Having cut/split and burned wood for 50 years, I would say you were very prudent to listen to your viewers. The species of wood will vary the moisture content as well. Also, the time of year your cut/split your wood will play into the equation...Burn it dry and hot. Keep your chimneys, stoves etc all well-maintained and all will be well
Excellent presentation. Really glad you took the comments on board and changed the methodology. As my old Physics teacher used to say "There's no such thing as an experiment that failed - you always learn something, usual about how to do experiments properly!" I've been cutting, stacking and burning a variety of woods out here in rural Hungary - Oak, Beech and Black Locust, for 20+ years. We buy about 6 tons in late winter/ early spring, and it stays outside in the sun all summer. We usually have a couple of months of intense heat and sun which dries the wood out really fast. I have tarps arranged so that usually the wood is uncovered, but if I can see rain approaching, it takes about 2 minutes to get it all covered. Rain passed, tarps come off. I also take a couple of sample pieces, weigh them, then weigh them every day and chart the results. For the first few weeks, there's a dramatic decrease in weight, which gradually levels off towards the end of the season. Typically get about a 35% decrease in weight. The flattening of the curve and change in the weather indicates when it's time to get it under cover. On the side of the garage, I have two open sided, roofed lean-to's, with brick floors, and that's where it goes.The wood that was in those lean-to's from last year gets taken into a another totally enclosed building where I can get at it easily to take into the house. So, the wood I buy and dry this year gets used next year, and I always have a plentiful supply of properly dry wood. And as @johnduffy6546 rightly says, burn dry and hot. If the wood is too wet, it won't burn hot as a chunk of the energy goes into boiling off the water and is wasted, so the fire is at a lower temperature and you get incomplete combustion. All sorts of tar and crud will be deposited on the inside of your burner and up the chimneys and flues. That can lead to a chimney fire, when all that stuff starts to burn inside the chimney... you really don't want that. If you have a properly hot fire, with complete combustion, you shouldn't see any smoke from the chimney. Smoke is a bad sign!
I like the way you make a video without a lot of beating around the bush to drag it out for a half hour. I saw the way you tie the corners of your tarps to a piece of wood dangling from a string, which I did today on 4 separate pallet stacks. I stack the whole thing crossways every layer like stacking long skinny boxes on a pallet. I found some plastic shipping bags from roxul insulation inside out is white, covers a pallet stack just right, and lasts through the summer sun. So thanks, learning great stuff from your channel. Buckin Billy Ray says take pride in your stacking.
Good to see you did the test over taking measurements inside the stacks and after splitting. The difference in moisture at the exposed face and inside the same piece of wood was striking, I didn't expect to see so much of a difference. Where I live in Western Europe it is almost continuously humid in the winter, with lots of rain and not drying up between spells of rain with humidity over 90%. So I do cover my firewood. Using a tarp it is effective to put a one way pallet between the stack and the tarp, these pallets have thinner and fewer slats and improve air flow under the tarp. Putting the pallet under a slight angle prevents water puddling on the tarp and leaking trough, an older tarp always has punctures. Since short I have replaced my tarps, which you have to replace every 2-3 years, with a permanent wood storage shed, existing of timber posts, open slat fencing panels and a tin roof. A concrete floor prevents weeds growing into the stacks and damp rising from moist soil, pallets on paver blocks form an open floor where wood is stacked on. A perfect solution for my climate, keeps rain off the wood, even when it rains horizontally, isn't vulnerable to strong winds and is much more durable than tarps.
We live basically in the same area as the crow fly's the biggest improvement I made with firewood was building a 8 cord woodshed with 2 cord bins, I alternate between bins so the wood seasons at least 2 full years under a roof with semi open sides, total game changer as far as drying. Oak for me takes 2-3 seasons to get below 20% from green with my sweet spot being about 16% for the stove. I use to do open stacks with a tarp top cover, between tarps ripping, piles shifting and leaks from rain and snow I was done with this method, the wood shed was the best thing I did next to getting a wood stove in the first place.
Yep, I built a 6 cord woodshed this past spring myself after 26 years of tarp covering, worlds of difference. Same here, takes two summers to get red oak down into the teens dry-wise if cut live. Dead standing still takes a year.
I'm a retired hardwood kiln operator. Did the job for over 20 years, I dried a lot of hardwoods. The moister meter probing will work but there's an even better, more accurate way to gauge MC% but it requires you take samples before the drying process starts. Commonly called the "oven test", you basically find the initial MC% by weighing the green weight of a sample piece and then comparing it to the weight of the same sample that has been completely dried in an oven. A little bit of math and you can figure out the initial MC%. Once you know the initial MC, you can weigh other samples as they're drying to gauge the rate of moisture loss. I controlled 17 very large hardwood kilns and they held on average 40,000 bdft in each kiln, I would use only 5 kiln samples to gauge the MC% for the rest of the 40,000 bdft. In our drying yard, the lumber was put under "pile covers" which are just tarps in the size of the pack of lumber. In my case, dimensional hardwood boards, we put pile covers on all our stacks for protection from the sun, the covers are not there to keep the rain off the lumber because in a my scenario we embraced the rain and high humidity to help slow down the drying process of green lumber. I realize we're talkin firewood vs lumber here, but I thought I'd tell you how to 100% accurately determine the MC% of wood.
I use a similar process for drying Aussie hardwood to burn. Split pieces then weigh with accurate kitchen scale, write the date and weight on each piece. Leave in sun or near the fire and keep weighing/recording until it doesn’t change and basic maths gives your moisture content for that entire batch. Very easy way to track moisture without splitting each piece again and again. Or weigh then put in a 95 degree C oven and speed the process up, but result will be the same.
@@ChrisParsons-i1r I cut small samples and used a small lab-oven to dry out these samples. I would cut these samples, weigh them and then put them in the oven overnight, ideally the samples need to stay in the oven for 24 hours. Sometimes though you don't have the time to wait the 24 hours for the samples to completely dry out so thats where the MICROWAVE OVEN comes in. You can speed-dry your oven samples with a microwave but you have to be super-duper careful that you don't overdry the sample and start burning it. I would put a sample in the microwave oven and let it run for 20 seconds and then weigh the sample, then microwave it again for another 10 seconds and re-weight, you keep on microwaving the samples and until the weight stops dropping and thats when you stop, weigh the sample and use that weight in your calculations.
Warren Wilson College kiln operator told me if we har time for it, could leave boards for our flooring milled on site to season the same as if it were kiln dried. Ours would dry down to certain MC% and settle. If we kiln dried it, MC% would of course drop down drastically but then come back up slightly to balance out as it was exposed to the open air. Was pretty neat to hear him explain a lot the drying & seasoning science
Well done , in my part of the world ( central Canada) firewood is best harvested when the sap is not running ( i.e. in dormant phase) ; it allows for faster better drying.
Same, I usually click off videos. And watch all sorts of stuff. For some reason, this guy's no-nonsense, facts driven attitude in his videos makes me enjoy it so much.
This test is mutch better than the previous one. Your wood is not ready to fireplace. In some countries like Germany is even fined to burn the wood in the boiler with 20% and more moisure. If you want to dry your wood faster you must to split it to smaller peaces. Nice video. Thank you.
Cover with a clear polycarb roof a foot or so above the top of the wood and a foot or more over the edges. Put it on a slant so that any condensation runs off rather than drips off
You'll get even faster drying if you make your cover out of roofing tin and elevated a few inches above the stack of wood. This allows moisture to evaporate out much better and allows for ventilation while still protecting the wood from the rain.
I have a woodshed like that. I used to cover it with a trap just over the top but I always found either condensation or frost under the tarp. I also have it raised on pallets with a vapor barrier under it.
