Finally bought a moisture meter and surprised with the results

[nrford]

Most M,M's. are calibrated for Douglas Fur so readings should be species and temperature corrected, depending on how serious you want to be. I'm not sure if the attached chart is specific to a particular brand of meter or if it's good for any meter. Either way you get the point.

Thanks for bringing this point up Ralphie! I believe most folks do not do this. find it hard to believe you can get any hardwood below 15% just air-drying, any wear outside of a kiln.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I have been picking up a few loads of hardwood for a while and hoarding it to burn at my cabin in the mountains where only softwood is available. We live in S/W Kansas where the humidity level is normally really low and the wind blows a lot. This wood is stacked with only a cover over the top of the stack.
We stopped at Menards and picked up a moisture meter and came home and checked a few fresh splits and I was surprised at the results.
I have several face cords of hedge, commonly know as Osage Orange that have been C/S/S for about a year and a half. Couldn't get the meter to read anything because I couldn't penetrate the wood because it was so hard. I tried some red oak and white oak that has been C/S/S for almost 1 year and it was showing 8 to 10% moisture. I tried a stack of white oak that is about 3 years old and it showed 7%. The stack that was C/S/S in late November was showing 32%.
I have read that you need to let oak dry 2 to 3 years and I am sure that is right if you live in a different/humid climate. Plan to check the wood I have stored in the mountains to see how much variation there is.

Just thought I would pass my experience along to others-your mileage may vary.

Comanche, in your area, I would certainly never even consider getting a MM, but then, I don't have one for our area either. I know what your area is like and for sure you can get much better results with drying wood because of the climate. So enjoy it. And yes, in our area it takes 3 years for oak to be dry enough to burn properly.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Been burning oak that was CSS January 2013 it is burning perfect.

Right....

Makers Mark, you no doubt have ever had any perfect burning wood and if you did, there is no way you could make that statement you just made. Why not try giving some wood the proper amount of time to dry? You would find for sure that you would get a lot more heat from the wood and that alone would save you a lot of work.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Thanks for bringing this point up Ralphie! I believe most folks do not do this. find it hard to believe you can get any hardwood below 15% just air-drying, any wear outside of a kiln.

nrford, I too thought this. However, we did some testing at Woodstock Soaptone's factory. If I remember correctly we had cherry and ash that was 7 or 8 years in the stack. The final tally was they figured the wood to be at 10-12%, but some claimed it to be 8% or under. I went with the MM that the company owned and it was not a cheap one either! btw, that wood burned great!

 

[Makers Mark]

Things mite be a little different down here. We have several more months of hot weather than y'all do. I know from end of April to the first of October it is hot and y'all have probably had a few frosts already, plus it is usually bone dry here till end of November so that makes a little difference. My house was 72 when it was -1 the other day down here that's not bad. This wood hasn't been covered in snow for a month are two either. In my 30 yrs of burning wood I have burned wood that was just cut to some that's 3-4 yrs old and this oak is as good as it gets. Never lived in Michigan but can vouch for Ga. wood.

 

[JoeyD]

I have some charts that came with a meter I use to measure lumber that I will dig up and post. I have a pin type meter and the charts tell you what to add and subtract for temperature and relative humidity. My meter is not really good for firewood because I think it only goes up to 22%. It does have a switch for two different categories of wood and off hand I know cherry and maple are in a different category then red oak.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Things mite be a little different down here. We have several more months of hot weather than y'all do. I know from end of April to the first of October it is hot and y'all have probably had a few frosts already, plus it is usually bone dry here till end of November so that makes a little difference. My house was 72 when it was -1 the other day down here that's not bad. This wood hasn't been covered in snow for a month are two either. In my 30 yrs of burning wood I have burned wood that was just cut to some that's 3-4 yrs old and this oak is as good as it gets. Never lived in Michigan but can vouch for Ga. wood.

They might be a mite different indeed but not what you are claiming. Oak is oak and it is the slowest drying wood that I am aware of. I just hate to see someone on a forum giving advice that is sadly outdated. You have been burning wood 30 years but that is meaningless. It is like the fellow I once hired. He had 10 year experience. However, what I found out was that he had one year of experience 10 times. He didn't last long.

In short, for those new folks, please give heed to the need to dry the wood; especially in today's new stoves. They require good dry wood and that is not going to happen fast. Get it split because the wood won't dry hardly at all (except for the ends) until it has been split. Then it has to be stacked rather than in a heap. Air circulation is the key to drying wood. Sure, sun and heat help a lot but wind is still the most important factor in drying wood. If you are burning oak, it depends upon your climate. Oak wants 2 or 3 years, depending upon location. Most folks are amazed once they try giving their wood time to dry right and they will never go back to the "old ways." Grandpa may have done it that way but Grandpa probably made more than one mistake in his life. I saw a lot of this when I was young. Fortunately I grew up in a home that believed in drying the wood before burning it. We watched many neighbors having chimney fires and many also complained that they could not get enough heat although their stoves were large enough. It was the fuel, not the stove.

Oh, it was -11 here the other morning and we woke up to an 80 degree house. Nope. Not bad at all.

