Did three wrongs make it right?

[Pete Kurki]

So - I had a wood stove installed in my shop last April and gathered couple of cords of firewood over summer and fall. Everything has gone really well so far, I was saving $250 a month in power bills during the coldest months vs. previous years when I was running multiple electric heaters in the shop, and I really enjoy the warmth of wood fire while working in the shop. Then I started reading this forum a couple months ago and realized I had done everything wrong. How ignorant had I been! Most of my firewood I have been burning this winter came from trees I felled around June. Grown up in a city I did not know I was supposed to fell trees for firewood in winter to minimize the starting moisture. Then I cut and split the logs and just dumped them into big mountain inside my barn. At the time nobody had told me that I was supposed to neatly pile them and leave them outside to cure in sun and wind. Then my last sin was to start burning this wood in November when it started getting cold here, and since I was not a reader of this forum yet I had no idea that in 5-6 months my firewood could not possibly be cured and dry enough to burn. Then I start reading posts in this forum and learn about all the mistakes I had made. I immediately ordered a wood moisture meter and to my surprise all my splits are around 13% moisture on the surface and around 18% inside when measured from the freshly split surface. No wonder I never noticed any of the symptoms related to burning green wood. But anyway, what the heck is going on? Is it the dry Central Minnesota climate that makes my life so easy? Pure beginner's luck?

Pete

 

[oldspark]

Too many varibles for all of the drying time predications you see on here, type of wood, was tree dead, how long dead, how long drying season is yada yada yada. I am a little surprised the moisture content was that low, what type of wood was it?

 

[Pete Kurki]

Virtually all of my firewood came from live standing trees. There was one large, rotten in center oak I felled and split. Other than that I can only tell they were alive trees with leaves (not evergreens). Unfortunately I'm really bad with tree ID, only know the most common hardwood species that I am familiar with from woodworking. I was just felling trees my neighbor wanted to remove from his park, various soft wood species I could not ID. Regardless, all the wood that came from that large oak is just as dry as everything else from my June "harvest".

 

[rdust]

I'm sure it has something to due with the area that you're in. I cut/split some oak tree tops that were down in the early spring, I tried burning that wood last week and it burned like crap. The moisture content is around 30% still.

 

[Danno77]

and you're sure your moisture reader is working ok?

 

[smokinj]

If it works it works. By any chance is this dead standing timber?

 

[Pete Kurki]

and you're sure your moisture reader is working ok?

It was the first thing that crossed my mind as well, but other than buying another moisture meter I don't know any other way to calibrate it. I have tried it on some over 10 years air dried oak lumber that I have, and it showed figures around 8%. Same for green wood it showed high figures (can't remember now exactly how high, it was weeks ago when I did that.)

 

[Pete Kurki]

If it works it works. By any chance is this dead standing timber?

Nope. While the trees were not the healthiest ones around, they all still had leaves in them.

 

[quads]

So - I had a wood stove installed in my shop last April and gathered couple of cords of firewood over summer and fall. Everything has gone really well so far, I was saving $250 a month in power bills during the coldest months vs. previous years when I was running multiple electric heaters in the shop, and I really enjoy the warmth of wood fire while working in the shop. Then I started reading this forum a couple months ago and realized I had done everything wrong. How ignorant had I been! Most of my firewood I have been burning this winter came from trees I felled around June. Grown up in a city I did not know I was supposed to fell trees for firewood in winter to minimize the starting moisture. Then I cut and split the logs and just dumped them into big mountain inside my barn. At the time nobody had told me that I was supposed to neatly pile them and leave them outside to cure in sun and wind. Then my last sin was to start burning this wood in November when it started getting cold here, and since I was not a reader of this forum yet I had no idea that in 5-6 months my firewood could not possibly be cured and dry enough to burn. Then I start reading posts in this forum and learn about all the mistakes I had made. I immediately ordered a wood moisture meter and to my surprise all my splits are around 13% moisture on the surface and around 18% inside when measured from the freshly split surface. No wonder I never noticed any of the symptoms related to burning green wood. But anyway, what the heck is going on? Is it the dry Central Minnesota climate that makes my life so easy? Pure beginner's luck?

Pete

Congratulations! Sometimes luck just goes your way and it feels good!

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I dunno, but 3 lefts do.

