Wood moisture contents and wood routine

[oddodaoddo]

Hello!

I posted a few threads here already, total newbie and I am very grateful for everyone's help!

I took everyone's advice on testing my logs and I split a few - one of them was cherry and one oak. I let them sit in my living room since early morning and I took the measurement using a wood moisture meter. They are reading everywhere between 15 and 22%.

Is that high?

Furthermore, I am curious about everyone's (proper?) wood routine:

For example, do you bring in wood a few days ahead and let it sit at room temperature?

We just moved onto our 32 acre "farm" in SW Virginia and I see a lot of deadfall - some is pine (which I guess I am staying away from) but some is oak and poplar. What is the best way to use this wood? Should I chop it up with a chainsaw, split it into logs and let is season for a year? Or can it be used this winter since it looks like it has been on the ground for a while?

Thanks!

 

[kennyp2339]

Welcome aboard, you got to bring the whole piece in first, let it come up to room temp then split it and test the fresh face.
Anything below 20% moisture content is good burning, 15% is even better, when you get to 10% (if possible) problems can occur with the wood off gassing to fast.
It really doesn't make a difference if you bring in cold wood and throw it on the fire, people tend to bring in a day or two's worth at a time just because its convenient and easier to keep things cleaner around the hearth area.
As far as proper routine, its what is convenient for you, we all run on different schedules. The key is to be prepared with dry wood, if that means getting ahead 3 years on cutting, splitting, and stacking.. so be it.
Quick tip, I keep all my splits in a big metal animal feed bucket, I can hold 2 days worth of splits and it keeps the wood crumbs in the bucket, easier to empty too.

 

[oddodaoddo]

Welcome aboard, you got to bring the whole piece in first, let it come up to room temp then split it and test the fresh face.
Anything below 20% moisture content is good burning, 15% is even better, when you get to 10% (if possible) problems can occur with the wood off gassing to fast.
It really doesn't make a difference if you bring in cold wood and throw it on the fire, people tend to bring in a day or two's worth at a time just because its convenient and easier to keep things cleaner around the hearth area.
As far as proper routine, its what is convenient for you, we all run on different schedules. The key is to be prepared with dry wood, if that means getting ahead 3 years on cutting, splitting, and stacking.. so be it.
Quick tip, I keep all my splits in a big metal animal feed bucket, I can hold 2 days worth of splits and it keeps the wood crumbs in the bucket, easier to empty too.

Ah, how dumb of me - yes, letting it come up to room temp first and then splitting makes more sense!

Thank you for sharing your routine/habits with the fire wood.

 

[Simonkenton]

Here is your firewood chart:

https://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm

As you can see, oak is really good firewood. Poplar is not good, neither is pine. I use pine for kindling.
If poplar is all you got, use poplar. But, it takes as much work to cut, split and stack poplar as it does oak.
So, if you can get the good firewood, why waste your time with wood that has half the btu content?

If this wood is down, you need to assess it to see if it is beginning to rot. Cut a log in two and look at the cut end carefully, you can tell if there is rot in there. If it is 5 percent rot I don't worry about it. If it is 25 percent rot, I won't touch it. Rotten wood is worse than poplar. Why mess with rotten wood when you can dig around some and fine good wood?

 

[saewoody]

Hello!

I posted a few threads here already, total newbie and I am very grateful for everyone's help!

I took everyone's advice on testing my logs and I split a few - one of them was cherry and one oak. I let them sit in my living room since early morning and I took the measurement using a wood moisture meter. They are reading everywhere between 15 and 22%.

Is that high?

Furthermore, I am curious about everyone's (proper?) wood routine:

For example, do you bring in wood a few days ahead and let it sit at room temperature?

We just moved onto our 32 acre "farm" in SW Virginia and I see a lot of deadfall - some is pine (which I guess I am staying away from) but some is oak and poplar. What is the best way to use this wood? Should I chop it up with a chainsaw, split it into logs and let is season for a year? Or can it be used this winter since it looks like it has been on the ground for a while?

Thanks!

If the oak deadfall is dry enough, burn it. But if not, check the poplar and the pine. If they are dry enough, and you need the wood, process and burn those. There is nothing wrong with burning the pine if that is what happens to be available for now (as long as it’s dry enough). Good luck.


