How do you air dry your wood down to 20% ??

[openspaceman]

12 hours ago, openspaceman said:

16 hours ago, Big J said:

I think unless you've been able to protect the timber from the elements over winter, that 10% is impossible. The lowest we ever had over winter was mid 17s on beech in the airdrying barns and 12-13 in the scorching summer (2018). That's with meticulous stacking and a £350 moisture meter. 

I know where you're coming from and @Woodworks is saying much the same but here in Sunny Surrey I was pulling softwood from my log shed in the low teens , I've very little left to test but I'll look to do a test.

Okay I've tested a piece of Wellingtonia that went in the shed, on the floor, February 19, it was fresh felled and I reported here at the time the moisture content was 75%, today it came out at 25% but the bit I split off prior to testing burst into flames immediately when I put it in the stove. The piece of hardwood, beech, went in sometime in winter 19, green and today was 21%. I guess left to another summer they would continue to lose moisture but because of space considerations I will not season stuff more than one summer before I burn it. These pieces coming from the floor or near the bottom will not have dried as well as stuff nearer the glass roof.

 

In the meanwhile this morning  my neighbour took delivery of a cut and split load of ash from the local log merchant, I asked her for permission to weigh a bit and it was at 31%.

 

NB because of the small sample size  and accuracy of my kitchen scales I would allow +- 5% variance on these figures.

[Rob_the_Sparky]

They are just selling what there is demand for.  Same effort to go to the woods and get hardwood as softwood, pretty much the same effort to cut and split and you can sell hardwood for more money so if you can get hardwood to sell why wouldn't you if there is more profit in hardwood?  Then as you say there is the demand problem for softwood.  All of this is good news for those of us happy to process our own logs and happy to burn softwood.

[Big J]

18 hours ago, openspaceman said:

Okay I've tested a piece of Wellingtonia that went in the shed, on the floor, February 19, it was fresh felled and I reported here at the time the moisture content was 75%, today it came out at 25% but the bit I split off prior to testing burst into flames immediately when I put it in the stove. The piece of hardwood, beech, went in sometime in winter 19, green and today was 21%. I guess left to another summer they would continue to lose moisture but because of space considerations I will not season stuff more than one summer before I burn it. These pieces coming from the floor or near the bottom will not have dried as well as stuff nearer the glass roof.

 

In the meanwhile this morning  my neighbour took delivery of a cut and split load of ash from the local log merchant, I asked her for permission to weigh a bit and it was at 31%.

 

NB because of the small sample size  and accuracy of my kitchen scales I would allow +- 5% variance on these figures.

 

21% is where I'd expect beech to be after 12 months in undercover log storage. No retailer can afford to dry firewood for two years, and 21% burns perfectly well. I would bet that it was a touch lower than 21% before the start of winter though, as beech dries so quickly.

[Stere]

This docu has a loads of graphs and infos on wood moisture ans seasoning etc.....

http://www.biomasstradecentre2.eu/data/upload/D5_5_Manual_firewood_production_biohousing.pdf

 

 

 

 

[xdcx]

22 hours ago, Rob_the_Sparky said:

 All of this is good news for those of us happy to process our own logs and happy to burn softwood.

Nail on head!

[openspaceman]

12 hours ago, Big J said:

 

21% is where I'd expect beech to be after 12 months in undercover log storage.

Okay but I would expect to get it lower  I think I need to look at some airflow under my stack, trouble is that will lose me some volume.

12 hours ago, Big J said:

 

No retailer can afford to dry firewood for two years,

Which is why some people kiln dry, it can mean a lot in cashflow terms

12 hours ago, Big J said:

 

and 21% burns perfectly well.

I agree but there is also little doubt drier burns better, again it's BATNEEC and the damage this does to the woodland management could potentially  be counter productive .

 

The reasons behind the legislation is that a target has been set for PM2.5, the powers that be have  set that target without considering the implication that many respiratory problems stem from long previous exposures and also that the alleged contribution of PM2.5 from burning firewood is largely from burning purchased firewood when in fact things like bonfires  are also lumped in with the "domestic fires" portion.

 

The reason "domestic fires" now allegedly account for 30% along with 30% from unknown sources is that industrial stacks and transport have been cleaned up to a fraction of the 1970 levels. Particulate levels have reduced to about 20% of their 1970 levels overall, a lot of it from loss of heavy industry.

