Firewood drying by month

[PA452]

Anyone ever try tracking firewood moisture levels by month as it seasons? If so what did you see?

The reason I ask, I prepped nine IBC tote cages of shingle oak back in February and March I guess it was. I wish I'd have checked the moisture levels back when I first split it but I don't think I did. The tree blew down back in the early summer of 2023, but I didn't get to cutting it up and splitting until early this year. It's all stacked in cages and the cages are all sitting on pallets in an open field with some old corrugated metal over the top. I've read oak can take two years to dry, but I'm really hoping to use this stuff this coming winter. The other day I went down there and split a couple pieces to check moisture content. I was consistently getting a reading of 25 on the fresh splits. On the outside of what's been exposed I'm getting readings anywhere from 6 to 12.

Anyway being that we're about to hit September, I'm just wondering what's the likelihood that this stuff will be down to 20% or lower by burning season, which here is most likely mid to late November.

 

[stoveliker]

It won't be under 20 in November. Drying speed goes down the drier it is. And weather will be less conducive to drying as well from here on our.

 

[Eman85]

I guess it depends on if you have other seasoned wood. If not I see 2 choices, burn it or be cold. I won't be cold so I know what my choice would be.

 

[PA452]

I guess it depends on if you have other seasoned wood. If not I see 2 choices, burn it or be cold. I won't be cold so I know what my choice would be.

Well I can buy/borrow small quantities if the wood I have truly shouldn't be burned when the time comes. It's not our only source of heat, it's more meant to be a way to cut way down on the electric and propane usage, plus we just like having a fire.

September can still be a relatively hot and dry month here, though not always. I don't know how much seasoning diminishes when the cooler and wetter months arrive. But I likely wouldn't start burning until maybe late November or early December either way, so I have a few more months to go.

I want to check MC in some splits from a few other cages. The nine cages I have were split and stacked over the course of probably around two months. I mostly lost track of which ones I did first vs last, but it's fairly likely the cage I checked that had 25MC was one of the later cages.

 

[brenndatomu]

I'm just wondering what's the likelihood that this stuff will be down to 20% or lower by burning season, which here is most likely mid to late November.

About zero. Oak is a notoriously slow dying wood...and it doesn't really dry in log form (any wood for that matter) except maybe for the small upper branches if dead standing for some time. So figure on it being ready to use 3 years from the time you CSS'd it (cut, split, stacked) hopefully your IBC crates are covered on top and open on the sides.

 

[stoveliker]

Look up what an exponentially decreasing curve looks like. Look at what fraction of the time it takes to get a decrease of 40% the quantity, and what fraction of the time it takes to get the second 40% down.
It won't go down the last 5% in three months. Not even in June-August...

If you do burn it, don't go "low and slow", burn it hot. The hotter the better it'll burn, the less particles it creates, and the hotter your chimney stays so the creosote that it will produce has less chance to condense on the inside of the pipe.

Unfortunately, this means that most likely you'll not be able to get through the night (burning hot = burning faster).

Yet, I'd wait. It's no fun to burn wet wood. The "stove will suck" - which in fact means the fuel sucked and the stove can't handle it as well as proper fuel would be handled.
Second, get wood *now* and split it and stack it off the ground.
Pine, cherry, fir will be good next year.
Maple maybe, but only if you split it really small. It'll be good the year after.
Oak maybe the same as maple if split small. Otherwise it needs three summers.

Burning wood is nice. Starting to burn wood sucks. People burn wet wood, get disappointed. And to avoid that it's a LOT of work to get enough wood up to get it dry. The best way is to get on a 3 year cycle. That means putting up enough wood for 3 years now. Separate it out to species as next year only the pine etc. will be good to go. So that's what you should burn then. Maple after, oak after that.

The beauty of that system is that it is a ONE TIME "suck"; do this now, and next year you only have to fill back in what you burned that winter. And you then don't care anymore what wood it is (well, not for drying scheduling at least). It'll be a breeze given that you got done with the quantity for 3 years and then only have to do 1 years worth.

 

[PA452]

They are roughly covered with old corrugated sheets on top and open on the sides. Not perfectly covered, but keeps some rain off. Been meaning to run the weed eater around it all.

 

[stoveliker]

That does look like a good system. It'd be perfect if you could have the covering overhang by enough so that windblown rain doesn't hit the wood.

