MC's and all that jazz!

[muldonach]

Have checked meter its a morso one all seems fine, reading 30% on my finger as the book says so my wood must just be wet!

 

Came across some squirrel killed beech this week lovely wood, under 20% and no brash to clear when felled. Is ring barking the way to go, fell when you need it and seasoned? Just i've not had much success killing trees in that way.

 

No gain without pain - splitting dry beech is in my opinion a cruel and unusual punishment if you do it by hand and sore on the machinery otherwise.

 

Cheers

mac

[gensetsteve]

green beech flys through my processor and can use the four way split, same size dry and it will tend to shatter into trash so need to drop down to a two way split.

[ThrustSSC]

You boys keep piling out the wet stuff, as soon as a customer see's someone else's stove that is being fed properly dry wood then they will switch suppliers, to me !!!. I have processed hardwood at 24% inside, no way thats going out till next winter. My soft is averaging around 15% at present, some is a bit higher but most is 8-11%.

 

Almost everyone round me is selling 'seasoned' at 25% plus, some are over 40%. The only option apparant to some customers is kiln dried.

 

A

 

Even the kiln-dried stuff is no guarantee! :-( Look at Certainly Wood's website videos - their kiln-dried stuff is "average 20%, nothing more than 25%". Says it all when what I'm delivering now is 12-15% MC - that's NOTHING more than 15%. One customer even came back to me to tell me that it was so good it had cleaned the blacking off his stove window. He did complain that it wasn't perfect as he still had to get off his backside to put more on, though...

[scbk]

Even the kiln-dried stuff is no guarantee! :-( Look at Certainly Wood's website videos - their kiln-dried stuff is "average 20%, nothing more than 25%". Says it all when what I'm delivering now is 12-15% MC - that's NOTHING more than 15%. One customer even came back to me to tell me that it was so good it had cleaned the blacking off his stove window. He did complain that it wasn't perfect as he still had to get off his backside to put more on, though...

 

Surely there must be different degrees of kiln dried?

A big company like certanly wood probably just bung it in the kiln for long enough to get the worst of the moisture out and take it down to below 25%.

More like speedy seasoning than kiln drying

 

 

*maybe*

[ThrustSSC]

Surely there must be different degrees of kiln dried?

A big company like certanly wood probably just bung it in the kiln for long enough to get the worst of the moisture out and take it down to below 25%.

More like speedy seasoning than kiln drying

 

 

*maybe*

 

No maybe in it! You're spot on. My take is that CW (among others) are using kiln drying to speed the process up rather than produce a superior product - although I accept the argument that their product is superior to all the green wood being sold by unscrupulous woodcutters.

 

The alternative is to use kiln drying to ensure consistency in wet years as well as dry, and to get the MC down further than drying in the open will achieve. That's the approach I'm taking - although it remains to be seen how damp the wood gets once it's at the customers and stacked in their shed/garage/log store and is able to reabsorb moisture from the air.

 

How you power your kiln is another discussion - balancing cost, speed, green issues, space, etc.

[Big J]

A sawmill up in Fife I sometimes work with use their board drying kiln to dry firewood when it would otherwise be lying empty. Their kiln is heated by a furnace that is fed offcuts, and it heats their office as well. I think if you are using electricity to provide the heat, it would prove to be too expensive and unsustainable.

 

Regarding moisture contents, I think you folk in the south have really benefited from a dry summer. My firewood (for my house only - don't sell.....yet) is dry, but only by virtue of the fact that it has been split, stacked and under cover for over a year. Using the ridiculously expensive Delmhost MC meter, the Elm was 15.9%, the Ash 20-21% and the Oak 20-23%.

 

With our damp climate in Scotland, much drier than that is impossible without some form of artificial environment (poly tunnel, kiln etc). For instance, the weather forecast for this week is an average of roughly 13 degrees and 81% RH for the day. This equates to an equilibrium MC of 16%. Obviously it's much cooler and damper overnight. Contrast that with London, which is usually 20-30% points drier, you have a much shorter and less intense drying season.

[Crazy Cutter]

Good point well made.

 

I do believe the customer should be taking the route of the Europeans and buying in advance where possible then they will know its seasoned. Its been quiet for a week or two now but i know the calls are going to come and they will all want dry wood which puts a lot of pressure on the seller.

[mikey10]

Just thinking if you had a log that was say 30% in the middle but both ends say a third in are 20% would the average moisture content of that log be about 25%, and therefore ok to burn?

[oldwoodcutter]

Was out at necton the other day and client got talking about logs,said he'd just had a nice load put into his store the previous day.I strolled over to the store at lunchtime to have a quick shufty and it was chestnut so black the water was running out of it.

Didn't say anything to him,but i wouldnt put my name to delivering that to my worst enemy.

[Kev Stephenson]

Had a neighbour of a customer having a real go today calling me a rip off merchant for selling soaking wet wood as I was tipping off. Once they took a breath I managed to tell them that this customer has been buying 3 loads a year from me for the past 4 years and buys unseasoned to save himself money as he has the space to dry it himself.

 

No apology but she went off rather quiet.