The woodsure scheme, do we need it?

[Vedhoggar]

19 hours ago, Steven P said:

I'm not arguing about the accuracy of the meters in the sub £50 price bracket, they are what they are, come out of the factory and reasonably accurate - I have a Stihl one.. it is the calibration requirement that I was commenting on more

I suspect what is meant by "calibration" is to adjust/check settings before taking a measurement such as options for wood or building material or species selection/wood group as some meters have fine tuning of moisture based on species.  Some devices have self calibration built in. The statement is a bit ambiguous and needs reworded/clarified in my view. 

[Woodworks]

My old Protimeter can be properly calibrated. There is a  wire that came with it. You touch the two probes on the wire and it should give a specific reading. If its out there is screw which you adjust which is presumably a variable resistor. Checked it once in 25 years and its still spot on 

[Steven P]

1 hour ago, Vedhoggar said:

I suspect what is meant by "calibration" is to adjust/check settings before taking a measurement such as options for wood or building material or species selection/wood group as some meters have fine tuning of moisture based on species.  Some devices have self calibration built in. The statement is a bit ambiguous and needs reworded/clarified in my view. 

 

Which is pretty much the problem, quite ambiguous on this. Unfortunately the UK is based on case law - what did a previous judgement judge to be the law and no one will know until someone is prosecuted for selling 'wet' wood, tested with a meter that was out of its specified limits - not calibrated.

 

 

 

[openspaceman]

6 hours ago, Steven P said:

 

Which is pretty much the problem, quite ambiguous on this. Unfortunately the UK is based on case law - what did a previous judgement judge to be the law and no one will know until someone is prosecuted for selling 'wet' wood, tested with a meter that was out of its specified limits - not calibrated.

 

 

 

The business of actual moisture content is unlikely to go to court because the regulations  make woodsure the regulator of the "scheme" just as gassafe oversee the domestic gas installations.

 

So the LA weights and measures department will first check if the supply has been made legally (by someone registered with woodsure) if not then no proof of moisture content is necessary as the regulations have been breached. If the supply is from a member of woodsure then they will be expected to check up and deal with the matter.

[Vedhoggar]

On trying to find out what is meant by “calibration” in the notice that we have to give to customers when sell >2m3 of uncertified firewood I contacted Woodsure this morning who could not say but suggested I contact DEFRA so did only to be told that it was the Environmental Agency I needed to speak to so I did that who in turn said it was nothing to do with them and told me to contact DEFRA which I did a second time but they could not answer the question instead asked if I would submit my question via an email to their helpline, so looking forward to receiving a reply hopefully within the next 20 days.

[Billhook]

On 22/05/2021 at 09:48, Steven P said:

A couple of comments today..

First calibrate the meter and then measure a freshly split surface to get the best reading.”

 

So for everyone who knows these things, how do I calibrate a moisture meter that a domestic user might use? I can spend hundreds on a meter and calibration device (just checked, prices in dollars for a quick check but $600 was the sort of starting price), but for the sub £30 meter.....

(engineering head here, bung a known value electrical resistor across the terminals will give a consistent value as a check it is still reading that value next time but I am not sure an inspector would accept that "Yeah, I jus test it with this" unless it is a commercial product)

 

I do not sell firewood, only use a lot of it here at home.  But it would be interesting to try out these rules on the two types of wood that I have sitting outside in my slightly less than 2 cubic metre boxes.

On is full of  Elm which died from DED and I have it in the round in 16 inch lengths unsplit.  An ordinary wood splitter would not touch this stuff and even my X27 bounces off it.  I think that it is so hard that the prongs of a moisture meter would not penetrate it.

The other box is full of finger sized Ash branch loggings, which would also be fun trying to find an average reading.

[WhiteHorseEnergy]

Most firewood companies already followed the ready to burn scheme anyway, the only difference now is that all firewood providers must comply, otherwise it could negatively affect their business. Smaller suppliers do have until next year to join the scheme though. 

 

I'm going to publish an article in response to the concerns in this forum and to sum up the details, because the information available online is very heavy going and to be honest, it took me a long while to understand it fully. When it's published, I'm hoping it would be okay to share it on this forum. I'm on the marketing team at a firewood company so I spend a lot of time doing research around the topic, and I want to help people stay informed in any way I can! 