 

[webie]

So - I had a wood stove installed in my shop last April and gathered couple of cords of firewood over summer and fall. Everything has gone really well so far, I was saving $250 a month in power bills during the coldest months vs. previous years when I was running multiple electric heaters in the shop, and I really enjoy the warmth of wood fire while working in the shop. Then I started reading this forum a couple months ago and realized I had done everything wrong. How ignorant had I been! Most of my firewood I have been burning this winter came from trees I felled around June. Grown up in a city I did not know I was supposed to fell trees for firewood in winter to minimize the starting moisture. Then I cut and split the logs and just dumped them into big mountain inside my barn. At the time nobody had told me that I was supposed to neatly pile them and leave them outside to cure in sun and wind. Then my last sin was to start burning this wood in November when it started getting cold here, and since I was not a reader of this forum yet I had no idea that in 5-6 months my firewood could not possibly be cured and dry enough to burn. Then I start reading posts in this forum and learn about all the mistakes I had made. I immediately ordered a wood moisture meter and to my surprise all my splits are around 13% moisture on the surface and around 18% inside when measured from the freshly split surface. No wonder I never noticed any of the symptoms related to burning green wood. But anyway, what the heck is going on? Is it the dry Central Minnesota climate that makes my life so easy? Pure beginner's luck?

Pete

I wish we had a tree expert on here , I am not one and don't claim to be one but here is my take on the situation from a previous experience and when is the best time to cut wood ?
I don't know if I read this was told this or how I know this but here goes the story .
Along time ago and I am talking in the 80's The family ,Dad my brother and me had the opportunity to cut oak tops off of some public property that had been logged.
Well we went at it cut over 36 cords of oak , the stuff had been cut right after the snow melt so April and we were cutting the tops up in may .
We hauled it all home in firewood chunks and split it here at my house the next fall and piled it . A year later we tried to burn the stuff and it just sizzled like it was just cut , well lucky enough we were plenty far ahead as to not needing it so we left it sit another year . Now 2and a half years after it was cut it still could use more during as it still sizzled not quite as bad but it still had moisture in it. I had a big enough supply i didn't need to use much that winter but when I did you could sure tell it could use more seasoning .
Now we could not figure out what the heck was up so we started getting some feelers out on what was up and this is what we found out about cutting and burning fire wood and there is alot of truth to this at least here where I live in Wisconsin .
If any one wants to argue this they can or any input they can and like I said earlier I don't know where I know this from its been 20 + years .
Trees grow and go thru several different growing cycles a year .
The worse time to cut and dry fire wood is early to late spring when the weather starts to start warming and the days get longer , this is the time of year when the sap in the tree roots start pulling back up the tree into the limbs and twigs to start the growing process of the new year it is highly concentrated moistly of sugars .
This is the worse time to cut sugars don't dry period .
After the spring growth and the trees grow there new limbs and leaves they go through a short dormant cycle before they start there down swing of going dormant for the winter . Usually sometime in June . This is the point where they are done growing for the year and then the reverse starts to happen when they start to produce the sugars at a slower pace to be stored back in the roots for the next year usually end of June , July and early august , way depending on how the spring was .
Some time in august the tree's again go into a dormant stage again this time to just sit there and wait for fall when at that point the sap quits the life blood to the leaves and they dry up and fall off .
so to answer you question On how did this all happen .
You had a lucky horse shoe and did everything right .

1. You must have hit the right couple of weeks to cut when the tree cycle had exhausted its sap supply to its leaves so there for the trunk only even though it was green and wet it was only water moisture and probably not much of that as I can remember last year we started a kinda dry period here in Wisconsin and am thinking maybe for you too in Minnesota .
2. You threw the wood in a barn loosely . As I can remember the last barn that I was in it had good rain cover but was far from air tight so there fore from June till you burned it your wood never got wet again and actually because we were having a dryer spell with very low humidity your airy barn with a wood pile in it was drying just fine . remember just because you didn't pile your wood doesn't mean its not drying . A tightly piled wood pile takes alot longer to dry then a loose piled one and if you just threw it on a pile in a drafty barn it dried just fine as it never got wet again
3 . So now as far as your third sin congratulation on successful year .
Don't count on a lucky horseshoe every year.
And that's my take on the whole thing .
Webie

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum Pete and it is good to hear you have some burn time under your belt now.

As for what you have burned and evidently did so successfully, it is difficult to tell what or why. Bear in mind that anyone can burn less than good quality firewood the same as you can eat less than good quality food and still live to tell about it. This is one problem we see from time to time. Someone will tell a big story about how he burned green wood and got away with it so they will then continue to do the same thing over and over and over. They will also "educate" some other new wood burners which is a real shame. When they have problems they will keep it to themselves lest someone says, "I told you so!" However, you won't find those folks here in hearth.com.

