Got into some of my drier Wood

My stove is going to rock now.

I couldnt help but smile when I was loading it into my wheel barrow.

Cold spell is coming in and I got my driest wood now.

 

Good timing.
When all your wood is dry, it's a moot point.
I still get a few hissers every once in a while, so no, I'm not perfect.

 

Dry wood is key to good clean burning
Cranks out more heat too

 

The wood I was into was in the range of 20-21% this now is like 16% and makes a huge difference in the performance of the stove.

I would say this to anyone with a secondary air type non-cat stove. If your a little upset with its performance before going out and buying a bigger stove, try some good dry wood in it. Go to the farm store and buy some of those wood blocks for stoves , watch how much better your stove performs. Load on a coal bed and watch how much faster you can get the stove shut back down, as the heat comes up much quicker in the stove before the wood gets all burned up, you then can get it shut down to lower input air levels and the stove still burns really hot at the new lower setting all because of the drier wood. Since you got the air shut down quicker and to lower setting your burn time increases. Slower burns but yet with hotter stove temps than usual means warmer house. But you have to adjust when loading much drier wood so as to get the stove shut down sooner or the stove can get ot burning too aggresive and you will not get as long of burn time due to letting the stove get too hot before getting it shut back down.

 

There is "dry wood" and then there's "really great really dry wood". Even within the same 2- or 3-year stack I find both, same species. Kinda strange. You can tell a really great split because it's lighter and usually flames up in seconds put on a hot coal bed. Except for black locust, of course - BL takes nuclear fuel rods to get it started.

 

I've been burning 3-year stacked Shagbark Hickory that was the double-end cribbing on a few cords of mixed. Wow, its just phenomenal stuff and really demonstrates the effectiveness on properly seasoned fire wood. I am going to build a half-cord solar kiln this spring just for the Shagbark and see what I can do to keep myself in Hickory Heaven.

 

Solid post and true words about dry wood, huntindog1.

 

Transfered a 1/3 cord I had stashed away since last spring- doesn't even register on my moisture meter, mostly sugar maple plus another 1/3 cord in the 15-20% ranges so I'm set for the big freeze next week. Have a little over another 1/3 defrosted as well. Tomorrow need to bring in a cord to defrost/dry out from rain and snow that will leave about one more outside, should be enough to carry through till May altogether.

 

I like your Dogs.

 

They were about a year old in that pic. They are 3 now, sisters, one is an introvert the other a extrovert, never a dull moment.

 

I wondered how big a difference this would make in a non-cat. I guess every stove and situation is different....
I got into some White Ash that I put up in the spring. It was dead standing so I figured I'd split it a bit bigger and it would still get dry. Well, last summer wasn't that great for drying here....would rain every few days so the humidity was high. That wood doesn't bubble out the ends or even hiss, but it feels just a little heavier, sounds duller, and you can tell the difference in how fast it catches fire and how long it takes to get the stove temp up and the cat lit off. I don't really need to burn that wood but I've been playing with it a bit. I'll put a split or two in the front of a load where it'll get torched as I'm bringing the stove up to temp. I've also got some stacked near the stove to see how long it will take to get really dried out. I really need to bring a few in, get 'em up to room temp, and split and measure to see exactly where it's at. I'm guess 18% or so....

 

Last year was my first with a stove, and my wood supply was marginal at best. This season I was better prepared and I had a good amount of half-decent stuff, the driest being a pile of silver maple, but with the severity of the winter I went through it much faster than expected. In December I got lucky when a neighbor had a standing dead black locust taken down. It had been dead for so long that the sapwood had mostly rotted away into something approaching soil, but it was held in place by the bark which was in turn wrapped in a mesh of English ivy. When the tree hit the ground the bark and ivy broke loose, leaving almost half a cord of barkless wood that needed a good wire brushing on the outside, but most of which metered at 14% inside.

I burned through most of that locust in January and late February, and it was the best firewood I've had to date. I switched to other stuff during the recent thaw, so there were maybe 2-3 loads worth hanging out on my rack in the basement, the slightly damp outsides that had been in contact with the rotted sapwood drying out more thoroughly for an extra week or so. We got another wave of cold weather, so with overnight temperatures predicted to bottom out around 11F I loaded my non-cat stove N-S (as I've found works best), scraping all the coals to one side and then stuffing in as many locust splits as I could. When the top was flirting with 600F, I set the air almost completely closed and went to bed. Seven hours later I woke to find the stovetop around 450F and the fuel looking like this, still with little blue flames streaming off in back:



This is the best burn I've had to date. I hope a drier wood supply will make it less of an anomaly next year.

 

Put some in the nc 30 that was so dry it didn't even register ( under 8%) Stove shot to 800 in like ten minutes a bit scary, looked like that planet eater from an early S T episode . Closed her all the way down and it was around 20-30 minutes before it started backing down. Heard something like pellets or bbs every so often from the flue figure it was some creosote flaking off from way up top as that's the only place I ever find any build up. Never been a significant amount either, but with this super cold wind chills I guessing it might be a bit more than in the past. Normally I get up there about 1/2 season and give it a quick brushing. Can't this year too much snow on roof, plus the rain storm last week adds ice to the equation. I just do not bounce like I used to more of a flop/crunch type of thing now days.

 

There's a BL grove I have access to, and I can find dead ones on the ground that are ready to go in the stove immediately, also 14%.

I grew up in SE WI and it's not all that dry there. You might be able to get wood to 8% in Arizona, but not in these parts. Could be an issue with your meter....or you had it next to the stove for a few weeks.
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplrn/fplrn268.pdf

 

The splits had been inside my shop since last spring up on a shelf about 14' off the floor(22'ceiling), really dry in here once you turn the heat on, double so the further you go up ( got fans to push heat down) so you could almost call it kiln dried. Furnaces hang from ceiling ( code) so there is a lot of very dry heat up top. I lose about 50% of a 10 gallon coolant tank in a week during the winter do to evaporation. In the spring it gets real damp, even running a couple dehumidifiers, summer not so bad once the AC units are running. So in the winter it is about 1800 sqft of perfect split drying area. Only problem is all the big lumps of metal things taking up floor space. Wooden handles on tools get loose in winter and tighten up in spring.

 

Well, I got some splits out of the stack that seemed heavier, sounded dull etc. and brought them inside for a day (not near the stove.) They all tested about 16% on the re-split. Clearly I know nothing about judging dry wood without a meter and not much about running my stove either. I do have a big seam leak in the left front, so maybe that is messing with my brain....

Ah, I see...

 

Standing dead wood dont always mean dry, something about splitting and stacking that takes it to another level of dry. Thats why they call it seasoned its like an art form.