22 percent wood worth burning and a question about garage storage

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bspooky

Member
Nov 21, 2011
26
midwest
We ran out of wood unfortunately. After calling around found a guy to deliver some he said was seasoned for over a year. It was below 0 F when it was delivered and the pieces I tested measured 17-18 percent on the ends so I thought fine. However it isn’t burning very well and now on upon splitting a dozen or so other pieces the vast majority measures 22% ish on a fresh split. I’m guessing his year of seasoning was in rounds, not in splits. Live and learn I guess.

Questions on the 22% wood...is it worth trying to burn, and if so how? I assume I’d need to get small, hot fires and a nice bed of coals going in our wood stove insert? But is this mostly wasting the wood since it isn’t in the 15-20% range that is considered good?

Garage question: we stacked this in a rack in our attached garage....will wood season over the summer like this or does it need wind and sun to really dry out?

We still have some wood I split a few years ago down the hill but it is problematic as it is buried under snow, already had mold growing on it, and well, it is now -19 out.
 
IMO it will dry out but take longer. You will want to maximize surface area. Get ti up off the floor and leave spaces between all rows. Alternative cross stack it with big gaps between the logs. Usually air flow isnt an issue in garage but if there are puddles and fog on the windows then it is not a great place to stack.
 
If you have to burn, get some kiln-dried wood, old pallets or other lumber (never treated, and also no nails if you have a cat), or compressed logs and mix those with the 22% wood (assuming 22% is measured at room temp?). That'll provide some more even heat, and help drive off the moisture of the wetter wood.
 
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, old pallets or ...(assuming 22% is measured at room temp?).

You know, I’ve wondered about pallets. We had some mysteriously appear on our property last year and it looks like natural wood so I assume it is untreated and did have the thought of trying to burn it someday. But I also know I drive past a pallet making place that puts scraps out for people to take, perhaps I need to help myself to some of those scraps the next time I see it. I just wasn’t sure if pallet burning was OK indoors or not.

As for the room temp, no, sadly now that I’ve looked at https://dec.alaska.gov/media/5593/wmtempcorrect.pdf for a conversion, it was garage temperature reading. So that 22% is likely more akin to 26%.

May have to do as Peakbagger suggests (spacing for ventilation in the garage) or move the wood outside this summer for next year’s use....though that obviously doesn’t help for the next 6 weeks.

Thanks for the responses.
 
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Pallets are generally not pressure treated (poisonous vapors when burned). So if you don't have a cat stove (don't like nails), it's fine to burn. If you only burn pallets in a load, it might take off on you - so don't leave it unattended, choke the oxygen down soon etc. Be careful not to overfire

I'd still think a 1/3 wood 2/3 pallets should be ok to burn - but I don't have experience doing that.

It's great though, having free dry wood (scraps) available.
 
I have been burning a bit more with my wife working from home due to covid. I am running out of good dry wood. I have been mixing a couple splits of not great wood with good wood. I will be getting some pallets ready to go if I need to mix those too. I burned some last year. Usually they are dry oak in my area. Burns good.
 
Like every one said. Grab some pallets and mix them in with your wood. 22% will still burn and provide heat. Just clean the chimney maybe one more time then you anticipated. Last winter for a month straight I burnt ash I just bucked and split. It was all around 22ish and honestly it burnt pretty damn good.
 
I keep all my wood in a garage and it gets like a kiln in there, have never had an issue in 31 years but that is how my garage is, they do vary as far as how well they can season wood. Try it an find out I guess....