Moisture content issues :/

[Dannii]

Hello

Further to my earlier post where I was trying to diagnose potential wood issues, I grabbed a cheap moisture meter from Amazon, and ordered a face cord of ‘seasoned, ready to burn’ ash. Said ash arrived. Some of the cuts were so wide (not full on logs, but half of a giant log) that I had to go out and buy a 5 ton splitter. I then went ahead and split piece, brought it into the house for a bit and stuck the freshly split face with the moisture meter. It read 33% 😐. Obviously I’m not going to put that anywhere near the stove this season. The wood guy insists that it’s ‘100% not green’ and that it was measuring 18-20% when he stuck it in October. He blamed the recent rain/snow/freeze.

My questions are:
Am I measuring the moisture correctly?

Can rain/snow etc. bring the moisture content up? From what I’ve read it should still have low moisture content in the middle even if it’s soaked on the outside.

Could my moisture meter be wrong? It’s a cheap one that doesn’t even let you choose what type of wood you’re measuring.

The ash seems green to me. Heavy, no cracks on the ends, bark is still fully attached on most pieces. It SMELLS when I split a piece. Pungent, like sap.

I had some red oak I was initially complaining about as it’s hard to light and has a bit of steam. That is measuring around 20%. I guess I’ll keep burning that for now as it’s usually okay once the fire gets going.

The guy is coming to pick up the ash as I’m not happy. I would split it up more and keep it for next year but we haven’t figured out our long term storage system yet and so we have nowhere to stack it, and we need the space it currently in for actual useable wood 😓.

So now I’m back to the drawing board. It seems like a gamble when you pick someone to buy wood from. I don’t want to keep getting ‘burned’ (pardon the pun) and getting wood that is not seasoned.

Any input is appreciated. Just want to have a nice fire without all the stress!

Thanks all.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes, if that is a freshly exposed surface, it's done correctly.
If the wood is not room temp (before split) it'll be even higher. Frozen water doesn't conduct electricity well.

No rain would not bring the.center of the wood to 33%.
Welcome to firewood dealers. The new car salesmen. Don't trust, measure. You did good and he's full of it.

A few 2x4s on cinder blocks is already good. Though the space will remain an issue.
I do strongly suggest to keep the wood to dry it. Next year you may run into the same issue. Unless you find the one honest dealer with affordable dry wood.

 

[Max W]

Its a very rare thing for a firewood dealer to tie up product and take the time and space up to stack wood for the time it takes to properly season. Even those few with kilns can rush the process. Unless you can find one of those few you likely will keep running into that wall. Maybe there is a creative way to carve out some kind of space to store ahead.

 

[kborndale]

Rule #1 when heating with wood, don't believe your wood dealer when he says his wood is dry. That's the unfortunate truth of the matter. I would keep that wood for next year, the chance of you getting dry wood for this year is slim tonone unless you want to pay $500 a cord for kiln dried wood and that's still not guaranteed to be below 20%.

 

[Dieselhead]

Maybe take that money you got refunded and get some manufactured firewood logs like bio bricks or NEILS with it.

 

[Eman85]

Stop and think about it, who is going to stack and season wood for 3 years before selling it? Would there be any profit in cutting, splitting, stacking and storing acres of wood then loading and delivering it too? In the dealers defense it's not green in the sense it was cut today. Most people where I live cut and burn their wood in the same month. If it was cut in Oct. and they're burning it now they call it seasoned.