I'm pretty sure your outside wood is as dry as it will ever get outside at the three year point. The additional drying that you measured with the three year wood that you brought in is because of the environment inside your house, the elevated temperature (reduced RH) from your stove in particular. If your outside wood is dry as it gets it will actually be changing, just like the woodwork does inside a house, between the winter and summer.
Around here once it gets to 16 percent MC it's as dry as it's going to get, It may read 7 to 10 percent on the outside but inside it's 16. When I am splitting I have my Meter with me and check periodically so I know where I'm at to start with, especially when the wood already dead, heck I burned red oak, this winter I picked up in august, 22in rounds were 18 percent inside
I know that the 3 year dry stuff burns much better & cleaner than the 1 year wood. Big difference. Can see the wood furniture move here, shrinks in winter, expands in summer. Driest time is about right now. Humidity level will pick up now that spring has arrived. 49° now with 42% humidity
The 3 cords of oak and maple, that came off the stump in the fall of 2012, was split differently. Maple was split to 1/4 log and the oak split to 1/8 log. It's what I now have stacked in the shed. I hope to burn it next year. I'll do the same with the ash vs. red oak that my son and I cut spring of 2013… and with this year's spring haul. Figured the oak would dry about the same as maple or ash, if it ended up getting 2x more surface to the air. We'll see how well it dries in the shed.
What ever works for you works for you but wood dries faster with heat, now after it gets dry I suppose it could pick up some moisture with the summer months but not sure its a lot. High heat and low humidity would be the fastest way to dry it but we don't have that here. I too can only get wood to about 15% here (at least that is the lowest I have read) After my wood gets dry it does not help leaving it any longer so I don't go by time alone.
I burnt some 22% once because some claimed they had sizzlers at 22% but mine did not. Not sure I can tell much difference as most of my wood burns well, guessing most of mine is 16% by the time I burn it any way.
I had no sizzlers at 25%' it didn't burn great but I mixed it with drier stuff , had to burn what I had
HD… I just went and checked out Lopi Republic specs. Looks a lot like our Liberty. How long have you had it and how you like dat?
Put it in last summer, replaced the dragon, the Republic was 3 years old ,came with a 1 year old blower , from CL for $450 My first EPA stove ,I really like it. Gets chilly in the basement but ,Heats my 1200sqft great, Fires start good with the door cracked EDIT My old Fire View, was a 8 q ft fire box
I think the "official" moisture content for sizzlers is around 28 to 30% so not sizzling at 25% makes sense to me. Burning wet wood is not the kiss of death by itself, low flue temps with the wet wood is all bad.
One year in the basement, along wall by the wood stove . blue sticky original weight & now weight. 3 year wood, was pretty dry it, didn't loose much moisture : CSS Oct/2013 wood. (It was in the S&S for over a month before I decide to do the test) The 10 pounder lost 3.2 pounds so far. Will let the 2013 wood there for another year to see what it does. 2014 splits (today) on the 2014/2015 wood moisture test. (a bit fresher wood weights, should be a better test)
If it is assumed that your 10# piece is now at 20% it would have started at 76.5%. 6.8/120=.0566, 10/.0566=176.5. Figuring that it isn't at 20% yet and that it lost a pound of water in the month before you weighed it makes the starting point close to 100%. That would mean half of its green weight is water.
Back in the day the women hung their clothes out on cold days, they didn't get completely dry but were somewhat dry.
I'm betting that's close. Handeling the fresh cut stuff & the dry stuff, next to each other what a big really noticeable difference in weight, Thing is , I see ice on some of the rounds, on the cut sides in the center, some of the water is coming out of the wood overnight after it was cut. From the rounds at the base of the tree, the water hasn't all drained down , a slower process than I thought. Has to go out thru the roots some how ?
A lot of technical information on the net about drying wood and how it is effected by heat and moisture, none of the information contradicts my 35 year experiments with drying wood.
Well I'm a little late to the thread, but I found it really interesting. Here's a little more info for the net I suppose! Testing by weight is much more accurate than using a MM alone. The MM can only tell you what the MC is on the outside inch or so of the split. I used my MM to demonstrate this very fact to my BIL not too long ago. Most of his 2-3 year "seasoned" rounds were about twice as wet on the inside! The most accurate way would be to use a MM to establish a baseline when it's freshly cut, then monitor by weight to determine what's happening on the inside. I'll bet even oldspark will agree that he can tell if a split is dry enough just by picking it up!
