Need FACTS on wood drying times

[onetracker]

Methinks it is best I stay out of this one. I could tear it apart too much and start something nasty.

Yup!

For me, part of the fun of heating with wood is the simplicity of it.....cut, split, stack, forget about it for 2, 3, 4, or whatever years and then burn it. Most days there are far too many things that require a lot of thought, pieces of dead trees that I'm just going to throw in the fire eventually is not one of them.


+1.

now i can move on to another thread

 

[fossil]

...Most of the people in the forums live in areas were the weather is all the same and the wood is all the same.
The temperatures, humidity, and snow vary relatively little across the whole area. You family has lived there for generations and developed it's own wood cutting and drying methods over the years. It is sacrilege to question it and it probably really works great.

Anything Denver and west has a much great weather and wood differences.

There are a lot of people in the west that burn for heat but I guess they are not the type that join forums...

Not so, Steve. Your profile says you joined the forums in December of 2010. I'd have thought that would be time enough to become familiar with the geographic diversity of our membership (currently nearly 23,000). We have lots of members from the Rockies and points west of the Rockies. We have members in the Southwest, the Midwest, the Southeast, Downeast up in the Yukon, down in the desert...all over the place, living in all diffferent climate zones, from mild to severe, burning every species of wood you can think of (and some you can't). We by no means all live where our families have been for generations. Questioning the old time ways and debunking the myths about woodburning is part of the fun we have here together. Toss out your stack of pre-printed labels for people you don't know and stick around...you'll see what I'm talking about in time. Rick

 

[cottonwoodsteve]

I think what was confusing me was words like long Aging, Curing and Seasoning times.
Nobody really says it is just drying.
Aging, Curing or Seasoning cheese and wine it goes through a definite chemical change.
Try and speed up the process and it doesn't work. So you need long times.
You get no heat energy out of sugarcane juice, but Age it into a 151 proof Rum and it will burn very nicely.
One of the things I have learned here is wood does not change its chemical makeup. There is no Aging, Curing, or Seasoning.
Nothing magical.
It just drys.
It starts out wet wood pulp and turns into dry wood pulp. No Aging, Curing or Seasoning. No significant chemical change. The more you heat or less humidity, the quicker it drys.

It just drys.

Like the kid that was excited about getting a job at the Motor Vehicle Department. He was excited about working around "motor vehicles". On the first day he found "motor vehicles" were cars, .....just cars.

 

[BlankBlankBlank]

There is technical science and then there is applied science. Both are valuable and very necessary. Sharing the details with other people about what you do and how you do it can sometimes be very hard, especially when not used to that level of sharing. I could ask Erin Rodgers, QB of Green Bay Packers, a question about his technique and how I might apply that technique to my game. He might have something helpful to say or more than likely he'd not have a darn clue what to say that would make a difference for my game.

The applied science found extensively on this site provide very good parameters to begin the process of drying in your area. Oak takes longer than silver maple or ash. How much longer in Maine? How much longer in Wisconsin? How much longer in Arizona? I don't know. But it does take longer. I read on the forums that oak takes 2-3 years. I figure those numbers are probably right, especially considering silver maple does better when it seasons for about a year. Given that, I should definitely expect oak to take at least two. So, I'm going to age oak for 2 years and then put a moisture meter on it. If it's over 20%, then it ages a little longer. How much longer? I don't know. But if it's at 21%, I'll give it a couple months longer and test. If it's at 25%, I'll just give it another year.

I always take the words of an ole timer to mean a hell of a lot more than some technical manual. Not because the technical manual is wrong or I'm against science or something. I love technical manuals. I take the ole timer's words to have more value because while he might be wrong about one thing or two, he's probably right about a whole lot more. He's been doin' it a long time. He knows things.

Unfortunately, I keep getting the sense that we're moving away from the value of ole timer's experience and more highly valuing the lab coat, the briefcase, the degree, etc. Not me. I value the ole timer because he's got something to share that will really matter.

Not to mention, the ole timer will, seeing I'm interested, offer me a cup of hot coffee and seat near his fire. And maybe he'll show me where I can get some of that free wood. And maybe once in a while the free wood will just happen to be some darn hard oak that when seasoned for maybe 2 or maybe 3 years will burn through the night keeping my a$$ warm. And my wife will love me more because the heating bill is almost zero. And my kids will love to help me cut, split, and stack the wood, because they're warm for a change. They'll see the value that I'm trying to show them, just as I saw the value in that ole timer.

 

[jimbom]

I qualify as an old timer, so I can say this. Some old timers have one year of experience forty times over. Some have forty years of experience.

 

[Battenkiller]

I qualify as an old timer, so I can say this. Some old timers have one year of experience forty times over. Some have forty years of experience.

And let's not forget those who have forty years of experiments. :cheese:

 

[firefighterjake]

Don't confuse me by the facts . . . I thrive on ignorance.

