I was moving wood today from my "back" stacks to the stacks close to my house that I pull from during the burning season. I have around 8 cords close to the house so I use about half that ever year so half of it gets another year in the close stack before getting burned.
My "back" stacks I stack on pallets with little to no air space between the rows. Today I grabbed some pieces near the bottom of the third row in and set them to the side so I could split them open and check a couple. The two I split were still around 34% m/c, this wood was stacked there in March of 2010! I shouldn't need to touch it this season and it'll be fine by next season but 2 years of seasoning and not any better from the day I stuck it back there since standing dead ash is usually around 3x%. When I refill the back racks I'm going to move the pallets away from each other so they have some room to breath.
I pulled a piece of ash that came from the same tree but was put in my close stacks last year and it was 19%. This tells me it's all about location...........location........location.....
Pictures of "back" stacks and "close" stacks so you can see the set up. The row with the red X on it is where I tested from today. The close stacks all have 36 inches between the stacks and are off the ground. The pictures aren't current but show the set up.
My "back" stacks I stack on pallets with little to no air space between the rows. Today I grabbed some pieces near the bottom of the third row in and set them to the side so I could split them open and check a couple. The two I split were still around 34% m/c, this wood was stacked there in March of 2010! I shouldn't need to touch it this season and it'll be fine by next season but 2 years of seasoning and not any better from the day I stuck it back there since standing dead ash is usually around 3x%. When I refill the back racks I'm going to move the pallets away from each other so they have some room to breath.
I pulled a piece of ash that came from the same tree but was put in my close stacks last year and it was 19%. This tells me it's all about location...........location........location.....
Pictures of "back" stacks and "close" stacks so you can see the set up. The row with the red X on it is where I tested from today. The close stacks all have 36 inches between the stacks and are off the ground. The pictures aren't current but show the set up.