Did three wrongs make it right?

[Pete Kurki]

I don't see much mystery here. In spite of those who insist on seasoning their would outside, uncovered, if you want something to dry fast keep rain off it completely. The reason you will often find a very old barn in great condition while it's acompanying home is rotted out and falling down, is due to a barn's good ventilation properties.
When did you check the wood with the moisture meter? Recently, I would asume. Wood dries well in the winter, and I bet the content was not as low last november as it is now, after almost six more month's seasonig time.

I only bought the moisture meter about 6 weeks ago, so I don't really have any earlier measurements. All I can say the wood was very easy to light up already around thanksgiving when I started using it, though I often use some woodworking offcuts for kindling so maybe I just did not notice minor issues. I also agree it probably dried a good deal more during the cold winter months here as the relative humidity inside my barn stays down to 30 - 50% range for months (measured by a rH meters around my woodworking lumber stacks).

Pete

 

[Battenkiller]

I also agree it probably dried a good deal more during the cold winter months here as the relative humidity inside my barn stays down to 30 - 50% range for months (measured by a rH meters around my woodworking lumber stacks).

Pete, I'm curious about how you can achieve such amazingly low RH in your barn. How much warmer is it in there compared to the outside air? How are you measuring it? I use a sling psychrometer. It is way more accurate than any of the hardware store hygrometers I've used. Those thing are useless AFAIC.

If you are truly getting the RH down to the 30% range, I think you have answered the mystery. You are storing your wood in a (very) low-temperature kiln. That would explain those 8% readings on the oak as well. 40% RH will get any wood down to 8% MC given enough time.

 

[webie]

So - I had a wood stove installed in my shop last April and gathered couple of cords of firewood over summer and fall. Everything has gone really well so far, I was saving $250 a month in power bills during the coldest months vs. previous years when I was running multiple electric heaters in the shop, and I really enjoy the warmth of wood fire while working in the shop. Then I started reading this forum a couple months ago and realized I had done everything wrong. How ignorant had I been! Most of my firewood I have been burning this winter came from trees I felled around June. Grown up in a city I did not know I was supposed to fell trees for firewood in winter to minimize the starting moisture. Then I cut and split the logs and just dumped them into big mountain inside my barn. At the time nobody had told me that I was supposed to neatly pile them and leave them outside to cure in sun and wind. Then my last sin was to start burning this wood in November when it started getting cold here, and since I was not a reader of this forum yet I had no idea that in 5-6 months my firewood could not possibly be cured and dry enough to burn. Then I start reading posts in this forum and learn about all the mistakes I had made. I immediately ordered a wood moisture meter and to my surprise all my splits are around 13% moisture on the surface and around 18% inside when measured from the freshly split surface. No wonder I never noticed any of the symptoms related to burning green wood. But anyway, what the heck is going on? Is it the dry Central Minnesota climate that makes my life so easy? Pure beginner's luck?

Pete

I wish we had a tree expert on here , I am not one and don't claim to be one but here is my take on the situation from a previous experience and when is the best time to cut wood ?
I don't know if I read this was told this or how I know this but here goes the story .
Along time ago and I am talking in the 80's The family ,Dad my brother and me had the opportunity to cut oak tops off of some public property that had been logged.
Well we went at it cut over 36 cords of oak , the stuff had been cut right after the snow melt so April and we were cutting the tops up in may .
We hauled it all home in firewood chunks and split it here at my house the next fall and piled it . A year later we tried to burn the stuff and it just sizzled like it was just cut , well lucky enough we were plenty far ahead as to not needing it so we left it sit another year . Now 2and a half years after it was cut it still could use more during as it still sizzled not quite as bad but it still had moisture in it. I had a big enough supply i didn't need to use much that winter but when I did you could sure tell it could use more seasoning .
Now we could not figure out what the heck was up so we started getting some feelers out on what was up and this is what we found out about cutting and burning fire wood and there is alot of truth to this at least here where I live in Wisconsin .
If any one wants to argue this they can or any input they can and like I said earlier I don't know where I know this from its been 20 + years .
Trees grow and go thru several different growing cycles a year .
The worse time to cut and dry fire wood is early to late spring when the weather starts to start warming and the days get longer , this is the time of year when the sap in the tree roots start pulling back up the tree into the limbs and twigs to start the growing process of the new year it is highly concentrated moistly of sugars .
This is the worse time to cut sugars don't dry period .
After the spring growth and the trees grow there new limbs and leaves they go through a short dormant cycle before they start there down swing of going dormant for the winter . Usually sometime in June . This is the point where they are done growing for the year and then the reverse starts to happen when they start to produce the sugars at a slower pace to be stored back in the roots for the next year usually end of June , July and early august , way depending on how the spring was .
Some time in august the tree's again go into a dormant stage again this time to just sit there and wait for fall when at that point the sap quits the life blood to the leaves and they dry up and fall off .
so to answer you question On how did this all happen .
You had a lucky horse shoe and did everything right .

1. You must have hit the right couple of weeks to cut when the tree cycle had exhausted its sap supply to its leaves so there for the trunk only even though it was green and wet it was only water moisture and probably not much of that as I can remember last year we started a kinda dry period here in Wisconsin and am thinking maybe for you too in Minnesota .
2. You threw the wood in a barn loosely . As I can remember the last barn that I was in it had good rain cover but was far from air tight so there fore from June till you burned it your wood never got wet again and actually because we were having a dryer spell with very low humidity your airy barn with a wood pile in it was drying just fine . remember just because you didn't pile your wood doesn't mean its not drying . A tightly piled wood pile takes alot longer to dry then a loose piled one and if you just threw it on a pile in a drafty barn it dried just fine as it never got wet again
3 . So now as far as your third sin congratulation on successful year .
Don't count on a lucky horseshoe every year.
And that's my take on the whole thing .
Webie

I am sticking with my original post . Sometimes 3 wrongs do come out right .