 

[benjamin]

I qualify as an old timer, so I can say this. Some old timers have one year of experience forty times over. Some have forty years of experience.

Dang, that's a good one.

I was thinking the old timers I know/knew were as likely to tell you to burn green wood because it will last longer, and to only split it if it's too big to fit in the stove. Most of these old timers burned wood for decades before I was around and probably burned more wood in some years than I will burn in a lifetime.

 

[cottonwoodsteve]

I finally realised part of the problem.
A year or two ago I listened to an old timer wood stove / chimney guy.
But he was the wrong old timer.
As a side subject when looking at wood stoves I ask about moisture meters. He said something like $150 junk to $350 good.
A 5 second check on Google showed similar. End. It was just not in the budget.
A quick check recently showed same thing but having more time to dig around I found that was way off.
Some are around $30 to $50. Motivated by that I pressed on and found one for $11 from Amazon.(+ $8 for shipping)
Will it be as good as the $350, maybe not. But it is probably just measuring Ohms, so no mater what the price is, it is just a modified Ohm meter. Not rocket science. A regular Ohm meter works, but I don't know how to space probes and calibrate Ohms to moisture %.
I will get it soon but not have much time to mess with it.
Maybe late November I can do a reality check with 2 x 4's wet in the H.D. stack to an extra 2 x 4 dry in shade in my carport for 2 years.

Handheld MD812 MD-812 Digital Wood Moisture Content Meter with Lcd Display
Sold by: Hisgadget Inc ( thru Amazon)
Condition: new
Quantity: 1
$11.64 each

 

[quads]

But it is probably just measuring Ohms, so no mater what the price is, it is just a modified Ohm meter. Not rocket science. A regular Ohm meter works, but I don't know how to space probes and calibrate Ohms to moisture %.

Using a multimeter to measure wood moisture level: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/44360/

 

[Thistle]

Methinks it is best I stay out of this one. I could tear it apart too much and start something nasty.

Yup!

For me, part of the fun of heating with wood is the simplicity of it.....cut, split, stack, forget about it for 2, 3, 4, or whatever years and then burn it. Most days there are far too many things that require a lot of thought, pieces of dead trees that I'm just going to throw in the fire eventually is not one of them.

But hey, to each his own! I guess ciphering and analyzing can be a hobby in itself.

+1 Yup and me. Its not rocket science.No big deal. I cut,split,stack & forget about it for 1 to 3 yrs,depending on how wet it was originally.Some is dry enough to burn immediately,most needs a year at least.

 

[cottonwoodsteve]

Quick meter measurements, broadly rounded numbers and Oak verses Eucalyptus
The wood;
Eucalyptus dried for 6 months centered on summer.
Eucalyptus dried for 6 weeks in fall.
Oak dried for2 years.
All outside but top covered during rain.

Cut Eucalyptus in early October
Cut down, cut in 15 inch lengths then split 2 weeks later.
After 6 weeks;
Wood in warn but not hot sun.
10 –20% on sunny end. 20 – 30% on shady end
Wood under partial shade tree;
20 – 30 on partial sunny end 25- 35 on totally shady ends
Bark acts like plastic bag. 20% without and 30% with. Measured near outside of split.
Narrow splits measure much dryer than wide split. This might not be all due to more side area per wood volume. It might be an ohms-per-square type of thing where there is less wood for the current to go throughout. Narrow splits are dryer but probably measure dryer than they really are.

Eucalyptus cut in June;
By September sunny end 0% Shady end near ground 2-3%
Now after many weeks of cooler less dry weather they came up to 2-3% on sunny end and 5 % on shady end. Basically over the last many weeks, dry June wood came up in moisture while wet October wood still went down in moisture.

Measurements show wood in sun dries much faster than wood in partial shade. Obvious, but this means wood in a shed or under eves will take much longer to dry than wood in the open in some climates. This is probably only true in the Southwest and not in high humidity and afternoon thunderstorms of the Midwest summers.

Other observations;
2 year dry oak didn’t come up in moisture. So does Oak absorb less from air than Eucalyptus? Or is the Eucalyptus still wicking moisture out from the inside and warm air takes this away quicker than the now cooler air?

Eucalyptus dried 6 months in mostly very dry hot dry weather burns much, much hotter and longer than Oak dried for 2 years.
Eucalyptus, some smaller drier splits, dried for 6 weeks burns about the same as Oak dried for 2 years.

Separate experiment;
2 splits of 6 month Eucalyptus = stove top 450F.
2 splits of 2 year Oak = stove top 350F

Based on short experiments with my wood in our environment;

Eucalyptus probably only needs to be aged over one summer.
Don’t know about Oak. It has a much different grain / fiber structure.
If the wood moisture gets down to 0-3% in a few summer months, it probably doesn’t need to be dried for even a year.
It seems it would be a total waste of time, money and yard space to dry some types of wood for more than one full summer.
Do I need to dry my Eucalyptus wood for more than a year. No. But I may need to put a sprinkler on it so it doesn’t burst into flames on it’s own after the first year :>)
When another branch breaks on an Oak tree I will do some Oak experiments.

