by fall by just sitting in the sun and wind. The trick is that it starts relatively dry.
The previous owner of my house (in rural Wisconsin) built some simple-but-effective wood sheds. They're old corn crib roofs, held up on 4x4 posts. Since they're not walled in you can access wood from any side (no need to move stacks), there's plenty of airflow, and the roofs keep out the rain and snow. I may put up some chicken wire fencing between some of the posts to keep dry leaves from blowing in.
Well "rustic" is probably some of my best work! We run a farm as a hobby/side hustle/retire-early dream and I always enjoy doing things the "old" way. Lots of rough hewn lumber and timber. I got an ox even ha!
