Found this paper about drying lumber. Although it focuses on drying lumber and not firewood, it does a pretty good job of explaining what is going on when wood dries between pages 20 and 30. It's a good read on the inter relationships of heat, air movement and relative humidity with respect to drying wood and the diminishing importance of wind as wood dries. http://www.lignomatusa.com/images/Docs/LignomatPrinciplesPracticeDryingLumber.pdf
Nice work, thanks for sharing. This aught to help with the argument with the people that think seasoning is one summer.
Very good, thanks. I kind got that end grain checking occurs very early in the drying process and is not an indicator of dryness. Good read.
I guess I don't get that out of the article, really depends on many things with some types of wood taking longer then others. The one thing I found interesting is it sounds like air movement makes a difference when moisture content is high but later in the drying process not so much, I wonder if that is true for our drying methods.
there are several factors involved, the moisture content of the wood when cut and split and stacked, the density of the wood itself, the amount of air movement to carry the moisture away, how much sunlight the wood stack gets, relative humidity, air temp, the list of variables is quite long
Exactly, some like to put numbers on everything but too many variables to do that, only general guide lines.
I was thinking of more along the lines of having an educated viewpoint instead of " it just does". I commented before reading the article itself.
Well I guess, end checking with out any fading of the wood color would be a very good indicator the wood is not dry.
quite so, truthfully there really is no "set amount of time" for wood to season to proper levels. this is why a moisture meter should be in every wood burners tool set.
LOL, I been reading those types of articles for the last 5 years or so after joining H and hearing some wild ideas about drying wood.
yeah, ive been brushing up on some of them as well lately researching for my book, its interesting how varied the opinions are in the description of drying wood naturally (or allowing it to season). im pretty firm on the "you don't know until you spike it with a meter and see" heck even reading in the center of a split isn't as accurate as "splitting the split" and getting a reading from the center of the split.
The accurate way is to use a scale and a oven and a calculator. But not too many people are going to get away with putting some chunks of wood in their oven for several days.
After 50 years I still don't see a need for one Mike, but that is maybe just me. We never even heard of them years ago and were forced to learn what dry wood really is like. The wood has not changed over the years either and time is still the best method of drying. I like to say that if you need a MM, then the wood should be dried more. Dry it and know it is dry and there is no need for the meter.
Maybe you don't need one Dennis (me neither, its a toy) but for all the people who buy firewood, just starting out, or they have limited storage space they are a very valuable tool. Much better then burning wet wood. I've only burnt wood for 35 years but 30 of that was with out a MM and yes us old farts do not need them.