I use metal roofing panels as well. Keep it off the pile by using some pieces of wood piled higher. Screw the higher pieces to the lower pieces and then screw metal roof sections to the high pieces. Idea is to keep rain/snow off pile while allowing airflow to move thru the whole stack.
Covered or uncovered? It depends. Depends on your local climate (rainfall, temperatures) and microclimate where you are stacking. If you stack in a shady wind-sheltered hollow near a stream, it's going to be damp and your firewood will dry more slowly. Wanna know more? Then read the following - it's long.... There are two components to prepping woodfuel. Seasoning and drying. Seasoning is leaving cut material out to lose its 'life water'. Life water is the water within the tissues of the tree that mediate cellular processes - photosynthesis, respiration, chemosynthesis, growth and cell division. Without that life water, the tree's tissues die. This can happen with the tree standing - fungi will do this by blocking the xylem (centre of the tree, this conducts water from the roots to the branches and crown) or the phloem (outer tissues, conducts nutrients from the leaves to the trunk and cambium and roots). With the tree felled and left in tree length with branches on, some species will survive and root and re-grow as phoenix trees. Crack willow will do this here in the UK. This will happen even if felled with leaves off as all trees do some photosynthesis in the cambium layer under the bark. In log length, the bark acts to conserve moisture. Crack willow and other willows will re-grow from log lengths laid on wet, rich ground - trees store food (sugars) in their tissues. Black polars were traditionally propagated from 'truncheons' - staves with bark entire (no leaves or branches) planted in the ground. This is why we split large trunks to season - it breaks the 'seal' of the bark and the cut sections lose water faster. Big lumps like you are using typically take at least 2 seasons to lose their life water. Tissues are now dead, seasoning is done. (Note if seasoning timber (to be milled) in the round it takes more than 2 seasons - may take several seasons or years). At summer's end, seasoning is usually finished for timber cut and split and stacked off the ground in the winter. Best done when sap is down as starting moisture content is lower. Now 'drying' starts. Once the bark is dead and life water is gone, the wood fuel can take up water from the atmosphere. No probs in the summer with the stack in full sun, but when the autumn rains come, you can increase moisture content through wetting. This is why I fell my firewood in winter, stack in a cord under the eaves of the wood where it's breezy and un-covered and transport home, billet and store in the wood store under cover to finish dry. Note 'cord' not 'face cord'. I'm cutting derelict hazel coppice (14" dia at most) and I stack in 5' lengths. Cordwood is traditionally 4' lengths but 5' suits me better. If I can't get my cordwood out of the wood at summer's end, I will then tarp it to stop it getting rained on. It rains a lot here in Dorset. By summer's end, despite being in 5' lengths, moisture is well down. Bark is dead and spalting hasn't started. This vid explains fully: th-cam.com/video/dwGjSKkUU10/w-d-xo.html Spalting is the start of fungal decay. This usually begins via spores landing on the cut ends growing into and along the tubes in the xylem and phloem. Because they are tubes and small (long cells running up and down the trunk) dead xylem tubes will take up any water that falls on them by capillary action. This is why using the moisture meter on cut surfaces gives inconsistent results. Note that when testing a split face, the probe prongs should go across the diameter of the tree. If you go along the sieve tubes (up 'n' down) you also get inconsistent results, especially if you hit the same sieve tube and it's wet! After spalting comes 'rot'. Fungi are now in the wood and moisture content fluctuates wildly and can go way up.... Hope this is useful and informative. Nice to see someone doing experiments and asking questions.
I grew up in logging camps with the last one during the cuban missle crisis. We used to scalp the standing "firewood trees" around their circumference. Tighter wood more pitch. Still remember the smell of the burning wood in the living/children bedroom ( of which at night would have blankets drawn across if the adults stayed up with company), the smell of coal oil lanterns all mixed together with Dads pipe. The McLaren stoves would be rigged with sawdust bins for cooking, preferred heat for baking.
The outside is still an important measurement because it gives you an idea how good of a fire starter it is and how well it starts to burn. Very important when you don't have the luxury of getting the driest wood and you need heat. If you burn properly than even with greener wood you can still get good heat and minimal creosote build up in your pipe. I know from experience. The main issue I had with wetter wood was just getting the fire going on a cold day.
Both my father and grandfather told me that you pile with the bark up outside and the bark side down when piled inside. This has served me well for years
I’ve always placed the bottom bark down and bark up for the top two. I used a small tarp only over the top row and leave the rest open for wind to blow through. Always store outside until ready to move inside for burning.
When measuring the interior, the moisture will vary depending on whether you measure in the same grain line or across the grain. From what I have read, USFS suggests measuring so probes are in the same grain line. Kind of fun to measure with a DMM, auto ranging off, set to meg ohms.
I've heated my house with a stove for many years, burning mostly oak. Where I live in the Ozarks, wood cut and split this year will be ready to burn next year whether covered or not. The problem with storing uncovered outside is that you will start losing wood at the bottom of the pile to rot. If you want to keep a supply for more than a year it is best to store it under a roof, in a shed or barn, where it will last for years.
I've noticed here in New England that wood dries in the summer from hot air and wood dries in the winter from dry air, but doesn't seem to dry that quickly in spring or fall when the air is cool and damp.
I don't know about the moisture, because never done that on firewood. But what I have noticed is that soon as the wood starts to grow mushrooms or something, it has already large part of it's heating power. I usually stack my wood a maximum of an two years. My ideal procedure is fell the tree durings early summer, leave it untouched. The leaver will draw moisture out of the trunk. Trim, cut and split late summer and put them in the firewood shed. Should be burnable at that winter. The wood is dry in that stage and has not lost so much of the heating power. If the summer has somehow been wetter than normal, just store it to next winter in the shed or under roof/loose cover outside stack. That's the best and easiest method what I have found. Traditionally wood has been fell and done during hardest winter here. There is a good point to that also. It is quite dry then and if you also burn needle trees they don't dry with the summer method. Also it was easier to split frosen wood and take it out of forest during winter. But now with machinery it is not an issue. BTW. I live in Finland so the climate and tree species differ a bit. But I think that the priciple is the same.
I like the bottom row to be barkside down. All i know is we'd fill the ole round oak full of rock maple when we'd go to bed and in the morning the bottom would be glowing orange. Ive stacked a few 4' x 4' x 8' footahs in my day
A raised roof with a clear acrylic top would be the ultimate. It would allow any sun to pass through the roof, plus allow greater air circulation. Also, acrylic lasts for a very long time in relation to UV exposure. I'm not sure if acrylic film is available, but even if not, while acrylic sheet is definitely way more expensive than tarp, lasting so much longer, some of the cost will balance out long term.
It seemed to me that the uncovered wood had more fungus decaying the wood. This decay is reducing BTU value in the wood. Another point to consider with covered or uncovered.
I do the same tests edge then split to look inside before I sell and agree 100% with you partial coverage . Just the tops not the whole thing because then it will hold in the moisture and mold and rot. Good job explaining been doing it like this for 5 years if not in a wood shed.
