So, here I am cruising along thinking that I have it made - my wood supply is all good an all. The pile I have set for this winter has been split/stacked for at least 2 years, some for over 3. I'd have thought it would all be near ideal.
I've been doing great as well - everything burning nicely, too fast if anything - ha! Anyway, then this morning I started a small fire with 4 splits with the usual SC in the middle to get it going. Now, normally after 20 minutes or so the stove is very hot and the wood is burning on most all surfaces. Not today! I looked in there and thought I'd forgotten to open the air up or something - the wood was burning but only in the middle where the SC had been and on faces that had splits facing each other. After double checking stove settings and all I took a peek inside the stove - surprise! 3 of the splits had water bubbling out of the end. Go figure.
All I can figure is that these pieces must have come from the bottom of the pile (near the ground, but on the pallet) where leaves had piled against them this fall and somehow they sucked up moisture in a hurry. I don't know - I'm going to be a bit more observant going forward though and see how many of these lemons I have in the pile! Maybe I got my piles mixed up? Arg.
Anyway, certainly makes me appreciate the dry wood a lot more! I put a couple more pieces in (definitely more dry) on top and those took right off so it got the stove up to temp and hopefully dried out the wet ones after I left for work. Amazing the difference - all oak as far as I know, but there are some random other species mixed in there too.
I've been doing great as well - everything burning nicely, too fast if anything - ha! Anyway, then this morning I started a small fire with 4 splits with the usual SC in the middle to get it going. Now, normally after 20 minutes or so the stove is very hot and the wood is burning on most all surfaces. Not today! I looked in there and thought I'd forgotten to open the air up or something - the wood was burning but only in the middle where the SC had been and on faces that had splits facing each other. After double checking stove settings and all I took a peek inside the stove - surprise! 3 of the splits had water bubbling out of the end. Go figure.
All I can figure is that these pieces must have come from the bottom of the pile (near the ground, but on the pallet) where leaves had piled against them this fall and somehow they sucked up moisture in a hurry. I don't know - I'm going to be a bit more observant going forward though and see how many of these lemons I have in the pile! Maybe I got my piles mixed up? Arg.
Anyway, certainly makes me appreciate the dry wood a lot more! I put a couple more pieces in (definitely more dry) on top and those took right off so it got the stove up to temp and hopefully dried out the wet ones after I left for work. Amazing the difference - all oak as far as I know, but there are some random other species mixed in there too.