[Vedhoggar]

1 hour ago, WhiteHorseEnergy said:

Most firewood companies already followed the ready to burn scheme anyway, the only difference now is that all firewood providers must comply, otherwise it could negatively affect their business. Smaller suppliers do have until next year to join the scheme though. 

 

I'm going to publish an article in response to the concerns in this forum and to sum up the details, because the information available online is very heavy going and to be honest, it took me a long while to understand it fully. When it's published, I'm hoping it would be okay to share it on this forum. I'm on the marketing team at a firewood company so I spend a lot of time doing research around the topic, and I want to help people stay informed in any way I can! 

We look forward to seeing your article.

 

The main points as far as I can see which need to be addressed are:

1. DEFRA needs to clarify what they mean by calibration (currently waiting a response from them);

2. DEFRA needs to clarify what they mean by <20% (is this on a dry wood or wet wood basis); and

3. the DEFRA leaflet is misleading in that it states all wood delivered over 2m3 bulk will need 2 years to season (oak maybe but some species will take only one drying season such as split birch also some wood delivered in bulk will be <20% wet wood MC or around that, the main thing is that wood is <20% (wet wood basis we think).

 

We also have a problem those supplying moisture meters as many although not all will not state even when approach as to what basis their product works on i.e. wet or dry basis.

 

Finally, White Horse Energy has misleading information on their web page which you may want to take a look at which states that: "unseasoned wood will be banned from February 2021" this is not true for bulk loads >2m3 according to DEFRA, also smaller producers have until May 2022 to make any changes.

[WhiteHorseEnergy]

16 minutes ago, Vedhoggar said:

We look forward to seeing your article.

 

The main points as far as I can see which need to be addressed are:

1. DEFRA needs to clarify what they mean by calibration (currently waiting a response from them);

2. DEFRA needs to clarify what they mean by <20% (is this on a dry wood or wet wood basis); and

3. the DEFRA leaflet is misleading in that it states all wood delivered over 2m3 bulk will need 2 years to season (oak maybe but some species will take only one drying season such as split birch also some wood delivered in bulk will be <20% wet wood MC or around that, the main thing is that wood is <20% (wet wood basis we think).

 

We also have a problem those supplying moisture meters as many although not all will not state even when approach as to what basis their product works on i.e. wet or dry basis.

 

Finally, White Horse Energy has misleading information on their web page which you may want to take a look at which states that: "unseasoned wood will be banned from February 2021" this is not true for bulk loads >2m3 according to DEFRA, also smaller producers have until May 2022 to make any changes.

I'm not sure what calibration refers to either! As for <20%, firewood must be kiln dried or seasoned until it reaches moisture levels of 20%, so this is presuming the firewood has already been dried. That's the maximum moisture content but I imagine kiln drying the firewood will help it reach much smaller moisture content levels. 

Thank you for pointing the information out on our webpage by the way - don't worry, my other job is to make sure all the website content is updated and that is happening soon! That post was created over a year ago so it is definitely dated information. That's also why I'm writing this article for white horse energy as it will contain all the updated information. I'm a newly hired team member there so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in! Will let you know once it's up

[Vedhoggar]

44 minutes ago, WhiteHorseEnergy said:

I'm not sure what calibration refers to either! As for <20%, firewood must be kiln dried or seasoned until it reaches moisture levels of 20%, so this is presuming the firewood has already been dried. That's the maximum moisture content but I imagine kiln drying the firewood will help it reach much smaller moisture content levels. 

Thank you for pointing the information out on our webpage by the way - don't worry, my other job is to make sure all the website content is updated and that is happening soon! That post was created over a year ago so it is definitely dated information. That's also why I'm writing this article for white horse energy as it will contain all the updated information. I'm a newly hired team member there so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in! Will let you know once it's up

Kiln dried firewood can be often be between 12% and 20% depending on supplier and dia of wood but have come across some chunky kiln dried logs at 22% when split and a reading taken in the middle of log but generally <20% with better stuff <18%, naturally season wood often 18-20% but can be lower. Will let you know what DEFRA mean by “calibration” when they respond to my email, if I don’t get a response then I’ll assume they don’t know either! Hope the new job goes well for you.