You are probably pulling water out of the ambient air too. If you weigh some pieces down to the gram it’s really easy to figure out what you are losing and see if it correlates with your moisture meter.
There’s not much moisture in the air in the bone-dry winter here even in our basement, and not much in the tiny room. Pretty sure the H2O is coming from the wood. Weighing a few random pieces would be a logical next step—good idea! I will try that on my next reload and report back
Welcome Nigel, at one time I did as you are now. One thing I noticed is to put a fan on the wood as well. I know the dehumidifier fan moves some air, its just not enough. Once I put a box fan on the wood to blow down the row, I can tell you how surprised how much quicker it will pull moisture off the wood. You will have to dump the reservoir quicker. If I remember correctly, I had a 2 or 2.5 gallon reservoir and was dumping every 10 or so hours, it was full or overflowing. The other thing that will help dry out your wood will be if you can put some close to the stove. I have a rack close to the stove, its a few days worth. When I bring in wood from outside, it takes about an hour or two you can hear the wood start popping. I think once it is room temp it stops. You are on the right track, by accelerating the drying process you will have it figure out quickly, looks like you already have.
If u burn wood that's not seasoned and dry to 15 or 20 at max, you'll soon find out why it's inefficient and you'll burn more wood to keep the heat output up not to mention a pain to sweep the chimney out more. White Ash is already a low moisture content wood but, If u need it this season because u ran out, split down to 4 in pieces bring 3x what u need in house if not termite or and infested and burn, but itle be a low output suck ash..fire.. keep for next year if u can.
Wood dries via time, relative humidity and exposure to wind and sun. I am kind of a numbers guy so bear with me. Ash weighs 3952 #'s per full cord, so a face is 1317 #'s. You are drying 3/4 of a face cord which should weigh 988 #'s. 5 gallons of condensate out of the dehumidifier will weight 40 #'s. As others have said some of the water is coming out of the ambient air. 40/988= .0404 or 4.04% reduction in weight. I can't tell you how that correlates to reduction in moisture since I don't know the proportion of wood to water? Anyhoo, I am thinking your use of a dehumidifier is not real significant. Setting wood near a wood stove for a month will help a lot since the air around the stove is of such a low relative humidity. Get ahead on your wood cutting, split pieces thinner, set the wood in the sun and where it gets lots of wood and you will be set.
yeah, 5 gal isn't much for a face cord. In a room that may or not be introducing moisture content to the dehumidifier. but it's 5 gallons that didn't burn off in the stove, robbing from net heat output but at what true cost leave the kill-a-watt on for the duration and get actual rather than theoretical energy expend numbers weigh samples before and after for a comparison re:MM readings of select pieces - they should correlate a gallon weighs 8 pounds ( actually a bit more) you're not drying the center of a split in one week - wood just isn't that pliable. It's not hard to find how long it takes a commercial kiln to drive moisture content down.
Appreciate the numbers! It's somewhere around 2/3-3/4 of a face cord for the record, but I totally agree. The centres don't dry out, they're usually still in the 20s which I bet is where they started, or very very close. I think a commercial kiln takes anywhere up to 30 days for stable wood for furniture making, but that's in an effort to keep the shape, i.e. not warp, and get MC down sub 10%. I also think kilns can get dimensional lumber into the teens, which builders can use, within a couple of days. I guess I'm going on that strategy for my woodpile. Not too worried about checking, cracking and warpage for what's on my woodpile. Also, even if it is just the outsides, and the ends drying out, as I'm observing, it seems to really help with how the wood burns. Totally true that I should consider the true energy expended but in my position of not having properly seasoned wood I think it's all well spent. Just wanted to share. And oh yes, I'm already stacking for next year!
Not criticizing Nigel, I've been there as have many others. Your doing good for now, and better for future.
You actually can do the math if we assume that your weight/per cord of 3952 is at 20% which is what I think you did. The 3/4 face is 988 pounds of wood and moisture. We need to figure how much is wood and water. Since you always have the same amount of dry wood which is 100 compared to the moisture content it’s easy to figure the ratio. At 20% at it means you have 100 parts of wood and 20 parts of water. Divide the weight of the wood and moisture by the total number of parts 988/120=8.23. Each point(part) is 8.23 pounds. At 20% as assumed above you have 823 pounds of bone dry wood and 164 pounds of water. When the wood was green on the stump you still had the same 823 pounds of dry wood and a lot more water. The amount of wood never changes. (Unless it rots or you lose some). The dehumidifier sucked out 40 pounds of water. 40/8.23 = 4.84. So no matter what your true moisture content is, if all 40 pounds of water came out of your wood. it will lose 4.84%. Once you know the dry weight of the wood the scale’s accuracy is absolute. A moisture meter can only test the points where you stuck it.
The wood weight was off a chart of GREEN wood. Charts vary a lot one actual weight across the country by region. My point to the OP is cut your wood, split it and let it season outside. Exposure to sun, wind and time is what seasons wood so it burns best. The last variable, time is one that is hard to change.
