Is my wood "burning" in the stack?

[Squirrel]

We are having a very hot dry summer this year. The grass looks dead and the trees are wilting, we have not seen night-time dew for weeks.
My stacks smell like fresh split wood in the heat although some is two years old and was at 14% MC in the spring.
I just checked with a meter and it is reading 0% on the outside and maybe 4-6% on a fresh face.
Is my wood evaporating away? Am I losing heating value as all the oils etc evaporate away?
I would love to hear from some desert dwelling burners to assure me my wood will not explode when I try to burn it!

 

[Montanalocal]

I do not think your stacks are "burning" in hot weather. I have wood in stacks for 7 or 8 years in a very dry climate, and if kept dry it will burn well and produce heat.

Burning is of two types, slow and fast. The fast type is what we observe in our stoves, oxygen combining with the carbon in the wood to produce gases and heat.

The slow kind is when wood rots. When wood gets damp enough to support microbial life, they consume it as food, which is just another way of combusting it, combining it with oxygen and producing gases and supporting their metabolism, which is just another way of producing heat.

So wood that is kept very dry does not have enough moisture to support microbial life, and thus does not rot.

 

[woodhog73]

Good explanation. So how about if split wood has started to rot and then you get it up off the ground to dry ? I assume the rot stops ?

I've got plenty of rotting wood , but if there's still some good wood on the round/split I put it in my stack to dry anyways, unless it's completely or almost completely rotted then no

 

[johneh]

If your wood is going to explode
You had better pack it off to me
I will dispose of it in a proper
and safe manner and that
would be keeping my house
warm next winter. I
wish all my wood was that dry
It's what I would call match light
excellent heat no creosote
LOVE IT

 

[Montanalocal]

Woodhog,

I cut a lot of punky or semiroted wood because I clean up a lot of beetle killed pine that has rotted off at the base and fallen down. As soon as I cut, split and stack it dries out enough that the rot stops in my dry climate. It does not have as much heat content as sound wood, but it does burn well, and it gets rid of a lot of the mess that I would other wise have to deal with.