13 Percent in 8 Months

[Simonkenton]

This is in the rainy North Carolina mountains. Even worse, three nights of four the fog of the French Broad River rolls up and envelops the house.
This is hickory. Fresh sawed and split the last week in February.

I put it in the wood shed the first week of March.
My woodshed is unusual, it has no ventilation at all. I just opened the door to get out the hickory stick, normally the door is closed.
I am drying wood with heat rather than ventilation. Solar heat builds up in the little shed.
Water vapor goes through the bare wood walls.

Also, enclosed in the wood shed with no ventilation, it is not exposed to the humidity of the frequent rain, and not exposed to the high humidity of the French Broad River fog.

 

[Lakeside]

Is your measurement of the inside of a split done right then ? As I am sure you know the outside is always considerably drier.

 

[pen]

You leave a thermometer in there? Wondering what sort of temps it would get up to versus ambient.

 

[The.Devo]

You're reading with the grain,what is your moisture meter reading across the grain?

 

[Simonkenton]

Yes I was measuring a fresh split.
It doesn't get as warm in there as I had thought it would. On a sunny 85 degree day, which is pretty warm up here, I will get 92 degrees in the woodshed. Only pick up about 7 degrees.

 

[PA. Woodsman]

I do the same thing basically with our double wide detached garage, it gets very dry in there and can easily reach 90 degrees or more sometimes even 100 and it works great! I always joke "if you stand still long enough in there it'll suck the moisture out of you too" lol!

Nice work there!!

 

[barnaclebob]

I would bet that heat beats ventilation in almost every case unless the structure is sealed very tight. Warm air can hold a lot of moisture and it doesn't take too many CFM of air exchange to take that moisture away.

Here is a chart that shows how huge of an effect temperature has:

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/...me-air-moisture-holding-capacity-imperial.png

Going from 80 to 100 degrees nearly doubles the amount of moisture that the air can hold. It will also increase the rate at which it evaporates.

Now you would need to factor in the amount of water that can come out of the wood vs the relative humidity of the air in the shed to figure out the optimum ventilation requirements but that's more work than I can do right now.

 

[Simonkenton]

OK, Mr. The.devo, I got out another hunk of hickory and split it today.


And I took a reading across the grain.

I didn't know there was any difference. Anyway, you got to admit, under 17 percent, with hickory in 8 months is pretty impressive.

 

[The.Devo]

View attachment 231596

OK, Mr. The.devo, I got out another hunk of hickory and split it today.


And I took a reading across the grain.

View attachment 231597

I didn't know there was any difference. Anyway, you got to admit, under 17 percent, with hickory in 8 months is pretty impressive.

I hope my post didn't come across sounding negative, I'm fairly new to this whole wood burning thing and have learned a bunch from you guys. I recently read on here that you have to measure across the grain to get a true reading. 17% is dynamite! I have to pick up a meter to see where my wood is at and maybe even start a journal to track when it was cut, how it is stored and what the numbers are along the way to get the best burn.

 

[Simonkenton]

Well you may be a rookie but you are one step ahead of me and I got my first wood stove in 1975.
I didn't know that across the grain was different from with the grain.
Anyway you learn something every day on this forum.

 

[Mike.O]

Jam those prongs with some force (Almost all the way in) and I be it goes up.

I did the same thing last year, sharing with everyone how fast my red oak seasoned. I posted on here and someone said jam the prongs in. Went way up. by 7-10% if I remember correctly.