 

[Wisco Shepherd]

Id be flabbergasted if it gets it down to 20. But if you get 22-23 and can mix it with dry stuff, bio bricks, pallets and burn reasonably hot you could make it. But wet oak sucks not like some species which burn more reasonable when in a similar range.

 

[singed]

This year I finally got around to hauling out some stacked rounds I'd left on the neighbor's place where I'd left them in a place I couldn't reach with the splitter after cutting them last year. They were from fallen red oaks and had been lying on the ground for at least a couple of years when I got to them.

I was, myself, flabbergasted to see, as with my eyes, how much moisture was still in the wood after I split it. And I've seen the same thing after splitting trees that have been standing-dead for years. (Capillary action from junior-high science class?? Sa-lute!)

This is now my mantra.
"As a wise man once said: 'Oak is a notoriously slow dying wood...' I will always split my wood rounds shortly after cutting, and certainly before stacking, so help me."

 

[djlew]

I like your setup! I understand being close to the target MC but just as somebody who is in a similar situation to you, meaning wood burning is the heat source I'd prefer to use to cut back on electricity but not my only source, I would wait if you could. A happy medium is to do what some other folks are suggesting and mix it in with some better seasoned stuff to supplement.

Just from my experience, I spent my first burn season burning less than ideal wood and hit some issues. Over the course of the year, I built up my supply and that "less than ideal wood" is now my seasoned stuff and the stuff I am cutting now, some being 25-30 percent MC, will be for next year. It feels so good knowing I am working on next year's supply.

But to answer your initial question - just for fun, I made a little "kiln" setup with one of those plastic portable storage shed things and put in a fan and a dehumidifier. I drained it to my sump pump. Once I start putting my wetter wood in there, I am going to measure how it dries over time. This is definitely not efficient, since the fan and dehumidifier cost money to run, but it's a fun little experiment and so far it does seem to work pretty well and quickly. I've seen some people take those last few percentages off of their wood MC and get it a bit better to burn. I had the storage shed left when I bought the house, and had no other use for it other than storing firewood, so I figured why not try it.

 

[bigealta]

If it was me i'd space those totes further apart. Air flow is what mostly dries the wood. Being packed in the totes already is blocking air flow. Then putting the totes in a square is blocking even more air.

Think about a wet towel on a clothes line,
Then 2 towels on top of each other on a clothes line.
Then a towel on the ground
Then a pile of towels on the ground

Which set up do you think will dry the fastest?

It's the same with wood.
Think like a wet towel and that will help your drying set up.

 

[PA452]

If it was me i'd space those totes further apart. Air flow is what mostly dries the wood. Being packed in the totes already is blocking air flow. Then putting the totes in a square is blocking even more air.

Think about a wet towel on a clothes line,
Then 2 towels on top of each other on a clothes line.
Then a towel on the ground
Then a pile of towels on the ground

Which set up do you think will dry the fastest?

It's the same with wood.
Think like a wet towel and that will help your drying set up.

Yeah, I've been thinking about doing just that in the hopes of squeezing out a little faster dry times on that oak. I originally put them in that configuration because I only had so much of that corrugated sheet metal to cover the tops, but I have access to some more now.

 

[PA452]

A couple days ago I checked the MC on some splits from a couple cages on the other side of the pile. This wood was all split over the course of 2-3 months, so some cages have a lead on others. I've mostly lost track of which ones were first vs last with the exception of a few.

Anyway on the other side I saw a little more favorable results. I still had a couple that were reading 24, but also saw a few a fair bit lower, 21, 22, some even down as low as 17, I think I had one down to 14. It just depended on the split. I think a lot of the stuff on that side was split a little smaller too.

 

[stoveliker]

Are you saying you got oak down to 14 and 17% in one summer?

I am not sure your measurements are done correctly as that is essentially impossible unless it was near 20% at the start...

 

[PA452]

Are you saying you got oak down to 14 and 17% in one summer?

I am not sure your measurements are done correctly as that is essentially impossible unless it was near 20% at the start...

I'm saying I had a couple pieces I found like that, it wasn't the norm though.

This oak has spent just this year cut and split. It did spend last summer laying out in a field in chunks, but not cut and split. The stuff I checked a couple weeks ago was probably from the trunk. The stuff I checked that was better was probably from the limbs.

 

[bigealta]

When limbs are cut and left with leaves on it does help pull some moisture out.

But i doubt those low readings are accurate. Try pushing the meter pins in harder and you will see the reading go up and up the further you sink them into the split.