Hi all, I'm a new member to hearth here. Originally from northern VT, Now Southern NH.
My wood-burning background began in the energy crisis/oil embargo of 1971: My father, who was a Mechanical and Electrical Engineer and MIT Mathematician (this accounts at least in part for my inherited OCD and deep respect for the scientific method of observation) bought what was to end up being my first saw, a Stihl 024 Good saw when the fuel line wasn't cracked, which happened a lot.
Since then, I've heated partly (or exclusively) with wood over the years, first using the open fireplaces in our 1950's house (one with a "heatilator");then a Jotul mini; Hearthstone II; Hearthstone Heritage; Quadrafire mid-size, and currently a Vemont Castings Montpelier fireplace insert.
Saws were the 024, then a Wood Boss, and now a Dolmar 510. I like this new saw a lot. Starts right up and seems to want to keep cutting wood even after I shut it down.
After learning the hard way about burning unseasoned, wet wood from our family wood lot, and after I saw one of these used in my first job at Woodbury's bowl mill in Shelburne, VT, I bought a kiln-quality Delmhorst analog moisture meter with the long probe. This is a very accurate meter. Since the 80's I have routinely checked "control pieces" in my stacks throughout the summer and winter, both to see how they're drying, and to know the best area of the huge stacks had I felled and cut up I should next pull wood from to bring in the house. I always covered the wood enough to keep the center of the pile/stacks dry, but exposed the edges to sun, wind (and wind-driven rain/ snow). I kept some simple notes on the results.
With all that introduction stuff behind us now, and having read all the other posts in this thread, I have two observations to share here:
1) Covered, but with sides wind/sun exposed (shed roof or loose tarp, didn't seem to matter) stove-length wood drys out at a pretty regular rate, pretty evenly throughout each individual control piece, all year round (around a percent or two a month). It will reach an ambient MC of around 9 to 10 % outdoors. After six months and below a 14% MC tipping point, it will burn more readily than it will "sulk and char" (good imagery from an above post here:~) Splitting increases the drying RATE by a half to a full percentage point or so per month, but it does not affect the MC bottom line, presumably because it allows humidity to infiltrate as easily as collected moisture to evaporate from the wood. Bringing wood dried this way indoors and left for ahwile will allow it to then dry to about 7%, at which point it it will burn like old 2x4's.
I recommend against bringing non-stack-dried wood into a garage or house as it severely retards drying to be in unventilated space - no matter how hot it gets in summer - and there's the nasty parasite and carpenter ant potential to think about. I never tested the drying time the one year I did this, but the wood hissed and spat all that winter, and we had to call an exterminator in January.
2) With regards to some of the math in previous posts, My dad always said: "The more equations one adds to an earnest but theoretical formula, the more critical variables one will have missed in the ultimate field result."
Once again 82 years of experience. Now with that being said if you you cut today don't expect to burn tomorrow, that's left to the politicians:>)