What you will find in the future is if you start doing the right things you will notice that you will burn much less wood and get much more heat when the wood has had the proper time to dry. I do also hope you have been checking your chimney. For now, count your blessings that you got through your first year okay.....and get next year's wood on hand ASAP. You will be much happier with the results. Good luck to you.

 

[Pete Kurki]

Welcome to the forum Pete and it is good to hear you have some burn time under your belt now.
What you will find in the future is if you start doing the right things you will notice that you will burn much less wood and get much more heat when the wood has had the proper time to dry. I do also hope you have been checking your chimney. For now, count your blessings that you got through your first year okay.....and get next year's wood on hand ASAP. You will be much happier with the results. Good luck to you.

Yup, I already figured that one guy only wins the jackpot once in the lifetime, so I already have got enough wood cut for the next two burning seasons drying outside under metal cover. All rounds at this point so I better get busy splitting them so they get another 9 months to dry as splits. Guess best to pile all oak separately to give it an extra year. Also will have close to a cord left over from this season to get started with next fall. Then late next fall back to help neighbor clean up his "jungle" again and probably get another couple seasons worth rounds from that exercise.

I bet you are right about burning experience improving with more aged wood. As I said in my earlier post I never noticed any green wood symptoms though. Really easy to get fire going, and stove got hot very fast (even too fast sometimes for my taste), but one thing I did notice was that a full load of wood would burn down to coal in just couple of hours - much faster than I initially expected. So hopefully longer burn times will be possible next winter.

Thanks to all the others as well for chipping in.

Pete

 

[Pete Kurki]

1. You must have hit the right couple of weeks to cut when the tree cycle had exhausted its sap supply to its leaves so there for the trunk only even though it was green and wet it was only water moisture and probably not much of that as I can remember last year we started a kinda dry period here in Wisconsin and am thinking maybe for you too in Minnesota .
2. You threw the wood in a barn loosely . As I can remember the last barn that I was in it had good rain cover but was far from air tight so there fore from June till you burned it your wood never got wet again and actually because we were having a dryer spell with very low humidity your airy barn with a wood pile in it was drying just fine . remember just because you didn't pile your wood doesn't mean its not drying . A tightly piled wood pile takes alot longer to dry then a loose piled one and if you just threw it on a pile in a drafty barn it dried just fine as it never got wet again
Webie

Thanks Webie - lots if interesting comments in your post. You are correct about the dry season last year. The few summers I have lived here have overall been very dry - only a few days per summer have been humid enough to even notice. Then of course as soon as the temperatures go permanently below freezing (around thanksgiving) it gets super dry here and that lasted until about week ago when it finally got warm enough to snow start melting.

 

[Battenkiller]

It was the first thing that crossed my mind as well, but other than buying another moisture meter I don't know any other way to calibrate it. I have tried it on some over 10 years air dried oak lumber that I have, and it showed figures around 8%.

Well, there you go... your meter is off.

There is no way that wood stored outside will ever reach an EMC of 8%, no matter how many centuries it is out there. 12-15% MC is about as low as you will ever get it in your location. Final moisture content is dependent entirely on the average relative humidity in your area, and not on the amount of time the wood has been sitting. Storing wood outside beyond three years does nothing to improve its qualities as a firewood, and may in fact reduce its heat output due to the ever present, insidious and sometimes unapparent growth of fungi and mold in the wood. Those who tell you otherwise are misinformed.

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Equilibrium_moisture_content_of_wood_in_outdoor_lo.html

So your wood is probably in the >20% MC range. Most wood will lose all of its "free water" in a relatively short time (several months), but will take an additional 1-2 years to lose the "bound water" and get down to <20%. Your wood probably burned OK for you, but not as well as fully seasoned wood. Next year will be better.

 

[CrawfordCentury]

Maybe you lucked out. Maybe a faulty meter. Personally, I don't trust them. False sense of security.

I'd make a point to get up on the roof and take a look down the chimney pipe.

 

[Battenkiller]

Of course, if you owned a Jotul stove, you'd have a different set of rules that would govern how fast your wood dries. This is from the Jotul website:

Drying your fire wood


1. Cut the wood to length
The wood you have purchased or cut yourself should be the right length for your stove, fireplace or furnace. This is usually about three inches shorter than the firebox width or length, depending on how you load the wood.


2. Split it to the right size
Next, split the wood to the proper size for your burner. For most efficient wood stoves, this is usually no more than six inches measured at the largest cross sectional dimension. A range of piece sizes is best so that when kindling a fire or reloading on a coal bed you have some smallish pieces that will help you achieve the desirable instant ignition. A selection of sizes from three to six inches in diameter for wood stoves will probably serve you well.