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[firefighterjake]

My wood routine is a little more convoluted than most . . . and most likely has an additional step . . . but it works for me.

Every week I stack a certain amount of wood on my back covered porch. I do this to have the wood easily at hand so either my wife or I can grab a bunch if we get a lot of snow and so we don't have to go out to the woodshed in the dark. It's an extra step, but it gives me a certain peace of mind knowing I have 1-2 week's worth of wood close to hand.

Every day I bring in the day's worth of wood in the morning and load up the woodbox. Sometimes, if we're in a real cold spell, I'll bring in another load in the evening.

 

[Tar12]

Did you ever get any of the compressed saw dust bricks to try out and see why you had to leave the stove door open for a hour for the fire to barely take off? Thats a problem you need to address first. If your wood truly is below 20% it should take right off...or you have a draft problem.

 

[oddodaoddo]

If the oak deadfall is dry enough, burn it. But if not, check the poplar and the pine. If they are dry enough, and you need the wood, process and burn those. There is nothing wrong with burning the pine if that is what happens to be available for now (as long as it’s dry enough). Good luck.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks!

 

[oddodaoddo]

My wood routine is a little more convoluted than most . . . and most likely has an additional step . . . but it works for me.

Every week I stack a certain amount of wood on my back covered porch. I do this to have the wood easily at hand so either my wife or I can grab a bunch if we get a lot of snow and so we don't have to go out to the woodshed in the dark. It's an extra step, but it gives me a certain peace of mind knowing I have 1-2 week's worth of wood close to hand.

Every day I bring in the day's worth of wood in the morning and load up the woodbox. Sometimes, if we're in a real cold spell, I'll bring in another load in the evening.

Perfect, thanks. As I am getting to know my property and house (only owned it for 3 weeks now!) I am starting to get ideas of what to put where

 

[oddodaoddo]

Did you ever get any of the compressed saw dust bricks to try out and see why you had to leave the stove door open for a hour for the fire to barely take off? Thats a problem you need to address first. If your wood truly is below 20% it should take right off...or you have a draft problem.

Planning on going to town tomorrow to get those bricks. I started a fire today again, wood is about 18-24% moisture i had to keep the door open for about 30 minutes. After that I closed it and it looks pretty good. I think part of my problem is the wood and part of it is the way I am starting the fire. Today I loaded the firebox up with paper and kindling and a few logs and it looked much better....

 

[Tar12]

Thanks!

If its dry enough...even deadfall holds moisture...nothing starts to truly season till its split. You will probably find that the smaller limb wood from a deadfall will be good to burn.

 

[Tar12]

Planning on going to town tomorrow to get those bricks. I started a fire today again, wood is about 18-24% moisture i had to keep the door open for about 30 minutes. After that I closed it and it looks pretty good. I think part of my problem is the wood and part of it is the way I am starting the fire. Today I loaded the firebox up with paper and kindling and a few logs and it looked much better....

Your starting to figure it out then! How big is the kindling you are starting fires with? 30 minutes is still way to long.

 

[Poindexter]

There are several variations on theme, start here.

A log is the trunk of a tree with the branches cut off of it. When the log is cut to stove length pieces, usually 16", sometimes other nearby numbers, the verb is bucking and the result is a bunch of "rounds" that still need to be split. Once the rounds are (verb)split, the usually triangular pieces are (noun) splits.

it's no biggie. Not trying to be an A-hole. I think I know what you meant.

I season my wood outdoors and have a rack in the garage that holds about a face cord. Once a week or so i put on my cold weather gear, grab a freight sled and drag several sled loads of seasoned splits to the garage and fill up the indoor rack. That way I can run my stove for a week or so without having to go out in the cold every time I need to load the stove.

What works for you will likely be different, I don't know of any two users here who do it the same way. Beware bringing a bunch of wood into the house before your temps drop below freezing and stay there. It's an insect thing.

To really "know" the moisture content of your splits, bring them indoors for 48 hours or so, split the split open, and measure the MC on the freshly exposed face that was inside the split a few moments ago. You might could get away with keeping your test splits in a heated garage for 24 hours before splitting and measuring the inside, but 48 hours works every time in Alaska and I won't question your results.

