Wood moisture question.

[ohlongarm]

Not to beat a dead horse but, I was amazed at how dry my wood is that I'm going to burn this year.
Red oak 3 years old 14 to 16%. ash a little over a year 10 to 14%,i'm running a cat Blaze King so I don't think I'll be to dry any thoughts.Plenty of weight to all splits.Wood was stacked in a spot I never used before faces southwest single rows about 200 feet long.I had two pieces in the whole shed that were light with no weight to them.

 

[jetsam]

If it's burning too fast, turn it down a little. BK.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

Not to beat a dead horse but, I was amazed at how dry my wood is that I'm going to burn this year.
Red oak 3 years old 14 to 16%. ash a little over a year 10 to 14%,i'm running a cat Blaze King so I don't think I'll be to dry any thoughts.Plenty of weight to all splits.Wood was stacked in a spot I never used before faces southwest single rows about 200 feet long.I had two pieces in the whole shed that were light with no weight to them.

I too was amazed at how fast my splits dried this summer. Yes, it was stacked in single rows and covered. But, this summer, it wouldn't have even needed cover. We sat in a high pressure cell all summer and had high temperatures with low humidity and nice breezes. Most years it would have taken two full years to get that dry. Since we can't predict the weather more than a week with any accuracy, it's wise to be prepared for a year or two of poor drying weather.

Something else to be aware of. Inexpensive moisture meters are great learning tools that can help illustrate how different species and different sized splits dry at very different rates. They can also help illuminate the effect that the location of your stack or the splits position within a stack can affect drying time. However, they mostly work on the principle of measuring very high electrical resistance of drying wood. The inexpensive capacitors and resistors in these devices will drift out of range in time (assuming they were ever tested to be within range when the unit was first constructed). It's not a matter of whether it will happen, it's a matter of when it will happen. For this reason it's foolish to depend on any one meter, especially if the weight of the splits or the time of drying indicates the meter might not be accurate any longer. I think the natural drift of these devices would be to become less sensitive to conductivity which would mean the device would indicate the wood was dryer than it was.

 

[ohlongarm]

If it's burning too fast, turn it down a little. BK.

that's what i'm thinkin,keep forgetting a cat runs differently than a non cat.Never had wood dry so well as this summer in Ohio?

 

[kennyp2339]

Excellent excited for you!

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

I've never had wood that was "too dry". Even back in the days of smoke dragons I could always turn the air low enough that it didn't vaporize too fast and the lack of moisture kept combustion temperatures high enough to burn without excessive pollution. People that say their wood is "too dry" are typically mistaking a stove that is too big for the application for wood that is too dry. There could also be an issue with the stove that could make someone think their wood was "too dry". A leaky door gasket for example.