Hackberry Seasoning Time Moisture Content Question,

I have 6 cords of Hackberry stacked.

I'm wondering what is a OK or acceptable moisture content, before I start burning it?

 

Nice looking stacks. Welcome to the site!

 

Nice looking stacks. Like Dennis said, 20% is the sweet spot. Judging by the background my guess is that you are able to get wood to dry pretty fast there. Certainly faster than where I am.

 

Pretty drizzly up here in the NE. Haven't seen blue sky for more than half an hour for over a week where we are. Not the best drying weather.

Oops

 

Welome to the forums. Going by your user name, I'm guessing you split that by hand. We have the Hack here but I don't have experience with drying it. You've got low humidity there and it looks like it will get good wind, but with multiple rows stacked together I'm gonna guess that in 2 years it'll burn great, for sure, but maybe one year on the outside rows that are facing into the wind. It's medium-density wood, about like Black Cherry, so it might dry fairly quickly....sorry I can't say with more certainty.

 

Thanks guys. It's a pretty dry climate where I live and we have a lot of sunny days with a 10-15 mph breeze out of the west most days. I have the stacks going north to south. The faces are facing east and west hoping they get as much sun as possible. .

This wood was from two trees that came down in a storm the 1st of July this year. I brought them home and bucked them up. Never put a moister meter on them when I was bucking them as I knew they were green wet trees with leaves still on them. I had some of it split and stacked in mid July and the rest I split and stacked in mid-late August.

Yesterday I went out and poked the moister meter around in several places on the ends of the splits and was getting readings around 7-12% I pulled a few pieces out of the stacks and poked the sides and got readings of 15-20%, then I split a few open and was getting readings of 25-30% on the inside after I split them open.

I was told Hackberry can dry in 4-6 months in the right conditions. I'm hoping to start burning this wood by the end of this year. Wondering if it is dry enough for that? I'm getting low readings on the ends, but after I split a few of the already split pieces open the insides are still kind of on the high side.

What are your thoughts?

I never split a split open and checked the insides, in the past. I've just checked the ends and anything under 20% I through in the stove.

 

Thank you for the welcome. I used to split everything by hand, with a few different mauls I have. But I broke down this year and bought a splitter. It's in my avatar pic. I still like my mauls though, after I get a big piece opened up I grab one of my mauls. Also I belong to another firewood/chainsaw forum and just carried the user name over here.

 

I would say next year. Thats a good start for next year !

 

I've split quit a bit of Hackberry. It seasoned somewhere between silver maple and ash for me. A good long year and you should be good to go....with decent drying conditions of course.

 

Welcome to FHC. Love the neat stacks - can tell you've put a lot of time and work into them.

 

Welcome
Most wood takes a year,
You can split to smaller sizes & it'll dry faster.
( "they" say , the red oaks take 2 to 3 yrs. )

My catalytic stove like 15% & less.

Awesome stacks by the way
&
Welcome

Need to get that window fixed soon, be a bit of a cold breeze blowing thru soon. LOL

 

What stove do you have? Could put that in your sig, too.... Were you getting the 30% on the inside of a big split? If so, it's possible some of the smaller splits might be closer. Another thing you could do is separate out the smaller ones and stack them in a single row for even better air flow. Large flat ones may have dried pretty well, too. Split some mediums down to small. What wood have you got in the interim, and how dry is it?

 

Yes I was getting 25-30% inside of the bigger ones I split. I got even lower numbers in a few of the smaller ones I split down. What is the moisture content of a live green tree mid summer? I'm wondering what the MC was in this wood when it was green? As I got it down to 30% and under in 4 months. If I can get the numbers down another 8-10% in the next two months I think I am going to start burning it after the 1st of the year.

I have about 1-1/2 cords of dry elm left over from last winter, and few crates full of ugliest also left over.

I have a older earth stove, guessing from the 1980's? Looks like this. It likes to be fed a lot of wood.

 

You burn what you got
seasoned or not.

I've had to burn some pretty wet stuff over the years.

Should be less that 30% by January. Burnable .
Just keep an eye on the chimney ! Clean/inspect it monthly if burning marginal wood.
You'll be ok.
You can burn pretty wet stuff, just have to burn more wood & clean the chimney more often.

I had a chimney fire, Scary stuff.

Worked to get ahead.
Got 2 years ahead last year, now working on 17/18 wood.
Dry wood is a must for the new catalytics.

 

Yeah you want to be in the teens or low twenties ideally. Looks like you might have a pretty dry climate though? You might do better than I would here. But splitting it smaller always dries it faster.

 

Thanks for noticing the window. I will put that on my to-do list.

I think at one point in time that used to be a house. (what I now call the garage) There is a old kitchen step up in there, one bedroom with attic space above, a small lavatory, a small closet. There is even a old wood stove in there. You can see in the 2nd picture where they added onto the room line, I guessing when it was tuned into a garage?

 

I don't know hackberry personally but wood on the stump can easily be 70% or more,it varies by species. You are probably most of the way there. It comes down to how much sun (it takes energy to make things evaporate) you can give it vs. how much rain falls upon it. There is less sun and it is lower if the sky, but I have a feeling you live in a pretty dry area so rain might not be an issue.

 

LOL

I see a chimney, heated garage
A good shop too .
Dry storage is not over rated !

Must be farm country, been farm country for over a hundred years . Flat & no trees for miles.

Makes the hackberry an even better score !