 

[ValentineHill]

Steve, did you split your experiment wood and take the moisture meter reading from the fresh cut (i.e., what was the middle of the piece until right before you split it)? Because that is really the measurement that you need to know. As all of the data suggests, the wood fiber exposed to the air drops down to 20% or less in just a matter of days, but the process of drawing the interior water through the wood to be evaporated takes much longer. That's why the people that measure water levels over a long period of time on here weigh their wood, rather than split it every time (which you can really only do once in a controlled experiment).

Still, it's great to see that you're doing the right thing -- going out and doing some experiments. Nothing like a bit of science in the morning!

Also, have you seen Skyline's latest on his wood drying experiments from this year? I think you'd really like this thread: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/83589/ .

Good luck and keep sending in data!

 

[cottonwoodsteve]

No I didn't take measurements immediately as I cut the tree down. Maybe next time I could do it in a more organised fashion.
I didn't have a meter yet when I cut the tree.

Yes I agree that the quick loss might be just the surface loss.That is probably why I noticed a little rebound from 0 back to 3% when the weather cooled.
Still it backs up what the other poster says. Sometimes 3 hot dry months is enough. Will 3 months in winter do much. Probably not.

Another climate experiment I have done indirectly;
Taking the Wall Street Journal on a business trip a few different times.
Hard and crinkly at home in the summer. Soft and supple in the humid Minnesota, Georgia and Florida summer. Then hard and crinkly back home again.
The paper changes it's moisture content greatly depending on location.
My guess is wood will take much longer to dry where the paper is soft and supple.

Also another theory.
If your summer climate doesn't dry the wood very quickly, then it probably almost stops in the winter. So therefore you need another summer to finish it off. That probably means more than one year. If your climate dries wood very quickly in the summer, then even holding it over the winter isn't going to gain much.
I would say that how much drying gets done in the summer determines how many summers you need.
A guess based on my crude experiments;
Wood cut in June can be dry by October. Wood cut in October will probably need to sit untill next October. Or basically over the hot dry summer. I think counting the needed summers is more important than actual time in years. Cutting it in fall it just adds 9 months of cool weather that doesn't dry much until summer comes. If you have lower temperature, humid summers then you probably need more than one summer to get it done.

 

[PapaDave]

Here's one for 'ya. I've been bucking and splitting some oak logs from a delivery made in May of '09.
I have found quite a few similar sized rounds w/o bark that once split were obviously of differing moisture content. Some were relatively dry, and others were VERY wet.
Cut at the same time, delivered at the same time, same species, sitting in the same pile for the same amount of time.
Those are facts.
I've come to the conclusion in my situation, that what I need for drying time for OAK is at least 2 years, and to get it more gooder it should dry even longer. How long?
I don't know exactly, but I don't care exactly.
Some of it will be dry sooner than that. Which ones? I don't have a clue. Which tree or log, again I have no clue, so I put it all together and leave it alone (except for the daily walks to look at all my hard work and future heat) for a couple years.
If you can dry your wood quicker, gooder for you. Sucks for me, so I adjust and adapt.
Those also, are facts.
Facts alone don't EVER tell the whole story. That's a fact. :lol:

 

[cottonwoodsteve]

It sounds like you just had things in a pile before you split them. The rounds in the bottom center of the pile won't dry as fast as those on the top outside. Maybe that was the difference before you split them?
My wood seems to be consistent in measurements. So if you have greatly different measurements try to figure out why. Besides how it is stored what was the tree or trees like? A partially dead tree cut in fall will have different starting moisture than a healthy tree cut in spring?

The facts always tell the whole story. It is just we may not understand, and sometimes not wanting to accept facts affects our ability to understand.

If 3/4 of the drying is during the summer and your summers are relatively mild temperatures with high humidity, it will probably take 2 summers worth of drying time.

 

[DanCorcoran]

Just for the record (and to avoid disappointment for those who might want to try it): aging your sugarcane juice won't produce rum...you need to distill it. Aging is said to improve the flavor, but doesn't turn juice into rum.

 

[cottonwoodsteve]

I stand corrected.
I only did rum research in the Caribbean on the consumption end, not the making end.

Test results;
Martineque rum is like paint thinner, Jamacan rum is very mellow.

Preferd method of testing;
Add some to Coke ( soda type) and consume on warm sandy beach. Testing beach should be located at least 1,000 or more from your work location.

 

[begreen]

That sounds like a short dry time for eucalyptus. Did the wood get resplit and the moisture reading done on the freshly exposed surface of the wood?