FWIW I would rather burn dry pine and reload my stove more often, compared to struggling to burn damp oak. My personal sugesetion would be to buck and split a couple or three cords of pine now, those will be ready to burn in September 2018 if you get it done pronto. Then 2-3 cord of oak that won't be ready to burn before Sep 2021 or so, then all the poplar. All of it.

Once you have all the poplar bucked and split, then do another 2-3 cords of oak for 2022/23, then clean up your pine, then go back to another 2-3 cords of oak for 23/24.

Pine will season to dry in one summer. It is relatively low heat value, but it will be ready to burn. There are a few guys (gals?) on here getting oak down to or under 20% MC in two years, but plan on three.

I don't have poplar up here, but it reads like perfect for cold weather. In average winters, if you have pretty good air sealing and reasonable insulation, oak will probably do fine for you. Burn it down, take the chill off the house and coast on the coals for hours and hours. But when the polar vortex comes to town, probably 2020 or maybe 2021, that's when you want the poplar.

Poplar has fewer BTUs per cord than oak, but it doesn't make coals and has more BTUs than pine. You can get the 16-18m BTUs out of it right now, maybe a 6 hours burn and reload. With oak, ooh 24 m BTU, it's "better" , you are stuck with a stove box full of coals that aren't putting off beans for heat for hours and hours while you are waiting for room to reload.

My advice is process enough pine to get you through 18/19 right now, no bugs, no mud, you can sip whisky instead of gulping gatorade. Next, enough oak to get you through 21/22, it wont be ready before then. Then enough poplar (might be getting into bug season) for 19/20 and 20/21. Then oak for 22/23 over this summer, then all the pine you got left in time for 19/20. 20/21 is going to be your hump year, unless it is polar vortex for you and your poplar is ready.

Don't laugh at poplar. Having a mostly empty firebox and a small bed of coals on a really really cold night is a good thing. Typical years, sure, you can probably do fine with not much oak. Cold winter like 17/18 turned out to be, you will likely be glad for poplar. Tulip poplar, yes?

 

[venator260]

As others have said, what works varies for everyone.

I bring about 1.5 cords into my basement. This puts it right beside my basement stove. This year I burned my FP25 for most of my heat, so as my fireplace needs wood, I run downstairs and grab what I think that I might need. This is working out to be over a month's worth of wood, even during the cold temps we've been having. Even in the coldest of weather this year, my basement hasn't dropped below 48 degrees; which is certainly nicer than venturing outside.

As others have said, I'd start collecting whenever I could, and I'd start with the pine and popular. Get it cut, spilt, and stacked. To illustrate a point made above about wood seasoning: I stacked several large (12-14 inch) rounds of ash in a stack in a shed in the fall of 2015 (I had an old stove, and hadn't stumbled here yet, wanted them for overnights). In a stack of wood that's mostly 16%-18% moisture, the inside of these rounds were 35%-38%. Same trees processed at the same time, they just weren't split.

It's interesting what words mean to folks. I grew up in a family with several loggers, and helped out on many jobs. For me, logs are never firewood; logs are what you sell to a sawmill. One might cut up paperwood into firewood, as it wasn't worth as much, less than the price of electricity or oil, and certainly less than being cold if you didn't have any other heat source. Mostly though, we took that which was unsaleable otherwise to burn (end cuts, hollow butts, etc...) We always just called firewood pieces or chunks. In the present day, I cut up everything that's not logs into firewood, and I'm not out looking for logs, we just sell those that's in what we were going to cut anyway (dead trees and blowovers). The alternative heat (electric baseboard) is more expensive than the profits from the paperwood.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

There are several variations on theme, start here.

A log is the trunk of a tree with the branches cut off of it. When the log is cut to stove length pieces, usually 16", sometimes other nearby numbers, the verb is bucking and the result is a bunch of "rounds" that still need to be split. Once the rounds are (verb)split, the usually triangular pieces are (noun) splits.

it's no biggie. Not trying to be an A-hole. I think I know what you meant.