 

[oldspark]

I don't see much mystery here. In spite of those who insist on seasoning their would outside, uncovered, if you want something to dry fast keep rain off it completely. The reason you will often find a very old barn in great condition while it's acompanying home is rotted out and falling down, is due to a barn's good ventilation properties.
When did you check the wood with the moisture meter? Recently, I would asume. Wood dries well in the winter, and I bet the content was not as low last november as it is now, after almost six more month's seasonig time.

Been burning dry firewood for 30 years and I just do not agree with some of the posts I read on here but I do agree with this guys advice. (broken link removed to http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/fuelproc.htm)

 

[Pete Kurki]

I also agree it probably dried a good deal more during the cold winter months here as the relative humidity inside my barn stays down to 30 - 50% range for months (measured by a rH meters around my woodworking lumber stacks).

Pete, I'm curious about how you can achieve such amazingly low RH in your barn. How much warmer is it in there compared to the outside air? How are you measuring it? I use a sling psychrometer. It is way more accurate than any of the hardware store hygrometers I've used. Those thing are useless AFAIC.

If you are truly getting the RH down to the 30% range, I think you have answered the mystery. You are storing your wood in a (very) low-temperature kiln. That would explain those 8% readings on the oak as well. 40% RH will get any wood down to 8% MC given enough time.

No, I'm not using any fancy pshychrometers, but just basic digital hygrometers I bought online maybe $30 piece. Similar unit has worked really well for me for maintaining rH inside my woodshop low enough to prevent rust forming on my cast iron tools in summer, when I run dehumidifier there. As long as I stay below 55% rH I have zero problem with rust. This of course does not mean that the number would be accurate in unusually low humidity, as these things are primarily meant for typical inside home use. The temperature in the area of the barn where I keep my next-to-be-used lumber and firewood only goes slightly below freezing point in winter. I think coldest I ever saw there was 25 F when it was -30 F outside. But now when it's 40.0 F outside with 39.0 F dew point its still only 43 F inside the barn, so definitely MUCH higher rH right at this moment (haven't been in the barn today yet to see how high).

 

[Battenkiller]

No, I'm not using any fancy pshychrometers, but just basic digital hygrometers I bought online maybe $30 piece. The temperature in the area of the barn where I keep my next-to-be-used lumber and firewood only goes slightly below freezing point in winter. I think coldest I ever saw there was 25 F when it was -30 F outside. But now when it's 40.0 F outside with 39.0 F dew point its still only 43 F inside the barn, so definitely MUCH higher rH right at this moment (haven't been in the barn today yet to see how high).

Outside air at -30º and maybe 95% RH, warmed up to 25º in the barn... no wonder you are getting the RH that low. Didn't know that was possible, but I don't have to understand how something works to believe in it. Gives more credence to your moisture meter readings as well.

Your digital units are probably close enough for country here. I only use the "fancy" equipment because I bought mine at a used tool place about 30 years ago. I didn't even know what it was at the time, but it looked interesting and it was cheap so I nabbed it - two thermometers for the price of one. :cheese: They come up often on eBay for less than the cost of a consumer digital one. Mine is a Taylor, and I saw one go for about $12 a little while ago. As a woodworker, its good to have one at that price.

Truth is, most wood loses much of its free water in a very short time, it's the bound water that takes forever. Wood that has lost all of its free water and is still at its fiber saturation point is about 30% MC. Dropping it from there to <20% MC is the key to good burns.

I doubt you got it that far by the time you first started to burn this season. Your wood probably started the season at about 30% MC and it just kept getting drier in the low RH atmosphere of your barn. Doesn't matter, really. You got through the winter fine. Now you know to store the wood outside in the sun and wind, then get it into that dry barn once the RH drops in there. Being a woodworker, it sounds like you already understand all of this RH/MC stuff. Some folks never quite grasp it, and I'm sure I just add to their confusion by trying to explain it.

 

[Dune]

I don't see much mystery here. In spite of those who insist on seasoning their would outside, uncovered, if you want something to dry fast keep rain off it completely. The reason you will often find a very old barn in great condition while it's acompanying home is rotted out and falling down, is due to a barn's good ventilation properties.
When did you check the wood with the moisture meter? Recently, I would asume. Wood dries well in the winter, and I bet the content was not as low last november as it is now, after almost six more month's seasonig time.

Been burning dry firewood for 30 years and I just do not agree with some of the posts I read on here but I do agree with this guys advice. (broken link removed to http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/fuelproc.htm)

So you really don't think wood can season in a well ventilated woodshed or barn?

I don't use a moisture meter, but I can asure you that the wood in my shed is below 20% MC.

 

[oldspark]

I don't see much mystery here. In spite of those who insist on seasoning their would outside, uncovered, if you want something to dry fast keep rain off it completely. The reason you will often find a very old barn in great condition while it's acompanying home is rotted out and falling down, is due to a barn's good ventilation properties.
When did you check the wood with the moisture meter? Recently, I would asume. Wood dries well in the winter, and I bet the content was not as low last november as it is now, after almost six more month's seasonig time.

Been burning dry firewood for 30 years and I just do not agree with some of the posts I read on here but I do agree with this guys advice. (broken link removed to http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/fuelproc.htm)

So you really don't think wood can season in a well ventilated woodshed or barn?

I don't use a moisture meter, but I can asure you that the wood in my shed is below 20% MC.

Not what I said at all, you stated that for quick drying you had to keep rain off, I was just offering a differant opinion and a site that agreed with my thoughts on the subject.