Keep in mind that firewood only begins to dry seriously once it is cut and split to the right size because in log form the moisture is held in by the bark. So, when buying wood, ask when the wood was cut split and properly stacked to get an idea of how ready it is for burning. For this reason, experienced woodburners like to get their wood in the early spring so they can manage the drying process themselves.


3. Pile in a single row exposed to the sun and wind.
If wood is to be below 20% moisture content when you burn it in the winter, it must have the moisture removed. The only practical way homeowners can do this is to allow the sun and wind to dry the wood for them. With this in mind, the wood should be piled in a place where the sun can warm it and the wind can blow through it. As the sun heats and evaporates the water from the wood pile the wind whisks it away.


4. Let the wood dry all summer
Most folks who split their wood and stack it in well-spaced rows find that they can dry their wood in four or five months. If you have your wood stacked in May or June it should be ready to put away for winter’s use by October. There should be no need to dry it longer than that, unless you live in a damp maritime climate and/or use very dense wood like Oak, which is notorious for taking a long time to dry.

So get rid of your QF and get a Jotul. Like magic, your wood will be under 20% MC and ready to burn in only 4-5 months. %-P

 

[webie]

Ok do we have any guys here that know anything about trees ...........really knows because other than us uneducated folks guessing I would really like to know.
Any arborist pros out there ?

 

[Pete Kurki]

It was the first thing that crossed my mind as well, but other than buying another moisture meter I don't know any other way to calibrate it. I have tried it on some over 10 years air dried oak lumber that I have, and it showed figures around 8%.

Well, there you go... your meter is off.

There is no way that wood stored outside will ever reach an EMC of 8%, no matter how many centuries it is out there. 12-15% MC is about as low as you will ever get it in your location. Final moisture content is dependent entirely on the average relative humidity in your area, and not on the amount of time the wood has been sitting. Storing wood outside beyond three years does nothing to improve its qualities as a firewood, and may in fact reduce its heat output due to the ever present, insidious and sometimes unapparent growth of fungi and mold in the wood. Those who tell you otherwise are misinformed.

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Equilibrium_moisture_content_of_wood_in_outdoor_lo.html

So your wood is probably in the >20% MC range. Most wood will lose all of its "free water" in a relatively short time (several months), but will take an additional 1-2 years to lose the "bound water" and get down to <20%. Your wood probably burned OK for you, but not as well as fully seasoned wood. Next year will be better.

Battenkiller, you jumped too quickly into a conclusion here. I never said the oak lumber that read 8% was stored outside. It has been air dried (meaning not kiln dried) and kept inside various barns for all those years. It is rough sawed into 1" thickness and stickered like any sawed lumber one stores for furniture making. I believe 8-10% is fairly typical moisture level for lumber like that in a dry climate (well, today it's raining but anyway...). Maybe I will go ahead and buy another moisture meter anyway, as I have been thinking about getting a more accurate one for my woodworking needs. Just been holding back as the really accurate ones tend to cost hundreds of dollars.

In any case, I don't doubt that you and others are correct saying that the splits will be much drier this time next year, but if for a moment we were to presume that my moisture meter may be in the right ballpark after all, do I really want my firewood much drier than 18%? My stove manual does not give any guidelines for the optimal moisture content, but I have understood that I would much easier risk overfiring my stove with too dry stuff, but then again I am not at all clear how dry is really too dry? Probably 8-10% oak would burn too hot (not that I'm intending to use it as firewood anyway), but how about softwood that is 15%?

Still don't know what species wood I have been mostly burning. I will try to take some pictures and post it here for ID.

BTW, thanks for the link. Very interesting and useful indeed. I am about 1 hr southwest from St Cloud.

Pete

 

[Pete Kurki]

Maybe you lucked out. Maybe a faulty meter. Personally, I don't trust them. False sense of security.

I'd make a point to get up on the roof and take a look down the chimney pipe.

Point taken, CC. Will make the trip up there as soon as the conditions allow climbing the slippery when wet metal roof and putting up a 10 foot ladder to see into the pipe. Today it's raining cats and dogs, and may continue for rest of the week. Maybe try to peek in on Sat or Sun if the roof dries. I have not worried about it all that much as this is just a workshop stove used mostly only weekends and some evenings during the week, not anything like your 24/7 burners.

Pete

 

[Battenkiller]

Hot Turkey, storing wood in a barn is not much different than storing it in a covered woodshed. Either way, the wood will always reach an equilibrium with the relative humidity of the air in the place in which it is stored. The only reason why wood stored inside a home reaches lower moisture levels is because we do something unnatural to the air to change the relative humidity, like heat it up or air-condition it. Unless you are doing something like this inside the barn, the RH is likely to be the same as it is outside, probably even higher since it is likely to be cooler in the barn. Getting readings of 8% MC on oak stored that way makes me suspect the meter is not accurate.