 

[Battenkiller]

I stand corrected.
I only did rum research in the Caribbean on the consumption end, not the making end.

Test results;
Martineque rum is like paint thinner, Jamacan rum is very mellow.

Preferd method of testing;
Add some to Coke ( soda type) and consume on warm sandy beach. Testing beach should be located at least 1,000 or more from your work location.

You should do a test on a nice 151 demerara rum from Guyana. Your Coke will thank you. ;-)

 

[jatoxico]

Quick meter measurements, broadly rounded numbers and Oak verses Eucalyptus
The wood;
Eucalyptus dried for 6 months centered on summer.
Eucalyptus dried for 6 weeks in fall.
Oak dried for2 years.
All outside but top covered during rain.

Cut Eucalyptus in early October
Cut down, cut in 15 inch lengths then split 2 weeks later.
After 6 weeks;
Wood in warn but not hot sun.
10 –20% on sunny end. 20 – 30% on shady end
Wood under partial shade tree;
20 – 30 on partial sunny end 25- 35 on totally shady ends
Bark acts like plastic bag. 20% without and 30% with. Measured near outside of split.
Narrow splits measure much dryer than wide split. This might not be all due to more side area per wood volume. It might be an ohms-per-square type of thing where there is less wood for the current to go throughout. Narrow splits are dryer but probably measure dryer than they really are.

Eucalyptus cut in June;
By September sunny end 0% Shady end near ground 2-3%
Now after many weeks of cooler less dry weather they came up to 2-3% on sunny end and 5 % on shady end. Basically over the last many weeks, dry June wood came up in moisture while wet October wood still went down in moisture.

Measurements show wood in sun dries much faster than wood in partial shade. Obvious, but this means wood in a shed or under eves will take much longer to dry than wood in the open in some climates. This is probably only true in the Southwest and not in high humidity and afternoon thunderstorms of the Midwest summers.

Other observations;
2 year dry oak didn’t come up in moisture. So does Oak absorb less from air than Eucalyptus? Or is the Eucalyptus still wicking moisture out from the inside and warm air takes this away quicker than the now cooler air?

Eucalyptus dried 6 months in mostly very dry hot dry weather burns much, much hotter and longer than Oak dried for 2 years.
Eucalyptus, some smaller drier splits, dried for 6 weeks burns about the same as Oak dried for 2 years.

Separate experiment;
2 splits of 6 month Eucalyptus = stove top 450F.
2 splits of 2 year Oak = stove top 350F

Based on short experiments with my wood in our environment;

Eucalyptus probably only needs to be aged over one summer.
Don’t know about Oak. It has a much different grain / fiber structure.
If the wood moisture gets down to 0-3% in a few summer months, it probably doesn’t need to be dried for even a year.
It seems it would be a total waste of time, money and yard space to dry some types of wood for more than one full summer.
Do I need to dry my Eucalyptus wood for more than a year. No. But I may need to put a sprinkler on it so it doesn’t burst into flames on it’s own after the first year :>)
When another branch breaks on an Oak tree I will do some Oak experiments.

Very difficult to get wood this dry.

 

[cptoneleg]

I stand corrected.
I only did rum research in the Caribbean on the consumption end, not the making end.

Test results;
Martineque rum is like paint thinner, Jamacan rum is very mellow.

Preferd method of testing;
Add some to Coke ( soda type) and consume on warm sandy beach. Testing beach should be located at least 1,000 or more from your work location.

Another Rocket Scientist, I got my fuel Right

 

[oldspark]

I stand corrected.
I only did rum research in the Caribbean on the consumption end, not the making end.

Test results;
Martineque rum is like paint thinner, Jamacan rum is very mellow.

Preferd method of testing;
Add some to Coke ( soda type) and consume on warm sandy beach. Testing beach should be located at least 1,000 or more from your work location.

Another Rocket Scientist, I got my fuel Right

Hows your rocket running these days?

 

[cottonwoodsteve]

In summer average temperature over 100F.
Average humidity 20%
Maybe 1 or 2 thunderstorms in 3 months.

Also remember the wood in the sun easily gets up to 140F when the the outside temp is 100F

So wood temperature well over 100F, 20% humidity.... wood dries in 3 summer months, no problem.

If your temperature is low and humidity is so high the mosquitoes are the size of model airplanes, your wood may taker longer.

 

[cptoneleg]

I stand corrected.
I only did rum research in the Caribbean on the consumption end, not the making end.

Test results;
Martineque rum is like paint thinner, Jamacan rum is very mellow.

Preferd method of testing;
Add some to Coke ( soda type) and consume on warm sandy beach. Testing beach should be located at least 1,000 or more from your work location.

Another Rocket Scientist, I got my fuel Right

Hows your rocket running these days?

Well I pie are squired afew thangs and came up with--- some secret wood rocket fuel