More kiln operator thoughts. When I would pull my sample pieces that I used to determine and control the drying rate of kiln full of lumber, those sample boards were always pulled from the center of the pack of lumber it was in. A kiln op wants to use the wettest lumber to use as a sample and those wettest boards are always found in the middle of the pack. My packs of lumber were often 1000 bdft in a pack, so I'd have my forktruck operator stick his forks in the middle of the pack so I could grab sample boards. I feel that the logs you pulled for this test might not be the best representation of the entire stack and that you would need to sample at least 5 logs pulled from 5 separate locations for each of the two variables you're testing. Second observation is your moisture meter. While I do understand that these cheaper Amazon moisture meters are getting better, they're still inaccurate. In my business, we never use a moisture meter unless we're spot checking boards for a quicky measurement. I even own a half dozen a "real" moisture meters used for industrial drying and even those are a little sketchy, any professional kiln operator knows that the "oven test" is the only test you can fully trust. And the higher the moisture content, the less accurate these hand held meter are, especially at MC% over 30%. Third observation. 75% of all the lumber I've dried was red and white oaks. With oak you can expect about or a little less than 1% MC loss per day on average throughout the year and depending on thickness. A random thought. If I would dry oak too fast in a kiln, the outside of the boards dries way faster than the inside, this dry outer boundary will actually slow down the drying of the wood on the 'inside' of a board/log. The term is case-hardnening and is one of the reasons why we dry lumber slowly, as we don't want dry out the outer parts locking in the wetter parts. The range between your outside and inside measurements looks to be normal. Not sure that info correlates to anything about drying firewood, but maybe. Another random thought. Throughout most of America, the EMC is between 12 and 14%, meaning that air dried wood will not dry down any lower than 12 to 14%. EMC stands for equilibrium moisture content. That basically means that the average air temp and the average humidity across most of the USA causes wood to dry to 12-14% range. Lumber that is dried for use in kitchen cabinets and furniture gets dried down 6-8% because average EMC inside the average American home is 7%.
Good job, relatively scientific. Moving forward, you might consider Testing moisture content versus drying time…. Take some split wood with high moisture content Measure moisture levels daily on the same wood until the level drops. Also take some previously split wood from the Center of the pile and measure the moisture .conten Take some wood off the corners and measure that too… There is very little science in wood drying / seasoning… But the ‘old guys’ were usually right. And as others have suggested a drying ‘wood shed’ is best….
I knew it made a difference but did not expect it to be that much. Also if you are probing the surface I've been told it's best to probe the sides and not the ends, but splitting and checking the middle is the best way. Sometimes I will probe the outside just to get a baseline though. If it's sitting at like 15% on the outside then chances are good the inside is higher. Though the opposite can also be true, if the outside has been rained on then it will be wetter than the outside if it has seasoned. Either way, splitting it is indeed the best way to get a good reading.
I think it is also important where you stack your wood. Amount of exposure to sun and wind. Drying time will take longer if you have the wood in a shaded area. I also keep my firewood stacked by species, since they all dry at different rates.
Read the instructions for your moisture meter. You will get different readings between end grain and face grain AND whether the pins are parallel or perpendicular to the face grain (I believe sample three was measured with the pins along the grain - other readings were across). Cross cutting the sample pieces in the middle and taking readings across the end grain would have been more consistent. Building furniture for 50 years, I’ve learned to take consistent MC readings. A 2-3 percent difference can mean disaster - checking, warping and open joints.
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been burning since 1989 and 100% a cheapo tarp on the wood stack helps the wood dry faster. FYI - I was always worried that critters would make a home in a nice always dry stack of wood but I have never seen that
My method spend fall and winter cutting. Stack in single wind rows uncovered full Sun so the spring and summer warm winds help it dry. Leave it through the dry hot part of July and August and stack it in the shed right before the fall damp cooler weather comes. Have oak and hickory put away first so it’s last out gets a couple months longer to dry and have my cherry and ash to start the season it drys quicker
I'm burning softwood (out west) but I do the same as you. I have my wood up by the end of May and I staple a long piece of black plastic over the top of the row to shed dew and the occasional rain shower. Store in the woodshed late August.
In my area, I left green, fresh cut wood uncovered, until the fall letting the summer heat help dry it out. Once I covered it, it remained covered until used the following year. The main reason was the amount of rain I get in the fall and winter. If the wood is not cover, it will be wet from rain.
Iam trying something else new this year instead of the splits being a triangle ,i did in shape of a 2x4, 2x6 ,video that suggested it said that helps drying, and easier to carry, stack, makes sense, ill see long term
Of course it should be covered. The thing is that there needs to be an air space between the top of the pile and the tarp. That way you don't get condensation dripping back on the wood. A shed with 3 years capacity is the best way . That way the wood gets atleast 2 years to dry. Having it in the sun helps. Figure that you can take 1/2 to 1 cord of wood per acre each year forever. Good Luck, Rick
Tbanks for retesting. Would like to see you test more like 10pcs, and to compare pieces with similar shapes and not just sizes. I think the half round with bark on will dry more slowly than the split piece with hardly and bark and more split area.
Splitting the wood to get the internal moisture measurement, that's a good idea when you know absolutely nothing about the wood. But in your case, the wood has all been seasoning in the same place for about the same amount of time. So while the internal measurements aren't the same as the external, it's reasonable to expect a consistent proportionality. In your case, internal moisture content was around twice the external measurement. I live in the PNW so I keep my wood covered both on the top and partially on the sides. We get a lot of rain here. One of the sides is a mesh-tarp. It's just enough to keep the cross-rain out, but vented enough to allow a breeze through the pile. Covering has two advantages: keeping the rain off the pile, but probably more importantly it traps heat in the pile. A warmer pile sheds humidity faster than a colder pile, because it drops the relative humidity. You'd probably get better results with a matte black tarp, than your current white tarp, as it'll warm the pile up more, for any given amount of sunlight.
Elevate off the ground and leave a little more space between pieces in the stack. It seasons much faster. Also, just leaving the split pieces out in the sun for a couple days before you stack it helps greatly.
Looks like you've answered the question pretty thoroughly - thanks! I don't think it would make a big difference, but in some cases your meter was perpendicular to the grain, and in some cases parallel. Better to be consistent, but my meters say not to take measurements except at the end grain anyway. Next test would be covered-from-rain-but-not-touching-the-wood. Most of our wood stacks are in a frame with a tin roof. Probably the best results, but requires a lot more building stuff to get results not a lot better than your tarped stacks. Also, your stacks are pretty close together. A bit more spacing would give more airflow.
Covered. Very helpful video. Could do some other types of tests next year on a covered stack about differences between edge and middle pieces and maybe different stack and spacing methods etc.
@@Nas_Atlas Just finished a video testing bark side up, or bark side down. Should publish this week. I enjoy these tests. Do you have any specific ideas, or questions you suggest I test?
@@OldSoulMillennial Biggest influence in my opinion would be if you could put a gap down the middle of a big pile for air flow vs not doing that. How well does that wood in the middle of the pile dry out when it's far away from an edge
Try getting your covered wood with a foot of snow on it. At first the light snow comes off easily, but as you work your way into the stack the snow has accumulated with every light dusting. Been there done that.
Great videos!, my suggestion is now every 6 months restack the wood, so outside is now on inside & vise versa 😂, or leave more air in between the ricks 😅
I’m curious about the technique you use when testing. I’ve always been told that to use a moisture meter properly, you should align the probes with the grain, not cross grain. I have tested this method with my own wood and meter and get different results depending upon the orientation of the probes. You were switching back and forth. However, I do agree with your conclusion about using the tarp.
I stack 2 rows leave a gap then then 2 rows etc. It allows air and sun into the stacks. One big pile of wood and the center will be insulated from air flow and sunshine.
Your splits are pretty big so the middle will take a very long time to season (covered or uncovered - I do covered). 1 inch drying per year from the edge of the wood means a 2 inch thick split = 1 year of drying (one inch from each side); 4 inch split = 2 years drying, etc. If you have a hot fire already going or are using a wood furnace / boiler it doesn't matter as much. Different story for people who burn in an open fireplace (needs to be very seasoned). I would just split your splits smaller if you actually want it to season faster (more effective than covering).
Was the internal and external reading proportional? It seems like the difference between covered and uncovered was pretty accurate regardless of internal and external. I think the important part is just keeping it consistent if you want to be able to compare measurments later
The end grain moves moisture faster, both into the wood and out into the air. Usually instead of splitting again it is sufficient to test the side rather than the end. The under side will usually give a better reading if the top is exposed to sun but under your tarp both top and bottom should be similar. A tarp that can breath but still shed water is likely best, but only covering the top (minimizing side coverage) is a good approximation. Otherwise building wrap is good and cheap. However wrap doesn't last more than a season or two in the sun.
