Does anyone think there may come a point where firewood is actually too dry? I ask this because growing up, my grandparents had a woodshed, and they put about 8 cord inside, but under the floorboards down into a pit they kept a few extra cord "just in case winter ran long". They did not use it much, and my Grandfather died in 1992 and it was even years before that in which any of the wood in this pit was used and replenished. When I burned it,in the year 2014 it was plenty dry. In fact I considered it too dry. No creosote granted Plenty of heat But boy did it burn up fast. We don't have oak here so we never had to season that, but I liked a one year dry time. Just enough to burn good, but not burn too fast. Just curious if anyone else found firewood to be "too dry".
I guess it kind of depends what your burning it in.. a newer modern stove with cat.. no problem with to dry.. older stove without ability to control air well yes it burns faster so mix it with some othervstuff..
Ive always wondered the same thing, if wood can become too dry over time. I have come across pieces that have been outdoors for many years and seem to have a very light feel to them in weight but it also shows signs of dry rot too. I wonder when that wood LodgedTree you talk about in the pit under the floorboards was able to collect moisture and dry over many years possibly creating a dry rot situation. Storage below grade may have had something to do with that.
Old smok dragon maybe but like the man said, a modern stove with air control, no problem. I just don't believe any wood can be 'too dry.' But then I'm a Woodenhead!
I'm not so sure. We used a wonderwood at the time and it was air tight with an automatic bimetal draft control and I felt it burned excessive amounts of that dry wood, but I must be honest with you too, I am a closet-coal-burner too where long burn times are normal.
Wood (oak) in a shed here doesn't get much below 10-12% I had some oak that I finally burned last year that was 5 years old cut n split. Te last several years it got no lower on MC . And where the roof kind of leaked on some of it , it was rotting so I burned it. But it was a special stash really
I started my wood burner career with a Wonderwood ...IMO those things burn all wood fast...wet and especially dry...thats why they call 'em Wonderwood..."I wonder where all that wood went?!"
I do not believe in the myth that wood can be too dry especially with epa stoves. I burn lots of very dry pine. No worrys.
You could be right. I have a New Yorker Boiler that I plan to install soon and maybe that one will be a bit better? I have heard those are creosote makers which scares me though. It can burn coal too, so that was what I planned to burn in it, not just for the long burn times but because coal does not form creosote. I am only 42 years old, but in life I have learned the hard way that when something is made for dual purpose, it seldom excels at either thing it was designed for. So I don't have high hopes for it burning either wood or coal well. I like to fuss with stoves though so who knows. I only paid $600 for the silly thing and it was in excellent shape. I rebuilt it just the same because with radiant heat, I am spending so little on propane now to heat my home, buying a new $7000 boiler as supplemental heat, my return on investment would never occur before it was junk. But the return on investment for $600 is a LOT shorter.
All wood will eventually stabilize at the EMC (Equilibrium Moisture Content) of the atmospheric conditions it is being stored in. It is theoretically possible to get wood down to a 0% MC by drying it in a kiln or oven, but as soon as you take it out, it will begin to absorb moisture from the atmosphere. Most wood will tend to stabilize over long periods of time. In my area, it tends to be in the 9-12% MC range, which could take years of dry storage. As far as being too dry to burn as firewood? I don't believe that for a second. It takes a certain amount of BTU's to drive off residual moisture from a piece of wood, and once that moisture has been removed (as steam), the wood will start to burn. The generally accepted gross heating value of any species of firewood is 8,600 BTU/LB, but that is reduced proportionately as the MC increases. What some people perceive as "excessively dry" wood, is simply a reduction in the MC to a point where rapid combustion is possible, without a lengthy conversion process of residual moisture to steam. There is enough research online to cross your eyes and make your brain hurt if you want to check it out.
I actually talked about this issue with Chris from Blaze King. Wood too dry is a problem for a cat stove..... It can off gas faster than the Catalytic can burn the smoke resulting in an inefficient dirty burn. That being said he said their stoves are engineered around a MC from 15 to 20% if memory serves correctly. So in most cases the "Too Dry Wood" would need to have been Kiln dried to cause these problems.
Wood too dry?!!!! I've never seen any wood that was too dry and never expect to. I've known people to burn wood that had been stored inside a barn for 20 years and it burned wonderful! As for the guy from Blaze King, I do not believe him either. How dry is our wood? I don't know for the most part but we did have some of our wood checked once and it was below 10%; one reading had 7%. Now, let us use this reading and compare with the theory that wood will never get below the normal humidity reading. I will pretty much guarantee you our humidity reading has never gone down to 10% here. It will go the lowest relative humidity during the winter months but I think I've seen it below 30% maybe twice. Most of the time during the winter months when it is dry here the humidity will still be in between 30-40%. I'd hate to think about burning wood at that humidity! As for the wood burning faster; yes! Why wouldn't it. However, this is the main reason draft controls are built into a stoves; so you can control how much oxygen the fire gets. If people try to burn dry wood the same as they burn green wet wood, there will be some problems to overcome. As for me and my house, we'll follow the Lord and we'll also burn dry wood.
I don't anyone meant that it will stabilize at the RH but merely that it influences it. Wood that is at a given MC then 2 SAMPLE moved to an environment at 30% MC AND 80% MC will yield different MC after an few weeks. It won't ever get as high as the MC cause were back at the thing that wood is not a sponge.
So......... I would like to add my two cents. There have been a few here that touched on this, mainly bobdog2o02 but I would say yes wood can be to dry. This goes against everyone else on this thread but ive been around long enough that I feel I can say to all of you In reality it is not likely that there will be many circumstances where wood is to dry but since this is a wood burning forum we ask these questions because no one else out there cares about the finer points of our debates but us. Across the street from us there is a log cabin that is used once every year or two by a lady from down south. She had an offer to sell it so much of the items in the home were up for sale. I purchased about a cord and a half of mostly lodgepole pine in the round for about $90 plus I had to snow blow the driveway one time for her. The wood was stored in her enclosed garage with no light and no heat for around 6 years. We took it home and split it and stacked it and started burning it. I ended up using it for kindling because when I burned it in the stove it would off gas so quickly that there would be wisps or strings of creo floating through the fire box and my glass would go black. Also black smoke would pour out my chimney embarrassing me with how I was presenting my wood burning abilities to the neighbors. No matter what I would do to change my burning the end result was always the same. In another thread in the wood shed I posted yesterday I have a picture of my moisture meter stuck in a split from a tree I dropped earlier in the day and it was under 10% mc and burned like a dream last night. Anyways my two cents folks.
I burn a bunch of lodge pole pine and some of it has been sitting in splits for about 2 years. Now here in Wyoming where the wind never goes away and the average humidity level seems to be around 35% the wood can get pretty dry. Some wood that others may have to wait for 2 years to season can season here in one year. I have never had lodge pole pine turn anything black in my stove. It makes me think there was something else going on with that wood other than being too dry. That just sounds weird to me. My experience is just different from yours I guess.
Yeah could be. It didnt have any weird colour, smell or anything that would make me think it was off. I wonder what it could have been if not that? Off gassing fast to the point that it over rides my stoves ability for secondary burn was a new experience for me. Ive heard of this before with others but its not widely talked about. Wish I could duplicate it so I was more educated about it but I dont really feel like putting in the time for something that isnt likely to happen again.
All stoves have different effencincies and designs, what runs in your stove one way will be a bit different in my stove and a bit different in the next guys stove.
