how fast does oak dry

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stircrazy

stircrazy

Member
Dec 6, 2011
74
BC, Canada
a buddy of mine gave me a couple stove loads of oak, and a couple chunks of arbutus to comare burn times as I only burn pine.

when I checked them they were about 24 to 28%mc so I stacked them about 1 foot away from my insert on the hearth. what I am wondering is a ball park time you would expect them to be dry enough to try out if I am just burning one fire a day.

Steve
 
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About 6 more months for the oak.
 
Slowly. At 28 percent? Probably two years outside. Hard to say in front of your insert.
Small splits will season faster.
 
Did you split them to get a moisture reading? Like Pauly said, its hard to tell, just keep checking them.

I wouldn't mess with it any time soon if it were me as long as I had something else I could burn.
 
It sounds like the easy water is out of the wood. Drying by a fire will be greatly accelerated but the last points will still be hard to get out. With one fire a day you might have some pieces ready to go in March. Since you know about what the wood is at now you can figure out when it reaches 20% pretty easily if you have a reasonably accurate scale. To make it simple figure your wood is at 25%. That means for every pound of actual wood there is 1/4 pound of water. Weigh a piece, divide the weight by 125, then multiply that by 120. That is what the wood will weigh at 20%. (If you want to do it for a piece that you think is at 28% divide by 128 and multiply by 120, to figure it dried to 18% just multiply by 118.) So a 5 pound piece of wood at 28% will need to lose 5 ounces to reach 20%.

I have been drying 2 oak pieces next to my insert that were cut green in late October and late November. The rate at which they have been losing weight has gone down greatly but they are still getting lighter. Where they were initially losing an ounce or two a day they and now losing an ounce a week. So far they have lost 32% of their original weight and feel like they are almost there. I'll break open a piece soom. Trouble is you lose your experiment when you do it and I only have 2 pieces.
 
JoeyD said:
Did you split them to get a moisture reading? Like Pauly said, its hard to tell, just keep checking them.

I wouldn't mess with it any time soon if it were me as long as I had something else I could burn.
Click to expand...

No I didn't split them again, I am going to as they are still about twice the size of the splits I use, so I will check them again. I am in shoulder season already and still have lots of pine so no hurry to use it, heck its not cold enough to use it right now, been a warm winter here.

Steve
 
paul bunion said:
It sounds like the easy water is out of the wood. Drying by a fire will be greatly accelerated but the last points will still be hard to get out. With one fire a day you might have some pieces ready to go in March. Since you know about what the wood is at now you can figure out when it reaches 20% pretty easily if you have a reasonably accurate scale. To make it simple figure your wood is at 25%. That means for every pound of actual wood there is 1/4 pound of water. Weigh a piece, divide the weight by 125, then multiply that by 120. That is what the wood will weigh at 20%. (If you want to do it for a piece that you think is at 28% divide by 128 and multiply by 120, to figure it dried to 18% just multiply by 118.) So a 5 pound piece of wood at 28% will need to lose 5 ounces to reach 20%.

I have been drying 2 oak pieces next to my insert that were cut green in late October and late November. The rate at which they have been losing weight has gone down greatly but they are still getting lighter. Where they were initially losing an ounce or two a day they and now losing an ounce a week. So far they have lost 32% of their original weight and feel like they are almost there. I'll break open a piece soom. Trouble is you lose your experiment when you do it and I only have 2 pieces.
Click to expand...

thanks for the info, no scale, but I am not in a hurry, the way its going here it is going to be to warm for a full load anyways.

Steve
 
stircrazy said:
No I didn't split them again
Click to expand...

A reading taken from the outside isn't meaningful. It's possible the splits are actually dry inside but the exterior has soaked up a bit of water from contact with rain or snow. Absent recent exposure to surface moisture, the inside is probably much wetter than the exterior.
 
paul bunion said:
Since you know about what the wood is at now you can figure out when it reaches 20% pretty easily if you have a reasonably accurate scale. To make it simple figure your wood is at 25%. That means for every pound of actual wood there is 1/4 pound of water. Weigh a piece, divide the weight by 125, then multiply that by 120. That is what the wood will weigh at 20%.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately this doesn't work out too well unless you take the initial measurements when the split is fresh-cut and has relatively uniform moisture content. Spot measurements of MC in a partially dried split will range all over the place.
 
It's better stated "how slow does oak dry"... Minimum two years, better three years. Even after three years you may get a little sizzle on startup. Doesn't last long, but makes you wonder how can any moisture still be in the wood after three years...
 