There are some plastics that last a long time with UV exposure. Perhaps the best is acrylic/PMMA. Not quite as good is vinyl. Not quite as good as that is PET/mylar/polyester (all different names for the same basic material). And then there are the UV strengthened PE's that are sold for greenhouses. All of these will last longer than a typical tarp. And if you use a clear plastic and raise it well off the wood, you will get maximum drying because it allows both circulation and sunlight. Probably the cheapest/easiest way is to get 4 PVC pipes or bamboo poles (2 slightly longer than the other 2), sink it in ground, cut the top ends at a sloped angle (angle matches the height difference of the back vs front poles), glue some kind of flat square material (wood or whatever) to that that is at least a 3" x 3" and to the top of that glue/affix hook and loop/velcro. Attach corresponding hook and loop/velcro to the clear plastic film. Now it is easy to remove the film if you need to. Have all the sides open while having the plastic film well above the wood pile will allow maximum circulation.
*_Listen_* to the wood. When firewood is ready, it'll sound like bowling pins clacking together. *_Look_* at the wood. As it dries, wood will lighten and lose color. Also look for the radial checks that form on the end-grain; these splits are a sign of the density change from lost moisture. *_Smell_* the wood. If it still has an earthy, fungal, damp whiff to it, then there's still lots of water inside. Dried wood smells clean, fresh, and slightly sweet. *_Feel_* the wood. Cured firewood is less heavy from the lessened density. (Of course, species will vary. Pines can be really light, and Beech still feels like a rock even dry, but there's still a difference between cured and uncured.) *_Notice_* what happens as you hatchet kindling. Uncured wood is much less flexible, so pieces should fly off as you split them, not bend away. And don't *_eat_* the wood. It won't help you know. Though, if you're going to chew on one, Maple is the best. Neither do I own a moisture meter, nor do I want one. With a little practice and proper storage, you'll easily know when firewood's ready to burn--just like people have for hundreds of thousands of years.
Significantly better test. The other thing you want to do to insure accuracy is use the meter probes in line with the wood grain. Have you checked out the firewood hoarders club yet?
Build yourself a little pole shed…you get the best of both worlds; covered wood with good air circulation around it. Mine is ready to burn in 1 year and I never have to worry about rot.
It’s a really good thing you were up to do a re-test, but unfortunately I feel like plotting only 2 for each is far from enough. Too many factors come into play, including the size of the piece of course.
Cut,split ,burned fire wood for 40 years found out that stacking wasn’t necessary only on the outside tarp over the top so air can move throughout and it keeps the snow off the wood
Does wood dry faster if you split it into smaller pieces? I’d love a comparison video where you split wood from the same tree into rounds, large pieces, and small pieces and compare any differences in seasoning
Western softwoods, primarily Douglas fir, seem to dry very well when uncovered and just piled high...not stacked. Great air circulation. But...I live in an area of only 28 inches annual precipitation. Judging by weight per cu ft, no moisture meter, there is no point in stacking wood other than the appearance of neatness. In the winter I just start using off the south facing side of the stack, no problems with ignition, no problems with creosote. Your mileage may vary in wetter climates.
In your previous video, you learned that on the side of the woodpile exposed to the sun, the uncovered wood had a lower moisture content than the covered section. And yet now you've selected pieces of wood from the dark, perhaps north side of the pile which starts off with more moisture in the uncovered wood. Guess it just goes to show that if you manage a test carefully enough, you can prove anything you want.
The best way to season firewood is to have a woodshed with as open walls as possible and a floor that's at least a foot off the ground. Also have half a foot between the stacks of wood for maximum air circulation.
I have an electric spitter like that. I was splitting a piece of twisted birch today and the wood flew apart like I’ve never seen before in my 70 years on this earth 19 stitches in my eyebrow .
Sorry to hear that. I've had very dry pieces nearly explode off the wedge at times. I've also had pieces fly up towards my face (when the piece wasn't cut square). I always keep my arms and face back. Perhaps I should make a safety video on electric log splitters.
@@kenbrown2808 I had the motor get slightly seized once from leaving the unit out in the rain. I turned the fan blade manually to unseize the motor, never an issue since.
super annoying to press the button with both hands. I have a gas splitter. I always hold the top middle of the log, or it'll fall off! I can't ever get my hand squished because it's in the middle. It's far from either of the moving parts
You took feedback from your subscribers and adjusted. That's the definition of Carol Dweck's book on mindset, which is a growth mindset for for. Congrats. You're climbing.
Per blaze king. HOW TO USE MOISTURE METERS 1. Randomly select three logs from your wood pile and split each one down the middle. 2. Three points of measurement are required to determine the moisture content of each log: 2" (5 cm) from either end and in the middle of the split surface of the log. To take these measurements, insert the moisture meter pins at the points described, keeping the pins in line with the wood grain. Record each measurement. 3. Do this to all three logs and take an average of the readings (this is an approximate indication). So they are looking for the test pins to be parallel to the grain too.
I would say throw out the moisture meter. What I do is drill the side with a 1" Forstner bit, discarding the first inch. Then weigh the shavings, then dry them on the woodstove, then weigh again. The loss in weight is the water content. That divided by the dry weight is the moisture content, expressed as a percentage.
Moisture Meter: amzn.to/3Ngb4aa
TH-cam: 'Tom's Wood Kiln'
How long ago did you split this wood?
Sure about that? It has the 【Parenthesis of Doom】
Having cut/split and burned wood for 50 years, I would say you were very prudent to listen to your viewers. The species of wood will vary the moisture content as well. Also, the time of year your cut/split your wood will play into the equation...Burn it dry and hot. Keep your chimneys, stoves etc all well-maintained and all will be well
Excellent presentation. Really glad you took the comments on board and changed the methodology. As my old Physics teacher used to say "There's no such thing as an experiment that failed - you always learn something, usual about how to do experiments properly!"
I've been cutting, stacking and burning a variety of woods out here in rural Hungary - Oak, Beech and Black Locust, for 20+ years. We buy about 6 tons in late winter/ early spring, and it stays outside in the sun all summer. We usually have a couple of months of intense heat and sun which dries the wood out really fast. I have tarps arranged so that usually the wood is uncovered, but if I can see rain approaching, it takes about 2 minutes to get it all covered. Rain passed, tarps come off.
I also take a couple of sample pieces, weigh them, then weigh them every day and chart the results. For the first few weeks, there's a dramatic decrease in weight, which gradually levels off towards the end of the season. Typically get about a 35% decrease in weight. The flattening of the curve and change in the weather indicates when it's time to get it under cover. On the side of the garage, I have two open sided, roofed lean-to's, with brick floors, and that's where it goes.The wood that was in those lean-to's from last year gets taken into a another totally enclosed building where I can get at it easily to take into the house. So, the wood I buy and dry this year gets used next year, and I always have a plentiful supply of properly dry wood.
And as @johnduffy6546 rightly says, burn dry and hot. If the wood is too wet, it won't burn hot as a chunk of the energy goes into boiling off the water and is wasted, so the fire is at a lower temperature and you get incomplete combustion. All sorts of tar and crud will be deposited on the inside of your burner and up the chimneys and flues. That can lead to a chimney fire, when all that stuff starts to burn inside the chimney... you really don't want that.
If you have a properly hot fire, with complete combustion, you shouldn't see any smoke from the chimney. Smoke is a bad sign!
