I'm still new, but learning fast. After learning how to use my moisture meter, I split some of the original wood delivery that I received when I got my stove a couple months ago. Like every says, "there is no such thing as freshly-delivered seasoned wood. My wood guy came back and replaced it with dry stuff, but he left a good pile of splits of the original red oak, saying that these are still good splits.
After splitting some in half, measuring multiple locations and multiple splits, the red oak was consistently coming in at 21%, while the dry stuff (mostly white oak), was coming in at 14%. I can't believe it makes such a difference. The red oak burns slow, hardly without a flame, and how low heat output. The white oak fires right up and works great.
I thought 20% was "seasoned?" Is there really that much of a difference in that 7%? Maybe my meter is not 100% accurate? In any event, my gut feeling was that the wood was wet and I think I'm still right about that. After all, it's way heavier than the white dry oak.
After splitting some in half, measuring multiple locations and multiple splits, the red oak was consistently coming in at 21%, while the dry stuff (mostly white oak), was coming in at 14%. I can't believe it makes such a difference. The red oak burns slow, hardly without a flame, and how low heat output. The white oak fires right up and works great.
I thought 20% was "seasoned?" Is there really that much of a difference in that 7%? Maybe my meter is not 100% accurate? In any event, my gut feeling was that the wood was wet and I think I'm still right about that. After all, it's way heavier than the white dry oak.