I will be thankfull for any tips I have never used ob before. I have my wood cut out that I am going to burn for the winter but it will help me burn the best first. I have 4 loads no furter than 6 ft from my stove now. Thanks FHC
When checking moisture, you wanna split the piece to get an accurate reading from the inside. Then stick the pins in with the grain. Never measure on the end of a split or on the outside, it will read drier than the piece actually is
It's pretty straightforward, pick one of the biggest pieces you have in the stack split it right down the middle, check it right then and there, if you wait, even a couple hours it will start to dry and give you the wrong readiing, poke the points of the meter smack in the middle, with the grain or across the grain it doesn't matter, doing it this way there's no need to push the points in deep. Check in several different places to see the difference in the readings toward the edges and ends and then check it on the outside, this it just to get an idea of working with the meter, I usually check about 5 different spots anyways
Not sure why it seems like a fair amount of people have trouble with their MM's, I bought the HF one plus an extra (thought I lost the first one) and they are simple to use and more then good enough for our uses.
(First lesson) Stick the wood with the pointy end. Seriously, the only thing you have to remember is that you can't get and accurate reading of the true overall moisture level of the splits by sticking the pins anywhere on the outside, so you have to open it up by re-splitting it and measuring the freshly exposed sides. And to get an idea why you need to do that, leave one of the splits you've opened and checked that is > 30% in the house for a day or two and take another reading in the exact same spot, you'll see just how quickly the exposed surface will lose moisture and give you false reading of what the true moisture content of the interior of body of the wood is. Measuring with the grain- across the grain, cold wood- warm wood,,,, I've never noticed any difference with the wood I've tested, but perhaps there are types of wood where that might make a difference. Please re-visit this thread and let us know what you've experienced.
I had the HF one and it worked just fine. If you have wood a little over you can put it near the stove if needed to dry out quicker. We did this our first year burning and it worked very well. A day near the stove really dried out some wet walnut and ash to easily burn. Now days we keep it outside but you gotta do what ya gotta do.