I like the way you make a video without a lot of beating around the bush to drag it out for a half hour. I saw the way you tie the corners of your tarps to a piece of wood dangling from a string, which I did today on 4 separate pallet stacks. I stack the whole thing crossways every layer like stacking long skinny boxes on a pallet. I found some plastic shipping bags from roxul insulation inside out is white, covers a pallet stack just right, and lasts through the summer sun. So thanks, learning great stuff from your channel. Buckin Billy Ray says take pride in your stacking.
Good to see you did the test over taking measurements inside the stacks and after splitting.
The difference in moisture at the exposed face and inside the same piece of wood was striking, I didn't expect to see so much of a difference.
Where I live in Western Europe it is almost continuously humid in the winter, with lots of rain and not drying up between spells of rain with humidity over 90%.
So I do cover my firewood. Using a tarp it is effective to put a one way pallet between the stack and the tarp, these pallets have thinner and fewer slats and improve air flow under the tarp. Putting the pallet under a slight angle prevents water puddling on the tarp and leaking trough, an older tarp always has punctures.
Since short I have replaced my tarps, which you have to replace every 2-3 years, with a permanent wood storage shed, existing of timber posts, open slat fencing panels and a tin roof. A concrete floor prevents weeds growing into the stacks and damp rising from moist soil, pallets on paver blocks form an open floor where wood is stacked on. A perfect solution for my climate, keeps rain off the wood, even when it rains horizontally, isn't vulnerable to strong winds and is much more durable than tarps.
We live basically in the same area as the crow fly's the biggest improvement I made with firewood was building a 8 cord woodshed with 2 cord bins, I alternate between bins so the wood seasons at least 2 full years under a roof with semi open sides, total game changer as far as drying. Oak for me takes 2-3 seasons to get below 20% from green with my sweet spot being about 16% for the stove. I use to do open stacks with a tarp top cover, between tarps ripping, piles shifting and leaks from rain and snow I was done with this method, the wood shed was the best thing I did next to getting a wood stove in the first place.
Yep, I built a 6 cord woodshed this past spring myself after 26 years of tarp covering, worlds of difference. Same here, takes two summers to get red oak down into the teens dry-wise if cut live. Dead standing still takes a year.
I'm a retired hardwood kiln operator. Did the job for over 20 years, I dried a lot of hardwoods. The moister meter probing will work but there's an even better, more accurate way to gauge MC% but it requires you take samples before the drying process starts. Commonly called the "oven test", you basically find the initial MC% by weighing the green weight of a sample piece and then comparing it to the weight of the same sample that has been completely dried in an oven. A little bit of math and you can figure out the initial MC%. Once you know the initial MC, you can weigh other samples as they're drying to gauge the rate of moisture loss. I controlled 17 very large hardwood kilns and they held on average 40,000 bdft in each kiln, I would use only 5 kiln samples to gauge the MC% for the rest of the 40,000 bdft. In our drying yard, the lumber was put under "pile covers" which are just tarps in the size of the pack of lumber. In my case, dimensional hardwood boards, we put pile covers on all our stacks for protection from the sun, the covers are not there to keep the rain off the lumber because in a my scenario we embraced the rain and high humidity to help slow down the drying process of green lumber. I realize we're talkin firewood vs lumber here, but I thought I'd tell you how to 100% accurately determine the MC% of wood.
I was searching for this response. Probing is a very rough measurement process.
I use a similar process for drying Aussie hardwood to burn. Split pieces then weigh with accurate kitchen scale, write the date and weight on each piece. Leave in sun or near the fire and keep weighing/recording until it doesn’t change and basic maths gives your moisture content for that entire batch. Very easy way to track moisture without splitting each piece again and again. Or weigh then put in a 95 degree C oven and speed the process up, but result will be the same.
@@ChrisParsons-i1r I cut small samples and used a small lab-oven to dry out these samples. I would cut these samples, weigh them and then put them in the oven overnight, ideally the samples need to stay in the oven for 24 hours. Sometimes though you don't have the time to wait the 24 hours for the samples to completely dry out so thats where the MICROWAVE OVEN comes in. You can speed-dry your oven samples with a microwave but you have to be super-duper careful that you don't overdry the sample and start burning it. I would put a sample in the microwave oven and let it run for 20 seconds and then weigh the sample, then microwave it again for another 10 seconds and re-weight, you keep on microwaving the samples and until the weight stops dropping and thats when you stop, weigh the sample and use that weight in your calculations.
@@TrevortonOffroad Never even thought of the microwave option - great idea!!
Warren Wilson College kiln operator told me if we har time for it, could leave boards for our flooring milled on site to season the same as if it were kiln dried. Ours would dry down to certain MC% and settle. If we kiln dried it, MC% would of course drop down drastically but then come back up slightly to balance out as it was exposed to the open air. Was pretty neat to hear him explain a lot the drying & seasoning science
Nice Project Farm style video, quick and informative, well done.
Exactly! This could be Project forestry :)
Well done ,
in my part of the world ( central Canada) firewood is best harvested when the sap is not running ( i.e. in dormant phase) ; it allows for faster better drying.
This is the kind of content that makes me want to check out all of a channels videos
Same, I usually click off videos. And watch all sorts of stuff. For some reason, this guy's no-nonsense, facts driven attitude in his videos makes me enjoy it so much.
This test is mutch better than the previous one. Your wood is not ready to fireplace. In some countries like Germany is even fined to burn the wood in the boiler with 20% and more moisure. If you want to dry your wood faster you must to split it to smaller peaces. Nice video. Thank you.
Cover top during winter and rainy season, uncover during dry season, never takes more than 6 to 8 months for softwoods around here
Cover with a clear polycarb roof a foot or so above the top of the wood and a foot or more over the edges. Put it on a slant so that any condensation runs off rather than drips off
You'll get even faster drying if you make your cover out of roofing tin and elevated a few inches above the stack of wood. This allows moisture to evaporate out much better and allows for ventilation while still protecting the wood from the rain.
I have a woodshed like that. I used to cover it with a trap just over the top but I always found either condensation or frost under the tarp. I also have it raised on pallets with a vapor barrier under it.
Leave space between the rows. Stack in the sunlight and breezy location.
@@Chris_at_Homepretty much the best you can do for air drying.
I use metal roofing panels as well. Keep it off the pile by using some pieces of wood piled higher. Screw the higher pieces to the lower pieces and then screw metal roof sections to the high pieces. Idea is to keep rain/snow off pile while allowing airflow to move thru the whole stack.
Even better is a clear acrylic top. Any sunlight available can get through. Acrylic lasts a very long time in the sun.
Covered or uncovered? It depends. Depends on your local climate (rainfall, temperatures) and microclimate where you are stacking. If you stack in a shady wind-sheltered hollow near a stream, it's going to be damp and your firewood will dry more slowly. Wanna know more? Then read the following - it's long....
There are two components to prepping woodfuel. Seasoning and drying. Seasoning is leaving cut material out to lose its 'life water'. Life water is the water within the tissues of the tree that mediate cellular processes - photosynthesis, respiration, chemosynthesis, growth and cell division. Without that life water, the tree's tissues die. This can happen with the tree standing - fungi will do this by blocking the xylem (centre of the tree, this conducts water from the roots to the branches and crown) or the phloem (outer tissues, conducts nutrients from the leaves to the trunk and cambium and roots). With the tree felled and left in tree length with branches on, some species will survive and root and re-grow as phoenix trees. Crack willow will do this here in the UK. This will happen even if felled with leaves off as all trees do some photosynthesis in the cambium layer under the bark. In log length, the bark acts to conserve moisture. Crack willow and other willows will re-grow from log lengths laid on wet, rich ground - trees store food (sugars) in their tissues. Black polars were traditionally propagated from 'truncheons' - staves with bark entire (no leaves or branches) planted in the ground. This is why we split large trunks to season - it breaks the 'seal' of the bark and the cut sections lose water faster.