At any rate, this is in no way answering your question about what is an ideal moisture content, but I don't think going below 18% will do anything to cause overfiring of your stove in and of itself. Wood stored outside and under cover for many years will eventually reach a MC of between 12-15% (depending on the season) almost anywhere in the nation. I have not heard of anybody complaining that their four year old wood is burning out of control. Using kiln-dried (about 6% MC) or oven-dried (0% MC) wood might cause such a problem, but only if the stove is packed and the intake air is open too much. If your wood was indeed around 18%, it is very near the ideal MC. A few percentage points higher or lower shouldn't help or harm at all. If your meter is off by about 5%, then maybe your wood was at around 23-25% MC... perfectly fine to burn IMHO. It's not like you were trying to burn green oak at 80% MC. Many hardwoods can reach 25% MC in just a few months of storage in dry (<50% RH), moving air. Most stoves will burn that wood relatively cleanly if the fire is sufficiently hot to begin with. Still, <20% MC is considerably better by most accounts.

 

[Pete Kurki]

Hot Turkey, storing wood in a barn is not much different than storing it in a covered woodshed. Either way, the wood will always reach an equilibrium with the relative humidity of the air in the place in which it is stored. The only reason why wood stored inside a home reaches lower moisture levels is because we do something unnatural to the air to change the relative humidity, like heat it up or air-condition it. Unless you are doing something like this inside the barn, the RH is likely to be the same as it is outside, probably even higher since it is likely to be cooler in the barn. Getting readings of 8% MC on oak stored that way makes me suspect the meter is not accurate.

At any rate, this is in no way answering your question about what is an ideal moisture content, but I don't think going below 18% will do anything to cause overfiring of your stove in and of itself. Wood stored outside and under cover for many years will eventually reach a MC of between 12-15% (depending on the season) almost anywhere in the nation. I have not heard of anybody complaining that their four year old wood is burning out of control. Using kiln-dried (about 6% MC) or oven-dried (0% MC) wood might cause such a problem, but only if the stove is packed and the intake air is open too much. If your wood was indeed around 18%, it is very near the ideal MC. A few percentage points higher or lower shouldn't help or harm at all. If your meter is off by about 5%, then maybe your wood was at around 23-25% MC... perfectly fine to burn IMHO. It's not like you were trying to burn green oak at 80% MC. Many hardwoods can reach 25% MC in just a few months of storage in dry (<50% RH), moving air. Most stoves will burn that wood relatively cleanly if the fire is sufficiently hot to begin with. Still, <20% MC is considerably better by most accounts.

OK good points, and very believable logic. Just like you mention, I can not see any visible difference in how this stuff burns vs. some old oak off cuts from woodworking jobs I have been also burning now and then. No difficulty in lighting or no visible smoke out of stack 10 minutes after lighting. Anyway, next fall I should then definitely be down below 20%, right? Maybe just reorganize my split mountain to resemble more like a wood pile to help the situation.

 

[Tony H]

What does the meter read when you check some kiln dried stuff ? Maybe the reading is fairly accurate .

 

[Wood Duck]

i think your wood isn't fully seasoned, but it is good enough and you are good enough at burning that you overcame a potential problem. I don't know what's up with your moisture meter, but the readings you get seem too low for wood that hasn't seasoned very long. Like Battenkiller wrote, your readings may be too low regardless of how long the wood has seasoned in a barn. Nevertheless, it is possible to burn wood that isn't fully seasoned and do just fine heating the house. Sounds like you should be skilled at starting a fire, and starting fires is when unseasoned wood will be the biggest pain, so maybe the start up problems of green wood you just haven't had. Once a fire is hot, you can burn green wood and it will put off plenty of heat; it will take a little more air, put of a little less heat, and make more smoke and creosote than drier wood, but it will burn for sure. Finally, maybe the trees you cut are a lot of quicker seasoning wood like ash, soft maple, etc., so maybe your wood isn't all that moist. I say keep doing what you're doing and see if your wood burns even better next winter.

 

[Dune]

I don't see much mystery here. In spite of those who insist on seasoning their would outside, uncovered, if you want something to dry fast keep rain off it completely. The reason you will often find a very old barn in great condition while it's acompanying home is rotted out and falling down, is due to a barn's good ventilation properties.
When did you check the wood with the moisture meter? Recently, I would asume. Wood dries well in the winter, and I bet the content was not as low last november as it is now, after almost six more month's seasonig time.