Wood too dry???

[Der Fuirmeister]

Is there such a thing as wood that's too dry for the gas'r boilers??? I've read various ranges of acceptable moisture.

 

[Duetech]

Is there such a thing as wood that's too dry for the gas'r boilers??? I've read various ranges of acceptable moisture.

EKO recommends 20-25% moisture and 15% is considered to be low end and 30-35% high if I remember right. Supposedly drier wood burns too quick and over fuels the mix. I don't have a moisture meter so I really don't know the exact content for the wood I'm burning. I have some small split stuff that is dry and seasoned and burns real well and some aged but not as well seasoned that burns well also. Both look like I took them out of the shower and stuck them in my boiler when I first load because my boiler is in an unheated building and the air getting in to the boiler is cold. The air gets some heating via pre-heat channeling in the boiler so when that warmed air hits the cold wood I get condensation on the wood. The smaller split stuff dries quicker than the bigger split stuff. First time I saw the condensation I thought my heating season was going to be a mess. I have learned to never put big pieces on the coals because they will actually drip water when I put in a full load and cool down some of the coals. Never noticed that problem when I used to bring the wood inside the house and let it set a week or so before using it in the wood furnace unless I was feeding fresh split cold buggy stuff into the furnace. (pest control at its finest)

 

[Der Fuirmeister]

Is there such a thing as wood that's too dry for the gas'r boilers??? I've read various ranges of acceptable moisture.

EKO recommends 20-25% moisture and 15% is considered to be low end and 30-35% high if I remember right. Supposedly drier wood burns too quick and over fuels the mix. I don't have a moisture meter so I really don't know the exact content for the wood I'm burning. I have some small split stuff that is dry and seasoned and burns real well and some aged but not as well seasoned that burns well also. Both look like I took them out of the shower and stuck them in my boiler when I first load because my boiler is in an unheated building and the air getting in to the boiler is cold. The air gets some heating via pre-heat channeling in the boiler so when that warmed air hits the cold wood I get condensation on the wood. The smaller split stuff dries quicker than the bigger split stuff. First time I saw the condensation I thought my heating season was going to be a mess. I have learned to never put big pieces on the coals because they will actually drip water when I put in a full load and cool down some of the coals. Never noticed that problem when I used to bring the wood inside the house and let it set a week or so before using it in the wood furnace unless I was feeding fresh split cold buggy stuff into the furnace. (pest control at its finest)

My whole indoor stack of wood ranges from 8-15%. The house is dry this time of year. The 8% wood is kiln dried scrap. All of it is dry in the middle when split.

I also leave any bug ridden wood out in the cold garage until burning.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Perhaps for your stove, but as for me, it can't get too dry. It might be interesting some time to see how dry our wood is. We have wood cut for the year 2015 already.

 

[savageactor7]

The only wood I thought was to dry was dimension lumber. Couple of years ago we had a whole house window project which required that I empty the unheated wood shed out.

Well this wood was stacked in there for maybe 10 years as a draw in case of a real bad storm. Anyways we burned it and it just burned good...no noticeable difference.