Fellow hoarders, I’m two years into splitting and the posts On here have really helped my learning curve. so thank you! so I bought a moisture meter and was curious of the readings I was getting. What are the numbers for Seasoned oak? I was getting 16-18% on 2 year seasoned oak. Also was getting 14% -16% on 4 month seasoned Ash. I’ve read and re read the drying chart and curious if these percentages are good enough as I wait to the 2 and 3 year mark.
Great readings! But..... Are you reading them on the part of wood that is fresh split and not from the end of the splits? Take a piece of wood and split it, then insert the probes into the freshly exposed part of the split for an accurate reading.
Yes I’m inserting the probes into the splits from 2 years ago. I have some red oak that I’ve been splitting in the last month and those readings are 24-26%. Certainly not burning it.
2-2.5 years ago I took down multiple willow oaks on my property and kept 2-3 chords. Because I kept it covered too much, in a shaded area away from wind i had a bunch of it white rot. All no no’s as this site has told me In the last year I have been accumulating red oak willow oak, poplar and some ash. Now I have 7 face Chords split. Less than 1 face Chord is the stuff from two years ago. Trying to get a better understanding with the meter on what to burn as it comes into season
Maybe I'm not reading this right, but I think what is meant is do you take an old split from a couple years ago and then split it again and take a reading in the freshest part of that split to get your readings. The outer part of the split will always dry quicker than the middle and if you can get the reading that you are getting from the middle of the original split than you are golden.
Would you do me a favor and report back what you get once you do that? I'm actually really curious what you get on that.
Correct moisture meter use needs to be a sticky/pinned topic. General consensus is that selecting a nice variety of your supposedly seasoned splits for testing is step one. Making sure they are at or near 70 deg. F. prior to testing match's most meter requirements. Re-splitting these splits and testing the newly exposed interior surface gives the correct accurate moisture reading. Any other spots tested mean zilch. Always interesting hearing back from user's who test correctly.
Also, some MM's do temperature adjustment. My more expensive one does this automatically. So the brand and model of MM matters as well.
That oak in the shade might be ok. You might see the outer sap wood rot, but the heartwood behind it will more than likely be perfectly fine to burn. Stack your wood where you can. Most of my yard is shaded and heavily wooded, so not a lot of wind. The oak for this winter sat stacked in the woods for 3 years, and then this spring I put it out front in single rows where it will get partial sun, and good wind. It was in the 22-23% moisture range last fall, but its now in the 17% range. Most of the sapwood is rotting, but the heartwood is going to keep me nice and warm.
Anything under 20% is supposed to be a responsible and acceptable target for firewood usability. Keep in mind, inexpensive meters ( like mine) are only relatively accurate and that relative accuracy is constrained within a temperature range limited by the precision of the device itself. So readings taken at, say, 100ºF or 0ºF , may or may not be outside of the range of relative accuracy of the device . Given the number of hot dry days per year in your area ( compared to other areas, like mine ), I'm not terribly surprised you get oak to season fairly well in around two years .
Will do!! I’ll take a split piece and re-split. Then I’ll grab a reading in the middle of the split. And see what it says. I have my “ready to burn” wood in a indoor room in my garage. The temp in there is always above 60 degrees this time of year in NC.
I took some 2 year seasoned split oak that was reading between 15-18% split it again and took another reading. The “fresh” split wood routinely measures 1-2% higher performed this test on 4-5 different pieces.
That's not bad, not bad at all. Then there's these instances... Which requires longer drying. You've done your due diligence. Now to reap the rewards
Thats really good. My two year old white oak was 3-5% higher and bordering on 20%. Back in the end of September. Wood was CSS Sept/Oct. 2018. The bigger splits were over that. Sounds like your stack was in an ideal location for drying.
