Took down a standing dead elm today. Moisture meter said everything from 17% to higher than the meter will read which I think is 45%. All in one single stalk of one tree. Surprising
I like that rubber roofing covering your stacks.I have that rubber over my oak though it comes down about half way over my stacks.I'm hoping the heat the rubber absorbs will hasten the drying time.
That's not uncommon here either. I think they still try to push sap from the roots after they're "dead". I've had the same results in Elm & even some Ash.
Yep. Let me guess, that high range reading was at the base of the trunk? A MM will tell you a lot. Elm dries out quickly though, and in my experience, that wet 40+ % area of the elm will be ready for next season of split and stacked in the next couple of months.
Yep, the base still wicks water as long as there’s water to wick LOL. The desert may be different. Even on the standing dead dry oaks I mentioned the bottom 6-8 feet went into the normal split pile. From there up they were primo.
I found the mm to be a valuable tool but most firewood gatherers could do without it. I agree that if you're on the 3 year plan that is nearly fool proof and the mm would just be a toy. There are so many variables with firewood that the mm is handy for those not on the 3yp. The environmental variables are almost endless as are the species of wood, the time of year it was felled or blown over, the thickness, if it was healthy and on and on. The charts I've seen on the time it takes to season different species of wood is pretty close to what I've experienced but my wood usually d oesn't get css'd all at the same time making the seasoning time longer from when it's cut but shorter from when it's split and stacked than the charts suggest. I spit some white oak today that's been down for 3 years and bucked last year. No chart or timetable will tell you what the seasoning time is for that scenario but a mm will give you a a good indication.
It’s funny I saw on the 5 o’clock news this morning. That Vermont has 50 moisture meters available for free at local library’s in case people are unsure if the wood is dry enough. The guy that presented the store even said it should be less than 20%
Your splits look rather bumpy - kind of hard to tell from the pics. When I split a fresh split it's real nice and smooth. Did you split the split and measure on the inside?
Yet last year at this time while I was driving all over your state, and the rest of New England, I saw loads and piles of clearly freshly split wood getting delivered and dropped right in the front of people's houses. not your's of course But you know as well as I do that that literally just split pile that was freshly dumped there was going to be burned this heating season. There's a lot of folks that should take advantage of the free MM to use and stick it in those splits that were just delivered.