12 hours ago, Big J said:

 

I would bet that it was a touch lower than 21% before the start of winter though, as beech dries so quickly.

Now that is illogical, here in SE England the equilibrium moisture content settles about 17% so nothing is likely to rise above that, what has happened is the conditions in the stack mean the log did not become below 20% before winter set in.

 

To illustrate this I picked out 2 pieces of oak and one piece of bay that were left from the previous year but otherwise in the same shed, the oaks were 17% and 19% and the bay 14% ( but it was quite well buried in the pile and high against a side) so as I said my conclusion is that if I can get the logs dry enough in a summer than they will not adsorb moisture to any worrying amount.

[renewablejohn]

Well if you start talking PM 2.5 a simple electrostatic filter on the chimney reduces PM 2.5 by 96% according to the manufacturers so if they really wanted to reduce PM 2.5 that would be the simple solution.  Think its the Swiss who already have the filters in as part of the chimney approval.

[arboriculturist]

38 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Okay but I would expect to get it lower  I think I need to look at some airflow under my stack, trouble is that will lose me some volume.

Which is why some people kiln dry, it can mean a lot in cashflow terms

I agree but there is also little doubt drier burns better, again it's BATNEEC and the damage this does to the woodland management could potentially  be counter productive .

 

The reasons behind the legislation is that a target has been set for PM2.5, the powers that be have  set that target without considering the implication that many respiratory problems stem from long previous exposures and also that the alleged contribution of PM2.5 from burning firewood is largely from burning purchased firewood when in fact things like bonfires  are also lumped in with the "domestic fires" portion.

 

The reason "domestic fires" now allegedly account for 30% along with 30% from unknown sources is that industrial stacks and transport have been cleaned up to a fraction of the 1970 levels. Particulate levels have reduced to about 20% of their 1970 levels overall, a lot of it from loss of heavy industry.

Now that is illogical, here in SE England the equilibrium moisture content settles about 17% so nothing is likely to rise above that, what has happened is the conditions in the stack mean the log did not become below 20% before winter set in.

 

To illustrate this I picked out 2 pieces of oak and one piece of bay that were left from the previous year but otherwise in the same shed, the oaks were 17% and 19% and the bay 14% ( but it was quite well buried in the pile and high against a side) so as I said my conclusion is that if I can get the logs dry enough in a summer than they will not adsorb moisture to any worrying amount.

I was hoping you may be able to comment on the new thread I posted earlier today, given your long experience in industry.

 

The LINK I gave in the post directs you to a lengthy document which you may or may not already be aware of.

 

Thread Title below:

Proposed regulation of the sales, distribution and marketing of house coal and wet wood (>20% moisture)

 

 

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, arboriculturist said:

I was hoping you may be able to comment on the new thread I posted earlier today, given your long experience in industry.

 

The LINK I gave in the post directs you to a lengthy document which you may or may not already be aware of.

 

Thread Title below:

Proposed regulation of the sales, distribution and marketing of house coal and wet wood (>20% moisture)

 

 

I wasn't aware of it and have it on the desktop now but there is a lot of jargon there which is beyond my understanding even in the first pages, I'll try and get further but I gave up trying to interpret stuff like this when I retired and no longer needed to see how the firm could comply.

 

The first things that smack one in the face is that  they have no intention of tackling consumers, only sales at source. This will be straightforward for coal " While some enforcement and administration costs will fall to the regulatory
body, they will be recovered by the regulatory body from fuel manufacturers through the levy of registration charges and fuel testing fees paid by the manufacturer". It will quickly be traced back to a manufacturing plant but for small wood suppliers it looks like "businesses which voluntarily subscribe to the Ready to Burn scheme. The scheme currently covers less than 1 percent of businesses in the market although it should be noted this includes
the biggest fuel manufacturers in terms of the tonnage of domestic fuel sold on the market."

 

So it's the executives' salaries of yet another quango that will benefit from this.

 

How they will dis-enfranchise small log sellers, ones able to comply with the new moisture criteria but not wishing to join the scheme or have to pay for their logs to be tested, will be interesting.

[openspaceman]

@renewablejohn

Electrostatic precipitator (ESP) by OekoTube for your wood fire

OEKOSOLVE.CH

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