Moisture meter test

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Dakotas Dad

Dakotas Dad

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Mar 19, 2009
1,516
Central Kentucky
OK, so was at Home depot buying paint for the wall we just tore up to do our stove install, and saw a pin type moisture meter on sale, so picked it up.

It's this one:
(broken link removed to http://www.generaltools.com/Products/LED-Moisture-Meter__MM1E.aspx)

seems to work fine. simple instructions.

Interestingly, everything I have heard on this forum told me that something I tried would not work.. that is testing the "outside" vs "inside" of a split.

I went to my porch rack, as randomly as possible picked out a split of cherry, maple, walnut, and some scrub thing that grows in and around a couple of sink holes on the back part of the property, that I never have figured out what it is, but it burns good. All this wood was cut and split and stacked in March of '09, as part of ice storm clean up. Stacked between trees, up off the ground with treated 2x'4s, along the edge of my "back yard".

The info for this meter gives it a range of 8-22% with a error margin of 2%, understandable, since that is it's minimum reading. I probed all four splits in several places, and then split them open, and did the same. All were 12 or 14%, and all were the same outside pre-split and inside on the fresh split face..

and it would appear my wood is dry enough.
 
Sounds nice and dry.

With green wood the problem is that the outside dries quickly and shows a low reading but the inside is still completely wet so you need to split it to get a good measurement.

It looks like yours is dry all the way through.

Happy burning!
 
Dakotas Dad said:
Interestingly, everything I have heard on this forum told me that something I tried would not work.. that is testing the "outside" vs "inside" of a split...
Click to expand...
Who says you can't test both the inside and the outside? I've never heard of that.
 
LLigetfa said:
Dakotas Dad said:
Interestingly, everything I have heard on this forum told me that something I tried would not work.. that is testing the "outside" vs "inside" of a split...
Click to expand...
Who says you can't test both the inside and the outside? I've never heard of that.
Click to expand...

Sorry.. not worded well at all... can't really relate what I was trying to say there.. will work on it.. I will claim "bourbon in effect" ....
 
If the wood is seasoned, (as I would expect wood cut nearly a year to be) there may not be much difference outside to in. But if you have green wood just beginning to dry, the outside will most definitely read lower than the inside. This is where some people make the mistake of saying it's seasoned by just looking at the end grain and seeing a low MC.
 
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