I got a couple cords of Ash from a guy selling it unsplit 2 years ago, 4 cords for 200 bucks to be exact. He told me it was dead standing and cut in summer 2017. From the looks of it he wasn't BS-ing me. I CSS it all in summer of 2018 and top covered. I am burning it now, and getting water still boiling out the ends. My moisture meter is a cheapo, and reading 21%. I always read that Ash can be burned green and dries the fastest. Not seeing it here.
Seriously, it may be the way the wood is stored? For all purposes, the wood has been split and stacked for a little over one year if you css in summer of 18. Next year will be a lot better for it as you can see that the MC is still too high.
In the sun or in the shade? How is the wind exposure.. it was a long cold wet spring for us, so I’m assuming the wood didn’t dry as much as it usually does for at least part of the year..
I read somewhere that Ash doesn't dry real fast but the native moisture content is less than some other woods, so it has a head start. Now, soft Maple, that stuff dries fast. I would think two full summers would do it. I've burned some White Ash, but didn't really watch how fast it dried because I had other dry wood ready to go. I'll find out this time; I stacked about three cords at my SIL's house a couple months ago, from a dead-stander. I'm hoping it can get dry enough by next fall, but it's stacked three rows on pallets and split pretty big, so I'm not too hopeful that it'll be ready for next season. Yours probably didn't dry all that much before it was split. How late in the summer of '18 did you split and stack it? Really, it looks like only that one split on top is very wet; I don't see a lot of moisture on the other ones.. From the look of it, I'd guess that indeed it is..
Looks like moisture on the outer edge of the split. Standing dead for too long and starting to get spalted?
I have to think of this being on the right track. May have some punk in it? With any kind of rotten wood, albeit a small amount moisture just doesn’t go away well. Seems like that will be absorbing more moisture rather than letting it go. Not exactly an easy fix but it would be good to know more about your stacks. I’m not burning all prime dry wood myself but it’ll do the job as it’s been stacked and covered for the most part.
You’re probably burning the lower part of the trunk, it will probably be better when you get to a different section of the tree. I found the EAB killed ash trunk dries slower.
Compared to the color differences of the others it looks like that one didn't stay quite as dry as the others. Also north side/south side.
I'm having the same issue with the Ash I css in 2016. 5th year with my stove and I have never had glass this dirty.
I burned 3 cords of ash last winter, all which had been cut down, and processed in early spring. I put it out in the front yard in single rows where there was good wind, and the most sun. I didnt top cover, and we had a VERY wet fall. In late fall, I loaded a half cord into my wood bin on the porch, and another two cords into a regular shed with no air circulation. The wood would all hiss and bubble from the sap wood like your pictures for about the first 5 days of loading the wood bin. After those 5 days, the hissing would stop, and all was good.
The first time I remember for certain that we burned white ash from a standing dead tree was in 1956. Since that time we've burned lots and lots and lots of white ash. To my knowledge we've never had one with water sizzling out the ends. However, one time I did try to burn some that had been stacked for 2 years but never covered. It did not burn well at all even though it did not sizzle. On wood we've stacked in our normal way, all is well.
That's odd. In my experience, ash seems to dry out pretty quickly. For sure, the trunks of dead standing trees will soak up water, but only until the trunk is cut from the roots. Even sitting in rounds, at least off the ground, ash will lose MC pretty well. I didn't take MM readings when I cut up the 2 ash trees that my neighbor had taken down over memorial day. But they were pretty wet at the base trunk pieces. I let them sit in rounds until a couple weeks ago, so all summer and a bit of Fall. These rounds have dropped quite a bit in MC just by looking at them and lifting them. I checked a few fresh splits upon splitting then and most were in the low to mid 20% range. I took a few of the lower MC splits that read 20-21%, and threw them in on reloads. They burnt as expected. Perfectly.
Could it be that one split somehow got wet or was at the bottom of the stack? I wouldve bet good money it'd be dry enough to burn without sizzle! Does white ash season faster than green (variety, not fresh cut living) ash?
I never had good luck with Ash drying .. But I know green it's nasty you get about enough heat to dry wood out and a pile of Ash . I think it needs about 2 years to dry splitting it . It takes moisture on quit easy in Minnesota. It's a funny wood needs splitting . Sent from my LGL84VL using Tapatalk