 

[Makers Mark]

Backwoods I agree with what you are saying about needing dry wood in new EPA heaters. It needs to be as dry as you can get it. I have burned some, make that tried to burn some that wasn't plumb dry and it didn't heat at all. Anyways I'm not too dumb to learn something new. I have enough of this oak for next year. So we will put this discussion on hold till next year, if it burns better I will be first to let you know. I know what you mean about 10 yrs experience I had a groc. store for 20 yrs hired several with "experience" over the yrs. I'm the first in my family to burn wood so learned hard way. Father in law helped a little. How should the wood burn and how much ash and coals?

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Seems we have a few things in common! That is good.

For an even better experience, set aside a few of those oaks for 3 years and see if there is a difference. We have even been known to burn some that were 7 years in the stack. Really sweet burning wood too.

As for the ash and coals, you will not notice any more unless you leave the wood uncovered. Then for sure you will have much more ash and the wood will not give nearly the amount of heat. If it is top covered, then all should be well. I recently did a dumb experiment with this. Because it had been many, many moons since I had left wood uncovered year around and so many at that time were not top covering, I figured why not. I had not done it in years. I did make a post about it but to make a long story short, there will be no more experimenting on that one ever!

 

[Comanche79p]

Comanche, in your area, I would certainly never even consider getting a MM, but then, I don't have one for our area either. I know what your area is like and for sure you can get much better results with drying wood because of the climate. So enjoy it. And yes, in our area it takes 3 years for oak to be dry enough to burn properly.

Thanks, I have no intentions of burning any of the wood I have stashed in Kansas except the 3 year of oak next winter and maybe some of the hedge for at least 4 years from now. I have enough already cut/split/stacked and dried already at the cabin to last me 3 years, but it is soft wood. I was really curious about how the wind and the low humidity might affect the drying process in the desert I live in. When I get thru this arctic blast I am going to bring some wood inside the house and warm it up for a few days then split it and check the moisture with the meter and report what the meter reads. I still believe it can be drier than some might believe, but we will see.

 

[Makers Mark]

Backwoods Lol sounds like my luck. I have a pole barn with shed roofs on sides. I have 12 10ft ricks. It's open on all sides. Plenty of space between ricks. Got wood on side sun hits figgered that mite help some. What about pecan? Fil had tree cut last summer been cutting and splitting it. Looks a lot like hickory. Ever burned any?

 

[Osage]

They might be a mite different indeed but not what you are claiming. Oak is oak and it is the slowest drying wood that I am aware of. I just hate to see someone on a forum giving advice that is sadly outdated. You have been burning wood 30 years but that is meaningless. It is like the fellow I once hired. He had 10 year experience. However, what I found out was that he had one year of experience 10 times. He didn't last long.

In short, for those new folks, please give heed to the need to dry the wood; especially in today's new stoves. They require good dry wood and that is not going to happen fast. Get it split because the wood won't dry hardly at all (except for the ends) until it has been split. Then it has to be stacked rather than in a heap. Air circulation is the key to drying wood. Sure, sun and heat help a lot but wind is still the most important factor in drying wood. If you are burning oak, it depends upon your climate. Oak wants 2 or 3 years, depending upon location. Most folks are amazed once they try giving their wood time to dry right and they will never go back to the "old ways." Grandpa may have done it that way but Grandpa probably made more than one mistake in his life. I saw a lot of this when I was young. Fortunately I grew up in a home that believed in drying the wood before burning it. We watched many neighbors having chimney fires and many also complained that they could not get enough heat although their stoves were large enough. It was the fuel, not the stove.

Oh, it was -11 here the other morning and we woke up to an 80 degree house. Nope. Not bad at all.

Bring your oak down here in central Kansas. The past 2 summers we have had 100 days of over 100 deg. Some days as high as 113 with average winds of around 25 to 30 mph. It will dry your oak in less time than you think.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Just sayin.........what the moisture meter read.
First one I have ever seen. No clue how accurate they are.

No one hates agreeing with BB more than me, but what he's saying is that wood cannot be dryer than the air that's around it regardless of what your MM says. Which is why I constantly poo-poo MMs.

 

[BrotherBart]

No one hates agreeing with BB more than me,

 

[WiscWoody]

With my MM I have to jab it in the wood hard to get a good reading and I test the same end several times on each fresh cut and several more on another split from the same stack. I'm getting 13% from Maple that's been SSd two years. I think that's as low as I can get up here anyways...

 

[Comanche79p]

OK, here are my results after taking the wood in the house for 48 hours, taking it outside, splitting them in half, measuring with the grain mid way of the split.
Checked each one several times and the reading was consistent.

Hedge-still could not get any reading. That stuff is hard.

White oak C/S/S in November-35%

White oak-C/S/S 3 years-9%

Red oak-C/S/S 1 year-11%

I also checked some scrap 2X8's and 2X4 pine and both read 9%.

Anyone got any comments?

 

[bbqwoodhog]

Frozen might be a problem. The meter depends on electric resistance to calculate moisture. If frozen the moisture has formed crystals that may have poor
contact with each other. Now this is wild speculation on my part. Take a split inside for a day and retest.

 

[Comanche79p]

That is what I did after posting my first results.