Three year old, well seasoned wood is best..... right?

We’ve used that method of dry wood mixed in with questionable with good results too.
I’m by no stretch a tree species ID pro, but what I thought were silver maples here are usually LOADED with helicopters that fill the neighborhood skies & ground in spring. The SM’s here grow really fast.

 

We have a lot of those helicopters on Norwegian maples. They grow like weeds. They are actually considered an invasive species. My son has one silver maple in his yard. Pretty tree.

 

depending on the species some are single, some double

 

The area around me is infested with Norway Maple. We are supposed to cut down every one we find. I had a big Norway Maple hanging over a storage shed and got tired of it dropping seed helicopters and leaves. I did the old Indian trick.....cut off a ring of bark 1 foot high all the way around the trunk. It took about a year and change but eventually the ting died. I left it there. After a few Fiver Hour Energy Drinks, I got the motivation to cut it down. Holy cr@p, the heat this stuff throws is insane. The wood burns, but it doesn't "burn".....flames come off the splits but they don't burn down until a long, long time has passed. Perhaps this is simply an experience with burning standing dead wood that has an extremely low moisture content. Perhaps Norway Maple is actually good firewood. I know that pizza and beer is good.

 

So I got a chance to test my one- year old wood for moisture content and it is..... 32% to 35% Yikes!. Which of course just proves all youse guize with the three year rule are right of course. Hardwood splits are just not fully seasoned or even close after one year, outside seasoning, in southern New England.

Then I tested one piece of three year old maple that was also just over 30% but I think it was not really three year old maple but some other wood that got thrown into the maple stack. I will grab a couple of pieces of the dark gray stuff that I know is quite old and test them.

I use two roofing nails, driven about 1/2" into the wood, about 1" apart and put the wood moisture meter probes against the nail heads. After trying to use the pointed probes with wildly varying results, I settled on this method that at least seems consistent if not terrifically accurate. I will also take a few minutes and check some 2 by's, which should be around 8% or so, and try to 'calibrate' this method or at least get an idea if it really is worthwhile.

There are slide- hammer driven probes that are meant to be driven into the wood which work very well but I am not willing to invest in one of those. I am using a plain, ole' 'General' cheap moisture meter and nails to kind of simulate the effect of the more expensive, deep probe (Easy Boys!) style meter but honestly, it has proven difficult to calibrate.

Brian

 

2x4 from kiln 8% - generally re-stabiilizes to about 12% by the time you get it. Norway maple much denser than Silver makes a very nice fire wood , drys fairly quickly and is decent to split by any method. I would place it in medium grouping fire wood , coals a bit more than Silver