Moisture meter question

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Garbanzo62

Minister of Fire
Aug 25, 2022
633
Connecticut
I picked up a bunch of slabwood last week and I'm in the process of cutting it to length. The last time I got this stuff the moisture content ranged from 15% to over 42%. Plan is to finish cutting all to length and then do a split to separate anything that is burnable now from what needs to age more. Unfortunately, I can't bring all of this inside to get to room temp before I test. Is there some sort of chart that can be used to figure out the adjustment.? Also my Meter says the operating range is 0 to 40 c. Could it be that the meter is adjusting for the outside temperature? It does have a thermometer feature.
 
Don't have anything handy but you can do a rough estimate? Take 3 random slabs and measure at 3 locations (edge, center, edge). Then bring the wood in, warm up, and remeasure at same locations. Now you have 18 data points total for both indoor vs outdoors, as well as edge vs center. Should be enough to give you a working data set.

Last time I did the test was edge vs center. I believe it was ~5%. So if my edge is at <15%, my center would be good to burn (~20%).
 
Did a little snooping on line and found this. It was in reference to Kiln dried lumber, but I am assuming it is relative to cordwood.

there is a correction of about 1% MC for every 20 F above or below 70 F for pin meters. So, if the wood temperature is 30 F, then the meter will read about 2% lower than the true reading (that is, reading is 7% MC, the true value is 9% MC)
 
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