Ok, so I'm about ready to buy my first moisture meter. But I have read conflicting reports as to what the moisture levels should be depending on the wood type. Another thing I read about is different types of wood can provide heat even with higher moisture levels. That doesn't really make sense, sense you have to boil off that extra water. I'm getting confused. Wood type, drying times, moisture levels. Around here, the best woods are maples, ashes and elms. Cottonwoods grow great, same with box elder but those are trash woods. That's what I burned last winter and I burned about a chord and a half, and i was out of wood by new years. Now I am of the opinion that the drier the wood......the better. Period. My sons and I have already loaded about a chord into the basement, and will be putting more in later. What say you?
I know there’s a lot of information and misinformation out there about burning wood. I stick to the 20% MC or less rule, regardless of species. My uncle who I respect immensely and who has been burning wood for decades swears by burning green hickory. That’s fine for him, I won’t do it indoors. Creosote aside, green wood just burns like garbage. Why struggle to get and keep a fire going? I’d much rather have the peace of mind knowing my firewood is ready when I need it.
20% moisture regardless of wood type. That is on a fresh split. I think the confusion arises when you start talking about the time it takes to get the wood there. For example ash may only take a couple of months from green to <20%. Whereas oak will take 2+yrs. And willow may rot before it ever gets there.
I'm curious were you read that different wood should have different moisture content. I have never heard anything but below 20% mc.
I aim for 20%. Based on the size I split and where I stack it, it's pretty good after a year. Your splits look to be about the same size I have and those work well in my stove. Random thoughts: The older style wood stoves (the ones without a baffle or cat) were less picky about wood size and dryness. I grew up with one of those and it would chug along just fine if the wood wasn't at 20%. My Jotul now...not so much. Throw in a wet split and you'll watch that stove temp drop and the glass haze over faster than you can say...."What's that sizzling noise?".
Steve, that is some pure baloney. As most have stated <20% is what you need. You do not necessarily need a moisture meter either. I'm getting close to 80 now and have never required a MM. Also, if you stay on the 3 year plan you don't even have to think about moisture in the wood; it will burn nicely. Also, your maple, ash and elm are the types of wood that do not require long drying times like oak does.
This year I'll be burning mostly ash, elm and maple with a little cottonwood mixed in ( I would say probably 5% cottonwood). I expect it to last much longer. Here's what I have ready to go for this year so far. My nice neat pine stack on the left. My ugly pine stack, this will be burned first. A pile of unstackable pine. I dont know who did it, but someone bucked this stuff to only 5-8 inches long, making it unstackable. I picked it up from the city rubble site. You can see how short they are. And now my beautiful stack of hardwoods!! This pile isn't done yet. I need more. Tell me what you think! Should I be doing something different??
This... Some wood species just take longer to get to 20% or less than others, but the 20% is where it needs to be when you throw it in the stove. I understand about cottonwood. I'd probably leave that, but the box elder dries out quickly, in a summer usually and had 17.9 million BTU's per cord. That's not trash at all. Stash box elder, don't trash it.
Nope. Except for grabbing all the box elder you can if the better stuff isn't available. It's great for the not so super cold days and also for lighting the stove with heavier denser hardwoods.
Ok, I mostly don't like box elder due to the amount of bugs thats usually in it, and its usually rotten all over. In fact in our last wind storm, a pretty big box elder came down about a 1 block west of my house. I will reconsider my opinion, due to your words. Thanks!!
There are a few upsides to those really light woods that most people think are a waste of time to split and stack: 1) They tend to dry quite quickly. Sure, you'll be reloading the stove a lot more frequently but I'd rather burn 3 cords of year-old tulip poplar or pine than struggle to burn a cord of year-old oak. When you are first starting the 3 year plan, you need something to burn. First thing I did was stash a few years worth of pine and ailanthus and soft maple and so forth. As I burned that, I replaced it with things like sweet gum (that was a delight to split by hand) and eventually things like oak. 2) Because they are light weight when dry, they heat up faster than an equal volume of heavier wood. This generally makes them good kindling. They also make a good first load in a cold stove. If I load with oak, it takes a fairly long time before I have a good hot fire. With a load of pine, it is a lot faster to have the stove hot and ready to turn down. 3) They don't make heat as long as the denser woods do. There are times when all I want is a short hot fire. As far as moisture content, the drier the better. You'll hear people say that wood can be too dry. That is nonsense, even if the stove manufacturer says it. Wood doesn't burn until the surface reaches about 300C. At that temperature, water has evaporated. Irrespective of how wet the inside of the wood is, the actual burning surface is dry. If the wood is still wet inside, there is a continuous supply of steam being driven through the combustion zone, cooling it down and making it burn like crap, but it isn't going to start burning until you get the surface temperature well above the boiling point of water. If the stove manufacturer says wood can be too dry, what that means is that they haven't properly designed their stove to allow control of airflow and they are relying on the moisture in the wood to keep temperatures from getting too hot during the initial part of the burn. Generally speaking, you are not going to get wood perfectly dry. It will come into equilibrium with the ambient humidity. But in a dry climate that can be quite low. I've been to Namibia several times, and firewood there is delightfully dry and easy to light. I routinely use the residual heat in my pizza oven to bake the next load dry and I can assure you that truly dry wood burns better than anything else.
While I agree with dry firewood there is probly no denying that the smoking green hickory probly smells great
Very true. Green wood (not dried) for smoking is the way to go. I wouldn’t want to try smoking with fully seasoned hickory any more than I’d want to try heating with fresh hickory!
Judging by the size of a lot of those splits, you could be burning them a lot faster than needed. In other words, let your splits be larger.
I split my pine kinda small because I mainly just us it as a fire starter, then when I get a bed of coals about 30 minutes later, I pull the coals to the front and start throwing in the hardwoods to get the heat going. Thats what you're supposed to do, right?