Big lumps like you are using typically take at least 2 seasons to lose their life water. Tissues are now dead, seasoning is done. (Note if seasoning timber (to be milled) in the round it takes more than 2 seasons - may take several seasons or years). At summer's end, seasoning is usually finished for timber cut and split and stacked off the ground in the winter. Best done when sap is down as starting moisture content is lower.
Now 'drying' starts. Once the bark is dead and life water is gone, the wood fuel can take up water from the atmosphere. No probs in the summer with the stack in full sun, but when the autumn rains come, you can increase moisture content through wetting. This is why I fell my firewood in winter, stack in a cord under the eaves of the wood where it's breezy and un-covered and transport home, billet and store in the wood store under cover to finish dry. Note 'cord' not 'face cord'. I'm cutting derelict hazel coppice (14" dia at most) and I stack in 5' lengths. Cordwood is traditionally 4' lengths but 5' suits me better. If I can't get my cordwood out of the wood at summer's end, I will then tarp it to stop it getting rained on. It rains a lot here in Dorset. By summer's end, despite being in 5' lengths, moisture is well down. Bark is dead and spalting hasn't started. This vid explains fully: th-cam.com/video/dwGjSKkUU10/w-d-xo.html
Spalting is the start of fungal decay. This usually begins via spores landing on the cut ends growing into and along the tubes in the xylem and phloem. Because they are tubes and small (long cells running up and down the trunk) dead xylem tubes will take up any water that falls on them by capillary action. This is why using the moisture meter on cut surfaces gives inconsistent results. Note that when testing a split face, the probe prongs should go across the diameter of the tree. If you go along the sieve tubes (up 'n' down) you also get inconsistent results, especially if you hit the same sieve tube and it's wet!
After spalting comes 'rot'. Fungi are now in the wood and moisture content fluctuates wildly and can go way up.... Hope this is useful and informative. Nice to see someone doing experiments and asking questions.
Outstanding video, thank you for the update sir. Content like yours is what makes TH-cam great.
Air flow is a major contributing factor for wood drying. I like to cover just the top.
I grew up in logging camps with the last one during the cuban missle crisis. We used to scalp the standing "firewood trees" around their circumference. Tighter wood more pitch. Still remember the smell of the burning wood in the living/children bedroom ( of which at night would have blankets drawn across if the adults stayed up with company), the smell of coal oil lanterns all mixed together with Dads pipe. The McLaren stoves would be rigged with sawdust bins for cooking, preferred heat for baking.
1:52 grinds my gears when that happens!!! Hate restacking!!
The outside is still an important measurement because it gives you an idea how good of a fire starter it is and how well it starts to burn. Very important when you don't have the luxury of getting the driest wood and you need heat. If you burn properly than even with greener wood you can still get good heat and minimal creosote build up in your pipe. I know from experience. The main issue I had with wetter wood was just getting the fire going on a cold day.
Being an old carpenter doesn't surprise me but I did watch the whole video like it
Both my father and grandfather told me that you pile with the bark up outside and the bark side down when piled inside. This has served me well for years
Thank you 👍😊
I’ve always placed the bottom bark down and bark up for the top two. I used a small tarp only over the top row and leave the rest open for wind to blow through. Always store outside until ready to move inside for burning.
Oh my gosh. Old men are always upping the ante. I don’t believe I will ever stack my wood paying attention to a detail like that.
@@Spagyr That's how we got to be old men. Details . lol
Same here. Seems old school is good school.
Well done. The new test procedure seems pretty solid.
When measuring the interior, the moisture will vary depending on whether you measure in the same grain line or across the grain. From what I have read, USFS suggests measuring so probes are in the same grain line.
Kind of fun to measure with a DMM, auto ranging off, set to meg ohms.
Good. In the next videos:
-stacking firewood properly
-Laying with bandages
-Stacking firewood on pallets
I've heated my house with a stove for many years, burning mostly oak. Where I live in the Ozarks, wood cut and split this year will be ready to burn next year whether covered or not. The problem with storing uncovered outside is that you will start losing wood at the bottom of the pile to rot. If you want to keep a supply for more than a year it is best to store it under a roof, in a shed or barn, where it will last for years.
I've noticed here in New England that wood dries in the summer from hot air and wood dries in the winter from dry air, but doesn't seem to dry that quickly in spring or fall when the air is cool and damp.
I don't know about the moisture, because never done that on firewood. But what I have noticed is that soon as the wood starts to grow mushrooms or something, it has already large part of it's heating power. I usually stack my wood a maximum of an two years. My ideal procedure is fell the tree durings early summer, leave it untouched. The leaver will draw moisture out of the trunk. Trim, cut and split late summer and put them in the firewood shed. Should be burnable at that winter. The wood is dry in that stage and has not lost so much of the heating power. If the summer has somehow been wetter than normal, just store it to next winter in the shed or under roof/loose cover outside stack. That's the best and easiest method what I have found. Traditionally wood has been fell and done during hardest winter here. There is a good point to that also. It is quite dry then and if you also burn needle trees they don't dry with the summer method. Also it was easier to split frosen wood and take it out of forest during winter. But now with machinery it is not an issue. BTW. I live in Finland so the climate and tree species differ a bit. But I think that the priciple is the same.
I like the bottom row to be barkside down. All i know is we'd fill the ole round oak full of rock maple when we'd go to bed and in the morning the bottom would be glowing orange. Ive stacked a few 4' x 4' x 8' footahs in my day
A raised roof with a clear acrylic top would be the ultimate. It would allow any sun to pass through the roof, plus allow greater air circulation. Also, acrylic lasts for a very long time in relation to UV exposure. I'm not sure if acrylic film is available, but even if not, while acrylic sheet is definitely way more expensive than tarp, lasting so much longer, some of the cost will balance out long term.
It seemed to me that the uncovered wood had more fungus decaying the wood. This decay is reducing BTU value in the wood. Another point to consider with covered or uncovered.
Thanks!
@@I00kingin You sir, are the first super-thanks I have ever received. Much obliged. -OSM
I do the same tests edge then split to look inside before I sell and agree 100% with you partial coverage . Just the tops not the whole thing because then it will hold in the moisture and mold and rot. Good job explaining been doing it like this for 5 years if not in a wood shed.
More kiln operator thoughts. When I would pull my sample pieces that I used to determine and control the drying rate of kiln full of lumber, those sample boards were always pulled from the center of the pack of lumber it was in. A kiln op wants to use the wettest lumber to use as a sample and those wettest boards are always found in the middle of the pack. My packs of lumber were often 1000 bdft in a pack, so I'd have my forktruck operator stick his forks in the middle of the pack so I could grab sample boards. I feel that the logs you pulled for this test might not be the best representation of the entire stack and that you would need to sample at least 5 logs pulled from 5 separate locations for each of the two variables you're testing. Second observation is your moisture meter. While I do understand that these cheaper Amazon moisture meters are getting better, they're still inaccurate. In my business, we never use a moisture meter unless we're spot checking boards for a quicky measurement. I even own a half dozen a "real" moisture meters used for industrial drying and even those are a little sketchy, any professional kiln operator knows that the "oven test" is the only test you can fully trust. And the higher the moisture content, the less accurate these hand held meter are, especially at MC% over 30%.
Third observation. 75% of all the lumber I've dried was red and white oaks. With oak you can expect about or a little less than 1% MC loss per day on average throughout the year and depending on thickness.
A random thought. If I would dry oak too fast in a kiln, the outside of the boards dries way faster than the inside, this dry outer boundary will actually slow down the drying of the wood on the 'inside' of a board/log. The term is case-hardnening and is one of the reasons why we dry lumber slowly, as we don't want dry out the outer parts locking in the wetter parts. The range between your outside and inside measurements looks to be normal. Not sure that info correlates to anything about drying firewood, but maybe.
