moisture content makes such a difference.

Last week we were fencing at the Nevada ranch, being low on wood, wifey brought down a goodly amount. It, the wood, was from the end of a pile that had gotten damp from the snow and rain.
The wood seemed dry but the moisture content was high enough to make for poor burn. You could see by the stove thermometer. I had to keep the grate vent open much longer so the stove would get hot enough to heat the wood by convection.

Some of you guys have moisture meters for your wood I'll have to find one.

Thats why a lot of us have several years worth C/S/S. that way, you are ahead of the game for several reasons. Big thing is to top cover the wood the season before you use it, and have at least two or three years worth on hand. Makes life (and good hot fires) alot easier!

I can believe that. Actually this is the first year we were able to get our wood in early. Much of our wood is standing dead, when split it dries at a good pace.

On the standing dead, many of those can have lots of moisture in them! This comes as a surprise to many as the general thought is that it is dead so it is also dry and ready to burn. Most times one will find that the top half or the top third of the tree is very dry and indeed ready to burn. Not so for the bottom part though. Just today I cut some standing dead elm. One in particular was quite wet at the bottom but good solid wood. Another was good wood in the top 2/3 but the bottom third was actually beginning to turn punky. So each tree can be different.

If there's anything to be learned on this site and is gospel,DRY WOOD is it! Just this weekend I burned wood that was 12% to 14% MC and was blown away by the stoves performance when compared to wood I've burnt that is 16% to 20% MC. Not that I haven't gotten burns that many would die for but when you can maintain 600* for 10 hours without even trying it's unbelievable.Two back to back 24 hour burns with wood of this caliber really opened my eyes.I'm glad I've got at least 3 years supply on hand of wood that is capable of doing this,one wouldn't think that small of a difference would matter but it does.Dry wood is good,best lesson ever taught on this site.

Good words longarm! I fully agree.

WELL STATED. And very very true. That is one of the biggest things that is taken for granted, esp. with these newer EPA stoves.

Well, I agree and envy slightly you who have put up wood for the future. I promise myself to do that one day. Most of our wood is good and dry.

This year we dropped a few trees for next season. If all goes as planned we'll buck and split it in spring when the snow is gone.

Nothing like a fat well stacked wood pile.

We put up a 1000ft of fence on the lower ranch this year. Well, still have 650ft of wire to put up but the posts are in.

You agree with his numbers BWS?

What kind of wood? I would think it would be pretty dry by Fall. Average humidity is low there, correct? Probably plenty of wind, too...

Not BWS here obviously. Water burns pretty poorly, so lower MC == better. Period. Nothing complicated there. Unlike what BK asserted a while back, my stove's draft controls cope nicely with extremely dry wood.
This "stove tested at 20% MC" stuff is a red-herring to some, good thing NOT to mimic.
EPA fuel-mileage testing is done with dynamometer weights that increment in LARGE steps. When I do my real-world testing, it'd be silly to replicate that. Really!

The wood here on the mountain ranch is mostly Fir some pine. If split in spring it is dry by winter. Standing dead with a juicy bottom, the bottom, would be split small to give up the water.

The wind and heat at the lower ranch dries wood much faster and drier.

Not the numbers necessarily oldspark, but the idea. "was blown away by the stoves performance when compared to wood I’ve burnt that is 16% to 20% MC." In other words, wood that had dried longer burned better.

I am still checking some of my wood to try and make sense of some of the claims on here, I did get Green Ash to 13% over the summer and it burnt well, some of my 3 year old Oak is 17%, dont care if anyone believes me or not just doing some of my own research. Wood gets so dry and then stops losing any moisture outside, how long it takes seems to be a topic not agreed on by everyone. No point in trying to get my Green Ash any lower than 13% even though it was only about 9 months old so I burnt it.

Some areas of the country are just drier than others. There are places where the moisture content of the air will see to it that the firewood MC never falls below a level, others start out with.

In our lower ranch with the heat and wind will dry anything to the lowest MC.

At our place in Australia, when you got out of the shower it was hard to dry off. Slide your foot in a gum boot and you are likely to find a frog. Wood is always kind of damp.

I believe in dry wood, but i think people saying they can see a huge difference in burn performance in wood that is 14% compared to 16% mc is seeing what they want to see. That is such a small difference, it probably is within the margin of error for most moisture meters.

+1 I just dont think you would even notice a 2% difference.

These moisture meters, do they have contacts that can be pushed against the wood or are they just set on the wood? I've never used one made to check the MC of wood.

They have sharp prongs that are pushed into the wood a quarter inch or so.

+1, well said; it is very noticeable isn't it
Like I said in other post about seasoned, dry & MC topics.:
"You just have to experience it" "Then you know"

My stove my set up-I cant split hairs.

You would not want moisture in the gasoline for your car, diesel fuel for your truck, your home heating oil, etc.
So why accept any moisture in your wood stove fuel!

Old spark
You remind me of the engineers I worked with. They were great guys, good at their job, & were about "number crunching".
If it burned great they'd want to know what the MC was, thickness, type, number/size of knots, where it grew & soil conditions, a history of the past 30 year weather, etc
All good info, but to me, it burned great, & that's what I know.

Love the discussions & others view points. We each have a method that we like & works.
I'd love to give an exact MC of the wood I burned.

With nature not being perfect, each piece has just a bit of difference, knots, grain tightness, various chemical make up from nutrients in the soil & different electrical resistance, add various types of wood, chemicals , probes, calibration (etc) of MMs, the readings are just a reference.

For me, how well it burns is what I notice.
A MM is a nice tool. If I bought fire wood I might buy one, for me it would be a reference. How it burns in my system, is just my way of seeing & knowing the differences.

Love your discussions & I understand your points.
You have good seasoned wood, & get it to be low MC fast. I wish I could do it as fast.
Just takes me longer here, but I do notice a difference in the wood, & how it burns when seasoned longer with my techniques & conditions.

We both end up with good burning wood & lots of $$ savings on our heat bill.

Couldn't agree more bogydave, with the different stoves and setups I am sure some people have better luck with certain woods and different MC, the new stove doesn't burn like the old one and so still trying to figure out what works the best but so far I can not tell any difference between 20% and 15% wood but I will keep checking.

Actually fuel wood can be too dry. When mc starts getting really low, like below 8% the efficiency of the burn actually starts decreasing. Although i will say that in almost all areas, firewood that is seasoned outdoors will likely never reach those low numbers. 10-20% mc is the sweetspot for woodburning.