Lots of great info here, and welcome to the club Marshel54! As has already been said, usually anything under 20-25% is considered seasoned. Some stoves don't like anything above 20%, it all depends on what stove you're running. If it's a drafty stove, the lower MC (moisture content) wood will burn hit and fast. In a right, EPA-certified stove, the dryer wood will be amazing. Different species require different seasoning times. Ash, pine, spruce, poplar, soft maple all season very fast once C/S/S (cut/split/stacked), sometimes as quickly as a year. On the other hand, oak, hard maple and other dense woods can require much more time, even up to 3 years. This is why we preach the "3 Year Plan" here at FHC. Get yourself 3 years ahead, and you'll have no worries at all. And the cardinal rule with seasoned wood is this.....wood doesn't really start seasoning until it's been split!!! Keep your splits around 5"x5" at the largest, any rounds over 4-5" diameter should be split at least once......it's worked for me for many years!
Welcome to the club Marshel54 nice to meet you . Lots of good info here. I agree with getting a moisture meter considering how cheap they are. If you have the wood c,s,s for three years off the ground then you wouldnt need one but for the $25-$40 why not buy a fun little toy. I will add that if you buy one most are calibrated to a wood temperature of 70 degrees F so you may need to bring a piece in and warm it by the fire for a spell to get a more accurate reading. You will also need to check it in the center of a fresh split piece of wood.
You know... Ive been thinking of retiring my tired moisture meter and this looks exactly like the one I should be getting. Under the softwood setting does it give more options than pine or spruce or am I asking to much?
"Seasoned" is a fancy way to say "not dry" in the Ads I see. Seasoned should mean: treating or drying of wood until ready for use.
A little defense for wood sellers If they seasoned wood to 20%, the size of their storage area would be huge. Their work time increases And the cost would increase IMO It's the responsibility of the end user to burn dry wood If you have to buy 20% moisture wood, expect to pay more AK birch takes 2 years to get to that . Most who have to burn wood have enough area to stack & season it Buy a year or 2 ahead Almost Everyone here has burned less than well seasoned wood. "You burn what you got" It's prudent To Inspect your chimney , every month
Brand new stove for this year. Buck FS21 non-catalytic. Installation will be complete tomorrow. The stove I had for last 4 years was an old Rebel that I bought used. New one does have a window. Kind of excited to see how the new one does, since we have heated strictly with wood for the last 4 years . The old one had a healthy apatite. The new is rated at 79% efficiency. Hope fully less wood. I just retired and have more time to play with my wood. I will have to look into a moisture meter.
The best moisture meter is a calendar!!! CSS your wood and wait 2 years at least................3 is better. I've not yet reached the "NIRVANA" of being 3 years ahead on my wood supply; hence, I tend to look for wood that dries faster..................maple, ash, box elder vs. the woods that take a longer time season.............oak, osage, locust, etc.
Thanks all very enlightening. I didn't know that different varieties of wood take different times to cure. My son-in-law works for land clearing company. He brings me wood by the truck loads. I then split it and stack it. So my wood pile contains a variety of species. I had read to split in the spring, stack and let it uncovered until Aug. The tarp it. The tarping did not occur this year. I now have a better idea of how to manage my wood. Between left over from last year, what is in the barn and what I split up in the spring have plenty for this season. I will have to start working on next years supply.
I wouldn't tarp it per se, just top-cover it. You want air flow to hit the sides of the stacks, completely tarping will not allow air flow and will create conditions for rot. I use reclaimed rubber roofing for my top cover and it works fantastic. Much better than traditional tarps IMO....
This^^^^!! Never tarp wet wood. That said; I do fully tarp the"seasoned" wood that I'm planning on burning within the next month, as I do not have a wood shed to store wood in. Then I bring about 2-3 days worth to my deck so I don't have to go across the yard for wood!!!
How much does sunlight contribute to the drying? Since I am going to start splitting next years supply, I was thing of taking it to the barn. The barn is oriented east west and the prevailing winds are from the west. I will have good ventilation but not much sunlight and it will not get rained on. I am thinking about bring the wood from the barn and the stacks of left overs from previous years up to the house, make a separate stack and tarp it for when it gets really cold.
This is what I do. Like Scotty said tarps aren't ideal but they work for the most part. This is a double row of 18s on pallets and top covered with a tarp. The tarp is folded over so if the weather will be nasty and rainy late fall I can drop the sides down for a bit but I never fully cover with a tarp for very long as wood will pick up moisture from the ground if left like that. If it's summer I let the sides get wet since they will dry pretty easily. I also have stacks with plywood on top which helps the wood on the top breath better but it doesn't work well on a 35 foot run like this.
Yep, selling actual dry seasoned wood would be a daunting task. Especially so if you are selling 100 cord a year. I feel like "seasoned" gets thrown around a bit much. When a "layperson" sees Seasoned, they will assume it's ready for the stove.
Seasoned is kind of a funky term even though it is accepted by many, you could have logs laying around for years and it would be seasoned but not dry.
Marshel54 , as soon as I read your post I thought you should read this. My other first thought was get yourself a moisture meter Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage Welcome to da club
I think sunlight helps but not sure to what extent, in a barn with good ventilation would be good because the temp would be a little higher then out in the open I believe and it never hurts to keep the rain off for the most part. So many variables when it comes to drying wood it's hard to pin point exact answers.
Yep. I don't refer to my wood is seasoned, it's either dry or not dry, or maybe half dry but, dry means it's ready to burn
+1 Maybe the term "seasoned" means : wood that has started the drying process, but no specific level of % of dryness Seasoned is just part of the description: Seasoned 2 weeks Seasoned a year Seasoned 2 years Partially Seasoned Seasoned to 20% moisture ???? Seems here, most call seasoned; dried to 20% moisture. I can go with that, most BTU & weight charts use 20% as the moisture content.