Another random thought. Throughout most of America, the EMC is between 12 and 14%, meaning that air dried wood will not dry down any lower than 12 to 14%. EMC stands for equilibrium moisture content. That basically means that the average air temp and the average humidity across most of the USA causes wood to dry to 12-14% range. Lumber that is dried for use in kitchen cabinets and furniture gets dried down 6-8% because average EMC inside the average American home is 7%.
Good job, relatively scientific.
Moving forward, you might consider Testing moisture content versus drying time….
Take some split wood with high moisture content
Measure moisture levels daily on the same wood until the level drops.
Also take some previously split wood from the Center of the pile and measure the moisture .conten
Take some wood off the corners and measure that too…
There is very little science in wood drying / seasoning…
But the ‘old guys’ were usually right.
And as others have suggested a drying ‘wood shed’ is best….
I knew it made a difference but did not expect it to be that much. Also if you are probing the surface I've been told it's best to probe the sides and not the ends, but splitting and checking the middle is the best way. Sometimes I will probe the outside just to get a baseline though. If it's sitting at like 15% on the outside then chances are good the inside is higher. Though the opposite can also be true, if the outside has been rained on then it will be wetter than the outside if it has seasoned. Either way, splitting it is indeed the best way to get a good reading.
I think it is also important where you stack your wood. Amount of exposure to sun and wind. Drying time will take longer if you have the wood in a shaded area. I also keep my firewood stacked by species, since they all dry at different rates.
Read the instructions for your moisture meter. You will get different readings between end grain and face grain AND whether the pins are parallel or perpendicular to the face grain (I believe sample three was measured with the pins along the grain - other readings were across).
Cross cutting the sample pieces in the middle and taking readings across the end grain would have been more consistent.
Building furniture for 50 years, I’ve learned to take consistent MC readings. A 2-3 percent difference can mean disaster - checking, warping and open joints.
been burning since 1989 and 100% a cheapo tarp on the wood stack helps the wood dry faster.
FYI - I was always worried that critters would make a home in a nice always dry stack of wood but I have never seen that
I use the meters that test house walls, they penetrate to a couple inch depth
My method spend fall and winter cutting. Stack in single wind rows uncovered full Sun so the spring and summer warm winds help it dry. Leave it through the dry hot part of July and August and stack it in the shed right before the fall damp cooler weather comes. Have oak and hickory put away first so it’s last out gets a couple months longer to dry and have my cherry and ash to start the season it drys quicker
I'm burning softwood (out west) but I do the same as you. I have my wood up by the end of May and I staple a long piece of black plastic over the top of the row to shed dew and the occasional rain shower. Store in the woodshed late August.
Yeah your wood should dry faster then mine I’m burning hardwoods in the Midwest just north of Kentucky so it’s pretty humid here
In my area, I left green, fresh cut wood uncovered, until the fall letting the summer heat help dry it out. Once I covered it, it remained covered until used the following year. The main reason was the amount of rain I get in the fall and winter. If the wood is not cover, it will be wet from rain.
I have always covered my firewood, and this reinforces my decision.
Thanks for all your efforts. I will make more effort to stack and season my wood in the lean to.
Iam trying something else new this year instead of the splits being a triangle ,i did in shape of a 2x4, 2x6 ,video that suggested it said that helps drying, and easier to carry, stack, makes sense, ill see long term
Of course it should be covered. The thing is that there needs to be an air space between the top of the pile and the tarp. That way you don't get condensation dripping back on the wood. A shed with 3 years capacity is the best way . That way the wood gets atleast 2 years to dry. Having it in the sun helps. Figure that you can take 1/2 to 1 cord of wood per acre each year forever. Good Luck, Rick
Tbanks for retesting. Would like to see you test more like 10pcs, and to compare pieces with similar shapes and not just sizes. I think the half round with bark on will dry more slowly than the split piece with hardly and bark and more split area.
Splitting the wood to get the internal moisture measurement, that's a good idea when you know absolutely nothing about the wood. But in your case, the wood has all been seasoning in the same place for about the same amount of time. So while the internal measurements aren't the same as the external, it's reasonable to expect a consistent proportionality. In your case, internal moisture content was around twice the external measurement.
I live in the PNW so I keep my wood covered both on the top and partially on the sides. We get a lot of rain here. One of the sides is a mesh-tarp. It's just enough to keep the cross-rain out, but vented enough to allow a breeze through the pile.
Covering has two advantages: keeping the rain off the pile, but probably more importantly it traps heat in the pile. A warmer pile sheds humidity faster than a colder pile, because it drops the relative humidity. You'd probably get better results with a matte black tarp, than your current white tarp, as it'll warm the pile up more, for any given amount of sunlight.
I’m in Scotland. Covering at least the top is a no-brainer!😂
It depends on where you live. In Wyoming it’s drier than the Midwest.
Elevate off the ground and leave a little more space between pieces in the stack. It seasons much faster. Also, just leaving the split pieces out in the sun for a couple days before you stack it helps greatly.
I leave the wood untapped for seasoning but tarp it when it’s ready to burn. Works fine for me.
I cover with a piece of corrugated roof.
Air flow but shelter from the rain.
Looks like you've answered the question pretty thoroughly - thanks! I don't think it would make a big difference, but in some cases your meter was perpendicular to the grain, and in some cases parallel. Better to be consistent, but my meters say not to take measurements except at the end grain anyway. Next test would be covered-from-rain-but-not-touching-the-wood. Most of our wood stacks are in a frame with a tin roof. Probably the best results, but requires a lot more building stuff to get results not a lot better than your tarped stacks. Also, your stacks are pretty close together. A bit more spacing would give more airflow.
Covered. Very helpful video. Could do some other types of tests next year on a covered stack about differences between edge and middle pieces and maybe different stack and spacing methods etc.
@@Nas_Atlas Just finished a video testing bark side up, or bark side down. Should publish this week. I enjoy these tests. Do you have any specific ideas, or questions you suggest I test?
@@OldSoulMillennial Biggest influence in my opinion would be if you could put a gap down the middle of a big pile for air flow vs not doing that. How well does that wood in the middle of the pile dry out when it's far away from an edge
I find splitting the bark off helps the process as well
Try getting your covered wood with a foot of snow on it. At first the light snow comes off easily, but as you work your way into the stack the snow has accumulated with every light dusting. Been there done that.
Great videos!, my suggestion is now every 6 months restack the wood, so outside is now on inside & vise versa 😂, or leave more air in between the ricks 😅
I’m curious about the technique you use when testing. I’ve always been told that to use a moisture meter properly, you should align the probes with the grain, not cross grain. I have tested this method with my own wood and meter and get different results depending upon the orientation of the probes. You were switching back and forth. However, I do agree with your conclusion about using the tarp.
@@michaelschroeder6014 I will make a short testing just that.
As a fellow woodburner & youtuber I feel you at 01:51
Thank you for making this video! First time visitor! Very helpful!
OK, good scientific procedure there. Thanks for going to that trouble.
I stack 2 rows leave a gap then then 2 rows etc. It allows air and sun into the stacks. One big pile of wood and the center will be insulated from air flow and sunshine.
Your splits are pretty big so the middle will take a very long time to season (covered or uncovered - I do covered). 1 inch drying per year from the edge of the wood means a 2 inch thick split = 1 year of drying (one inch from each side); 4 inch split = 2 years drying, etc. If you have a hot fire already going or are using a wood furnace / boiler it doesn't matter as much. Different story for people who burn in an open fireplace (needs to be very seasoned). I would just split your splits smaller if you actually want it to season faster (more effective than covering).
Was the internal and external reading proportional? It seems like the difference between covered and uncovered was pretty accurate regardless of internal and external. I think the important part is just keeping it consistent if you want to be able to compare measurments later
I cover. I hate red oak , takes longer to season. 2 to 3yrs. It also stinks! Thanks for re testing!
