What's the highest moisture content you'll burn? I hated to start a thread to ask this question but I didn't see a good current one to ask on. Long story short, I have about a cord of primo wood this year from my father in law. It's a mix of maple, oak, and mostly ash. It all registers mid teens on the mm and just sounds - feels dry. I was moving some wood around today to get it in place for this winter and checked some splits from oak branches I scrounged in April and they're between 22 and 24%. I don't need to use them but it would add a good deal of wood for this me. Some of it is punky and buggy so it's not coming in the house till it goes in the stove. Is that that ok to mix with the primo wood?
Definitely ok to burn in my opinion. I would not hesitate to burn it by itself, and certainly not hesitate to mix it with drier wood. It should be fine.
I burned a bunch of red maple, year before last that was 25%, it was good clean wood so I kept 4 days worth in the house near the stove, burned it after two days and replenished it every two days. I also mixed it with good dry stuff and it buned real nice I'd say you'd be fine burning what you got. My old stove I burned wood that was lot wetter than that
x2, burn whatcha got! People like us who seek out others on the internet who process/burn wood are obviously not the casual user. People who do this with this hobby or other hobbies tend to take things more seriously. Honestly if you have wood that is seasoned for just a season you're probably better off than 90% of the wood burning population. I always tell people burning wood is easy, burning wood efficiently/cleanly for good clean heat his the tough part.
You should be fine Tom...especially with a tube stove..they say cat stoves are a little more particular..
Appreciate the responses. That's what I thought but wasn't totally sure. I'll mix a piece in with the dry stuff when I load it.
My first year with an EPA stove, I burned red oak that was CSS one year. 24% on the MM. I didn't have any problems but the next year was noticeably better. I'm looking forward to some 3 year CSS wood this winter.
If its 22% in the middle then its less then that around the edges so maybe the average will be 20% or below, should be no problem burning something in that range. Dryer is better but at some point it wont get any dryer, I have some Green Ash that is 15% through the whole piece.
Let us know if you notice a difference in burning your primo stuff and the stuff you were wondering about drvn. Would you?
Probably 75 to 85% of what I plan on using. The first pic is the primo mid teens stuff from my father in law. I still have one more good sized load of that stuff to grab yet. The second pic is the stuff I was asking about. It's not a ton of wood so we're only gonna use it on weekends this year. Next year I should have enough to run the stove all the time. This last pic is three rows deep of oak that also measures mid 20's from the outside rows. I really don't wanna use that this winter though and won't. I'm saving that for next year to mix with this year's css maple so we can run the stove daily all winter.
Here's a better pic of the oak for next year that's three rows deep. Disregard the maple. I'm just stacking it there since it will be ready next year also. Once the wood in the rack is used up I'm removing it and not stacking on the hardscape anymore..
I was telling my wife about all your responses so said just start a fire. It's chilly here and we have Thursday night football. I'll report back soon..
The ash measuring mid teens goes up very fast.. I'm gonna let this split coal down and I'll add a mix to see what happens..
Ok.. Gonna toss in a piece of the 22-24% oak with a piece of bone dry mid teens ash.. I'll report back shortly..
I have been burning wood for 40 years. Used to think my one-year-old wood was good stuff. And don't get me wrong it served me well for many years. But over those years I found seasoned for a year or two more is a lot better. Bottom line is you you will know when you put it in the stove whether it's ready. Best test ever