I season my wood outdoors and have a rack in the garage that holds about a face cord. Once a week or so i put on my cold weather gear, grab a freight sled and drag several sled loads of seasoned splits to the garage and fill up the indoor rack. That way I can run my stove for a week or so without having to go out in the cold every time I need to load the stove.

What works for you will likely be different, I don't know of any two users here who do it the same way. Beware bringing a bunch of wood into the house before your temps drop below freezing and stay there. It's an insect thing.

To really "know" the moisture content of your splits, bring them indoors for 48 hours or so, split the split open, and measure the MC on the freshly exposed face that was inside the split a few moments ago. You might could get away with keeping your test splits in a heated garage for 24 hours before splitting and measuring the inside, but 48 hours works every time in Alaska and I won't question your results.

FWIW I would rather burn dry pine and reload my stove more often, compared to struggling to burn damp oak. My personal sugesetion would be to buck and split a couple or three cords of pine now, those will be ready to burn in September 2018 if you get it done pronto. Then 2-3 cord of oak that won't be ready to burn before Sep 2021 or so, then all the poplar. All of it.

Once you have all the poplar bucked and split, then do another 2-3 cords of oak for 2022/23, then clean up your pine, then go back to another 2-3 cords of oak for 23/24.

Pine will season to dry in one summer. It is relatively low heat value, but it will be ready to burn. There are a few guys (gals?) on here getting oak down to or under 20% MC in two years, but plan on three.

I don't have poplar up here, but it reads like perfect for cold weather. In average winters, if you have pretty good air sealing and reasonable insulation, oak will probably do fine for you. Burn it down, take the chill off the house and coast on the coals for hours and hours. But when the polar vortex comes to town, probably 2020 or maybe 2021, that's when you want the poplar.

Poplar has fewer BTUs per cord than oak, but it doesn't make coals and has more BTUs than pine. You can get the 16-18m BTUs out of it right now, maybe a 6 hours burn and reload. With oak, ooh 24 m BTU, it's "better" , you are stuck with a stove box full of coals that aren't putting off beans for heat for hours and hours while you are waiting for room to reload.

My advice is process enough pine to get you through 18/19 right now, no bugs, no mud, you can sip whisky instead of gulping gatorade. Next, enough oak to get you through 21/22, it wont be ready before then. Then enough poplar (might be getting into bug season) for 19/20 and 20/21. Then oak for 22/23 over this summer, then all the pine you got left in time for 19/20. 20/21 is going to be your hump year, unless it is polar vortex for you and your poplar is ready.

Don't laugh at poplar. Having a mostly empty firebox and a small bed of coals on a really really cold night is a good thing. Typical years, sure, you can probably do fine with not much oak. Cold winter like 17/18 turned out to be, you will likely be glad for poplar. Tulip poplar, yes?

I think it was great that you started out with the basics, Poindexter. I think sometimes we forget to do that. Thanks.

You have a lot of good points. About the only thing I’ll add as someone who grew up burning wood cut from a farm in Virginia is that there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be cleaned up that can be burned in a stove. Sometimes it might not be worth processing and some out of the way piles make good natural habitat for animals.

I prefer pine over tulip poplar. They both burn hot and fast and are good woods to start stacking now to make sure you’re prepared for next winter. Tulip just leaves more ash and doesn’t smell as nice when processing, so those are my only reasons. If it’s down on your property, sure cut it up and burn it. (My husband and I heated more than one season on a huge tulip tree that died and hung over our house in suburbia. That thing was expensive to have removed but we also saved a lot by not having any of the wood removed and using all we could as firewood.)

If the wood you bought this season is too damp to burn well, find a good place on your property to stack it to let it season. Trying to burn it is wasting good btu’s. It will burn more effectively next year.

Look into Liberty Bricks if you’re close enough to make a drive to Richmond to pick up a ton. Compressed Bricks mixed in with damp firewood is also a route some people go to bring the moisture content of a load closer to 20%.

There is a whole “The wood shed” subforum where people talk about seasoning and splitting and storing. There’s also a “gear” subforum where they discuss chainsaws, splitters, trailers and all sorts of other stuff that goes way over my head.