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Yesterday I did a moisture check on 2 year old seasoned oak I just brought in and compared with ash that was cut Nov. 6th.

I resplit the both species and checked. The oak was running the same as the ash and they were 19-20%.

The oak is on pallets, in direct sunlight and gets lots of wind.
 
80% of all the wood I cut year round is mixed standing dead or deadfall Oak/Hickory.Of that amount - roughly 70% is Red/Black Oak.

I give it 12 to 18 months after splitting/stacking,with our strong winds that occur quite often throughout the year,its good to go then.

What little "green" Oak I get from CL or local tree service is split/stacked for 3 yrs.Some is ready after 2 yrs,but I'm in no rush being 5 years ahead now.
 
You must have an interesting arrangement if you have a mantle just one foot above your insert and have two loads of oak splits stacked on it! One thing for sure is you don't have a wife! I can't picture many wives going along with that sort of wood drying set up! With so little of the oak you could just toss a split in with your regular loads and it should help give you a nice overnight burn. If you were accurate with your 24% - 28% moisture readings they should burn fine one at a time added to good dry pine.
 
stejus said:
It's better stated "how slow does oak dry"... Minimum two years, better three years. Even after three years you may get a little sizzle on startup. Doesn't last long, but makes you wonder how can any moisture still be in the wood after three years...
Click to expand...

you are talking about the time for being outside in a wood pile are you not? this is inside the house on the hearth beside the insert. house is 35% humidity and the stack is 1 foot away from the insert.

I would be surprised if it took anywhere near that long to dry outside here. the area I am in is considered desert, very low humidity and very hot in the summer (100 to 112 average) my fruit hardwoods are down to about 15% in approximately 6 months. but that is neither here nor there, this stuff was probably ageing in a wood shed for almost a year (but down at the coast)
I know they are drying out some what as there have been some splits developing in the wood, but I guess I need to split one of them and see what it is really at now.

Steve
 
Nick Mystic said:
You must have an interesting arrangement if you have a mantle just one foot above your insert and have two loads of oak splits stacked on it!
Click to expand...

haha just read that, I meant hearth not mantel, its stacked beside my mantel. I usually have a stack on each side and one in the wood holder, but this season its been the oak on one side.

Steve
 
image.jpg Here's some water oak stacked behind my heater on wheels to be able to move around. 12" behind heat shield. Getting drier and almost there started drying December 30th.
 
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stircrazy said:
you are talking about the time for being outside in a wood pile are you not? this
Click to expand...

Sorry to confuse you, yes I was talking about seasoning oak outside in the piles. Inside, I have no idea.
 
Most of us who have a lot of oak to season live in climates that are pretty humid. If you are in eastern BC you might be in a much drier climate than we are used to. I still think you oak will take a long time to season, but maybe not as long as it would take here in the eastern side of the continent.
 
stircrazy said:
a buddy of mine gave me a couple stove loads of oak, and a couple chunks of arbutus to comare burn times as I only burn pine.

when I checked them they were about 24 to 28%mc so I stacked them about 1 foot away from my insert on the hearth. what I am wondering is a ball park time you would expect them to be dry enough to try out if I am just burning one fire a day.

Steve
Click to expand...

The more exact question is how slow does oak dry? And now you also know that taking a moisture reading is meaningless unless you do it immediately after being split. As for drying wood on the hearth, I have never liked that idea in the least.
 
I don't like it either, Dennis, but some times ya gotta do what you gotta do.
 
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The words "Oak'', ''fast'' and ''dry'' are almost never used in the same sentence.
 
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Nick Mystic said:
You must have an interesting arrangement if you have a mantle just one foot above your insert and have two loads of oak splits stacked on it! One thing for sure is you don't have a wife! I can't picture many wives going along with that sort of wood drying set up!
Click to expand...
Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:
I don't like it either, Dennis, but some times ya gotta do what you gotta do.
Click to expand...
I didn't like it a few years ago when I had to stack a half cord of White Ash in the house, ten feet from the entry door with fans blowing on it. I don't think my wife was too thrilled either, but I did like the fact that it went from 25 to 20% moisture content in a couple of weeks. >>
 
stejus said:
It's better stated "how slow does oak dry"... Minimum two years, better three years. Even after three years you may get a little sizzle on startup. Doesn't last long, but makes you wonder how can any moisture still be in the wood after three years...
Click to expand...
X2
 
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