whats your number

ok i just got my wood moisture gage,,what would the best,i mean at what moisture content would you get the most btu at,,,could wood be to dry...im burning ash and i think chinese elm...ZZZim :question:

Less is better. <20% is considered by many to be safest and gives most BTUs.

6-8% gets you to a raging fire pretty quickly.

my 2 month old ash is about 8,man o man fast fires,,and hot...

867-5309...Damn you Tommy Tutone!

i checked a chunk of of what i think is box elder last night ,it was dead ,cut a week and a half ago...it was 38...any one for a shower...

I will let you know when I get the chance to resplit one and check it :lol: They always seem to make it to the stove before I can get a measure

Thanks for the reminder. The red oak, red elm, maple and cherry that we dropped, cut and split last May 1st is down from the 30-38% range to <20%. Who said wood doesn't dry in 6 months?

Try taking a split and splitting it again and then take a reading. I was surprised at my hickory that read 24-28% and after splitting it again it read 30 plus.

Shipper

All my stuff for burning this year is less than 16 percent now, some of it is 6 to 8, but the majority is around 12 or so....

makes all the difference in the world as far as my stove is concerned.

To you guys that are getting readings under 15%, are you taking the reading from the inside of a split? I have a hard time believing 6-8% unless it was kiln dried or 10 years old.

6% i burn kiln dried hardwood

Yeah Shipper.....thats inside readings, many times over. It was a great summer for drying.

Depending on area humidity, wood dried and stored outdoors will end up about 15-20% MC. It equalizes with the air. Kiln dried wood is only as dry as it was kiln dried to, and then it equalizes with the air and unless stored indoors, will end up 15-20% if stored outdoors.

IMO "seasoned" should mean the 15-20% MC, but as everyone knows, "seasoned" often means it was cut the day before yesterday.

I drill into the split with a small bit, then stick my probes into the holes. Too lazy to split it open and test

Then you are not getting a true moisture reading. I can get a 6-10% on the outside of 3 month old Oak, but split it in half and I have 35% plus.

Well Wisconsin Todd, I gotta thank you for gettin' me motivated enough to go out and split some wood, then test for moisture.

I stand corrected. I split white ash, apple, boxelder, all gave readings around 18 percent inside. Then I split cherry, it was higher, 20 to 22 percent. Then I split a piece of red oak, that I ain't burnin' til next year. It's been split since March of this year, about 6 months, and gave a reading of 25 percent.

I learned my lesson, gotta split it open to get a true reading.....who says you can't teach an old dawg new tricks :bug:

ive split , resplit and split some more a box elder and the water seems to run out of it.no need sticking the probe in ...its wet,, last check 38+ guess ill just burn my 5 to 15 elm...ZZZim

I got a reading of 18% for Maple split last Spring. I find that Maple dries very quickly (especially the smaller splits). Oak on the other hand does not dry quickly. I don't even have to test a piece split last Spring. As soon as it is split again, it is easy to tell it is wet. I was lucky to find a cord of two year old split dried oak someone was selling on Craigslist because it was leaning on the neighbor's fence. He should have just moved it, but I wasn't going to suggest it.

I like to re-split and test wood to see how I am doing. What surprised me is that I got different readings throughout the rack. The driest was on top and wettest in the middle. I had several different kinds of wood on the rack and they all dried at different rates. This wood was split two years ago and stored on racks in full sun, and plenty of wind. I don't cover my wood I put in the barn what I will burn for winter, so it doesn't get rained on or snow piled on top. Moisture meter was a great investment and inexpensive also.

I just got the moisture meter last week and started putting it to use right away. I was splitting wood that was bucked about 10 months ago, some maple, apple, red and white oak, sycamore, cherry and pine. I took random readings as I split the wood and came up with varying degrees of moisture, surprisingly up to 38%. I thought that by being bucked and stacked in the sun for many months it would be reduced by a good deal, but not really. Until you split that stuff down to size, the inside of that round is still wet (unless it's only about 6'' diameter).
My strategy is to target the maple for use this year, knowing that it will dry up pretty quickly once it's split and stacked (a lot quicker than the oak anyway). I am hoping that the dry winter air will suck any moisture out of the wood too. I keep just the top of the stacks covered w/ a tarp, the rest is open. I'll have to take some readings ina few weeks so see how it's coming along. I have 5 cords split for this season, the first two were split last fall, so they will be burnt first.