 

[oddodaoddo]

Thank you all for replying. I will stack my oak/cherry that seems to damp to burn this season. Hopefully in a season or two I will get back to it. I think right now I will start processing for next year. There is a lot of downed pine and some oaks and poplars (yes, tulip) on the property and it seems a shame to leave them lying around rotting when they can be free fire wood.

My apologies for the terminology mixups, I am new to this but I do appreciate being corrected and shown the right verbiage.

I have one more "dumb" question: what size log should I be looking to create when making my own firewood? My NC-30 Englander has a large (well, seems large to me) firebox. However, the logs I have now are 18-20 inches in length and just seem massive to me. They take a while to catch on fire and turn to coals. Of course, they just may be too wet....

 

[venator260]

Thank you all for replying. I will stack my oak/cherry that seems to damp to burn this season. Hopefully in a season or two I will get back to it. I think right now I will start processing for next year. There is a lot of downed pine and some oaks and poplars (yes, tulip) on the property and it seems a shame to leave them lying around rotting when they can be free fire wood.

My apologies for the terminology mixups, I am new to this but I do appreciate being corrected and shown the right verbiage.

I have one more "dumb" question: what size log should I be looking to create when making my own firewood? My NC-30 Englander has a large (well, seems large to me) firebox. However, the logs I have now are 18-20 inches in length and just seem massive to me. They take a while to catch on fire and turn to coals. Of course, they just may be too wet....

Seasoning is more about width than length. I should shoot for 4-6 inch splits. For my 30nc, I cut a bunch of stuff 22 inches long. The area behind the ash lip is usually full of coals for me, so may as well use all of the fire box. Less cuts with the saw that way too.

 

[edyit]

some is pine (which I guess I am staying away from)

i've said it before and i'll say it again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with burning pine, or any other wood, as long as it is seasoned, anyone that tells otherwise has no clue what they are talking about. pine dries quick, splits easy, and throws off "quick" heat. it might not leave you a pile of coals 7-8 hours later for a relight but that can be a good thing when its colder than normal and you're pushing your stove for more heat than you normally would. There's been a lot of threads on here lately for coaling solutions. One real easy solution is burn a few loads of soft woods (pine) and save the hard woods for overnight / leaving for work burns.

 

[oddodaoddo]

i've said it before and i'll say it again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with burning pine, or any other wood, as long as it is seasoned, anyone that tells otherwise has no clue what they are talking about. pine dries quick, splits easy, and throws off "quick" heat. it might not leave you a pile of coals 7-8 hours later for a relight but that can be a good thing when its colder than normal and you're pushing your stove for more heat than you normally would. There's been a lot of threads on here lately for coaling solutions. One real easy solution is burn a few loads of soft woods (pine) and save the hard woods for overnight / leaving for work burns.

Thank you for replying - I have a lot of downed pine and have no problem drying it and using it, after reading yours and other comments here about burning pine

 

[becasunshine]

My wood routine is a little more convoluted than most . . . and most likely has an additional step . . . but it works for me.

Every week I stack a certain amount of wood on my back covered porch. I do this to have the wood easily at hand so either my wife or I can grab a bunch if we get a lot of snow and so we don't have to go out to the woodshed in the dark. It's an extra step, but it gives me a certain peace of mind knowing I have 1-2 week's worth of wood close to hand.

Every day I bring in the day's worth of wood in the morning and load up the woodbox. Sometimes, if we're in a real cold spell, I'll bring in another load in the evening.

Ditto.

We have a wood stack under cover in the yard, and a wood stack on the covered front porch. We grab a few splits in a canvas carrier and bring them straight in to the wood stove. On particularly cold, windy, and/or snowy nights, we keep three splits inside in the foyer as well.

I did a random moisture content check on the splits in our front porch wood stack today, using a moisture meter, while in a discussion with friends here about our recent CAT issues (resolved by a simple vacuuming.) Our splits are ranging from 11% to 14%. Given our ambient humidity here it is difficult to get below 15% even with seasoning- so we're happy to see 11% to 14%.

We buy seasoned wood and then let it sit on our wood pile for at least a season before we burn it. We try to stay a couple of cords ahead of current needs at least.