Can't be worse than hickory, to me it smells like horses.
Agreed, maple and beech are much better. Black locust might be the king as far as btu output
Red Oak smells like human dooky.
@woodhonky3890 the nickname I heard was piss oak
The end grain moves moisture faster, both into the wood and out into the air. Usually instead of splitting again it is sufficient to test the side rather than the end. The under side will usually give a better reading if the top is exposed to sun but under your tarp both top and bottom should be similar.
A tarp that can breath but still shed water is likely best, but only covering the top (minimizing side coverage) is a good approximation. Otherwise building wrap is good and cheap. However wrap doesn't last more than a season or two in the sun.
There are some plastics that last a long time with UV exposure. Perhaps the best is acrylic/PMMA. Not quite as good is vinyl. Not quite as good as that is PET/mylar/polyester (all different names for the same basic material). And then there are the UV strengthened PE's that are sold for greenhouses. All of these will last longer than a typical tarp.
And if you use a clear plastic and raise it well off the wood, you will get maximum drying because it allows both circulation and sunlight.
Probably the cheapest/easiest way is to get 4 PVC pipes or bamboo poles (2 slightly longer than the other 2), sink it in ground, cut the top ends at a sloped angle (angle matches the height difference of the back vs front poles), glue some kind of flat square material (wood or whatever) to that that is at least a 3" x 3" and to the top of that glue/affix hook and loop/velcro. Attach corresponding hook and loop/velcro to the clear plastic film. Now it is easy to remove the film if you need to.
Have all the sides open while having the plastic film well above the wood pile will allow maximum circulation.
*_Listen_* to the wood. When firewood is ready, it'll sound like bowling pins clacking together. *_Look_* at the wood. As it dries, wood will lighten and lose color. Also look for the radial checks that form on the end-grain; these splits are a sign of the density change from lost moisture. *_Smell_* the wood. If it still has an earthy, fungal, damp whiff to it, then there's still lots of water inside. Dried wood smells clean, fresh, and slightly sweet. *_Feel_* the wood. Cured firewood is less heavy from the lessened density. (Of course, species will vary. Pines can be really light, and Beech still feels like a rock even dry, but there's still a difference between cured and uncured.)
*_Notice_* what happens as you hatchet kindling. Uncured wood is much less flexible, so pieces should fly off as you split them, not bend away. And don't *_eat_* the wood. It won't help you know.
Though, if you're going to chew on one, Maple is the best. Neither do I own a moisture meter, nor do I want one. With a little practice and proper storage, you'll easily know when firewood's ready to burn--just like people have for hundreds of thousands of years.
Significantly better test. The other thing you want to do to insure accuracy is use the meter probes in line with the wood grain.
Have you checked out the firewood hoarders club yet?
Okay, yes split and probe inside for testing. But now you have a reliable ratio (if you do a few more samples). So just probe outside for usage.
Build yourself a little pole shed…you get the best of both worlds; covered wood with good air circulation around it. Mine is ready to burn in 1 year and I never have to worry about rot.
It’s a really good thing you were up to do a re-test, but unfortunately I feel like plotting only 2 for each is far from enough.
Too many factors come into play, including the size of the piece of course.
Cut,split ,burned fire wood for 40 years found out that stacking wasn’t necessary only on the outside tarp over the top so air can move throughout and it keeps the snow off the wood
stacking has the primary benefit of your woodpile not taking up so much space.
Does wood dry faster if you split it into smaller pieces? I’d love a comparison video where you split wood from the same tree into rounds, large pieces, and small pieces and compare any differences in seasoning
makes you wonder how the restack is going to effect it. As in would it be beneficial to restack during seasoning?
E.M.C. I suggest you look up the term as this is actually what matters when it comes to drying firewood (any wood) properly. :)
Nicely redone.
35 years of cutting splitting and burning. I avoid red oak. Ash maple and cherry 👍
Western softwoods, primarily Douglas fir, seem to dry very well when uncovered and just piled high...not stacked. Great air circulation. But...I live in an area of only 28 inches annual precipitation. Judging by weight per cu ft, no moisture meter, there is no point in stacking wood other than the appearance of neatness. In the winter I just start using off the south facing side of the stack, no problems with ignition, no problems with creosote. Your mileage may vary in wetter climates.
The mushroom is an indicator
In your previous video, you learned that on the side of the woodpile exposed to the sun, the uncovered wood had a lower moisture content than the covered section. And yet now you've selected pieces of wood from the dark, perhaps north side of the pile which starts off with more moisture in the uncovered wood. Guess it just goes to show that if you manage a test carefully enough, you can prove anything you want.
I cover my lumber planks. I do not cover my firewood. However, I let both my planks and my firewood dry for at least three years before use.
Good man. Well done.
The best way to season firewood is to have a woodshed with as open walls as possible and a floor that's at least a foot off the ground. Also have half a foot between the stacks of wood for maximum air circulation.
I have an electric spitter like that. I was splitting a piece of twisted birch today and the wood flew apart like I’ve never seen before in my 70 years on this earth
19 stitches in my eyebrow .
Sorry to hear that. I've had very dry pieces nearly explode off the wedge at times. I've also had pieces fly up towards my face (when the piece wasn't cut square). I always keep my arms and face back. Perhaps I should make a safety video on electric log splitters.
I had an electric splitter like that for a year, and the motor burned out. you get what you pay for.
@@kenbrown2808 I had the motor get slightly seized once from leaving the unit out in the rain. I turned the fan blade manually to unseize the motor, never an issue since.
@@OldSoulMillennial you got a better model than I did, then. I guess I should say, the motor didn't cook off - it lost a winding.
In Australia, if you tarp the stack you’ll end up with a lot of redback spiders etc. Fortunately our climate is generally dry.
Nice scientific update! Just let that wood sit another year and it'll be fine.
Good job. Nice follow up.
super annoying to press the button with both hands. I have a gas splitter. I always hold the top middle of the log, or it'll fall off! I can't ever get my hand squished because it's in the middle. It's far from either of the moving parts
Good job man!
You took feedback from your subscribers and adjusted. That's the definition of Carol Dweck's book on mindset, which is a growth mindset for for. Congrats. You're climbing.
Why would you cite that charlatan?
VERY useful video. My husband and I always disagreed. He says covered. I say uncovered. I lost.
A happy marriage is the win. Cheers
@@OldSoulMillennial 😅 I think we finally got there after 35 years.
Per blaze king. HOW TO USE MOISTURE METERS
1. Randomly select three logs from your wood pile and split each one down the middle.
2. Three points of measurement are required to determine the moisture content of each log: 2" (5 cm) from either end and in the middle of the split surface of the log. To take these measurements, insert the moisture meter pins at the points described, keeping the pins in line with the wood grain. Record each measurement.
3. Do this to all three logs and take an average of the readings (this is an approximate indication).
So they are looking for the test pins to be parallel to the grain too.
www.blazeking.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/180-KE40-v3.00_comp-MAY-9.pdf
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@@perrycarditi5 I filmed a video today testing if probing with or against the grain makes a difference.
@@OldSoulMillennial I’ll be curious to see the results! Thanks
Now from a scientific standpoint two data points is not enough to establish a pattern or accurately determine an average value.
So, are you going to burn this wood now that you know it’s not seasoned fully?
I would say throw out the moisture meter. What I do is drill the side with a 1" Forstner bit, discarding the first inch. Then weigh the shavings, then dry them on the woodstove, then weigh again. The loss in weight is the water content. That divided by the dry weight is the moisture content, expressed as a percentage.
Excellent test! Thanks
Could buy a poly carbinate roof or buy a green house on temu
Really liked this video my man.
I found out the hard way - always split the wood to use your moisture meter. Never trust it along the edge. Has to be split(again).