Ok guy's, I was in need of some quick dry wood for my fireplace. I found a couple dead still standing elm trees with all the bark off. I cut it all down and getting ready to split it for this weekend's cold spell. I took a moisture reading and the meter said anywhere between 18% and 22%. My question is; is there a different between wet wood and green wood?? I don't want any creosote build up in my chimney.. I will be blending it with 8% to 10% dry hardwood. I know it won't burn like the dry but will it create any creosote in my chimney. Thanks for any responses. I love this Forum
I don’t consider dead standing elm green or wet. If I was in a bind I would be looking for dead elm. The top half of the tree always burns great, the bigger rounds hold a little more moisture but not much. Not sure what kind of stove your using but I wouldn’t sweat it. Welcome to the forum.
You should be fine, especially if you’re mixing it up with drier stuff. I burn lots of standing dead elm and before I joined here and got a moisture meter I’m sure a lot of it was higher moisture % than that. I’ve found the higher up the tree the drier it’ll be
I would consider green wood fresh cut, which will be wet. But old dead wood can be wet too, especially in log form or dead standing. 18-22% mixed in with dry stuff... probably won't cause issue. People have burned a lot worse. If anything while the fire is going, keep the splits of elm staged up near the fire so the radiant heat can dry them out just a tad more.
Wet is due to environment conditions, green wood is uncure Creosote is formed by too cool of a flue temp so dry wood can plug a chimney by poor burning practices, wet wood and green wood are not the same thing.
Factor in the outside temperature. Definitely mix in with your dry wood and let it run a bit longer before dialing things back on the stove. What type of wood stove or insert do you have?
Dead standing barkless elm is about as good as you can get for fresh cut burnable wood. I've burned a whole winter on dead standing Elm. That stuff is great for getting ahead.
I wouldnt worry at those percentages. Mixing it in is fine. Try to burn the tops first and like Eric Schamell said keep some near the stove to dry a bit more. My father used to have a couple of cribbed stacks near the fireplace.
Standing dead trees of almost any species are usually good to go right into the woodstove. As said above the top is always gonna be drier than the bottom. Standing dead elm is good burning wood.
Not sure what you mean when you state wet wood. Wood that has been rained on? Wood that has never been top covered after stacking? Wood that animals have peed on? As for your elm, indeed when you find standing elm with no bark, 99% of the time this is prime firewood. However in our experience most of the time the bottom 1/3 of that tree needs another year of drying after being split and stacked. Also in almost all places it will also pay to top cover the wood while it is drying. Also it makes a difference how you use that MM. There are right ways and wrong ways. For some reading and hopefully learning, take a look here: (3) Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage | Firewood Hoarders Club
I think you should be fine just keep your flue temp up. If the flue is kept hot and the fire is rocking along then even green wood can be added without creosote building up. But if the temperature drops below the condensing temperature then creosote builds rapidly.
Ive seen pretty wet trunks of dead elm. Some branches will be really light, hard to tell with dense branches but tha where a moisture meter comes in handy just after cutting. Weight of wood matters to begin with.
