Firewood drying time - INSANE CLAIM?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

I find a small cheap calculator, with a couple of prongs superglued to the end with '20%' typed onto the screen is excellent for achieving good results.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

 

 

LMAO, Im sure theres a few doing exactly that!

[arboriculturist]

 

Well nice to have the science behind the process.

 

I'll haul some up the hill tomorrow armed with the 2 pronged calculator for testing, knock both ends out the old dog kennel, load up with logs and report back in due course.

[s.varty]

What if you live on a hill as I do ? I cant take mine up the hill can i

[arboriculturist]

what if you live on a hill as i do ? I cant take mine up the hill can i

 

consider it a 'perk'

[arboriculturist]

 

Point taken, but how do you explain a saturated bath towel hung on the washing line 8am yesterday was bone dry by 4pm?

[B1rch]

I put 5 bulk bags of split sycamore on a trailer in an underpass. I didn't use a moisture meter but within a few months it was very dry and about half the weight it started at.

The underpass is a bit like a wind tunnel and I ended up leaving it for about 12 months anyway. I put it all in a poly tunnel now as it's less likely to get nicked.

[Stephen Blair]

Frost can really push the moisture out big time!

[difflock]

I have observed that the biting cold wind we usually get coming from the East in Feb, March and into April.

Can strip moisture very very fast.

A good marker is the human lips, they get very "chapped" at this time of year.

My simplistic understanding is that regardless of the airs temperature driven ability to carry moisture, it is MORE about the amount of moisture ALREADY in the air.

So bone dry, but cold air can/will be able to absorb more moisture than already saturated warm air, but obviously not more than warm dry air.

Now Tuesday of this week here in NI at least was a fabulous drying day.

Hot, windy and very dry.

cheers

m

[treequip]

Not possible in winter. Air simply cannot carry enough moisture to strip enough from green timber in winter. This is why high value hardwoods are cut in winter as they have a very slow start in terms of drying.

 

For instance, average temperature and humidity in say (December, January, February), the Midlands is about 7 celcius and 80% humidity. At those stats, each cubic metre of air can only carry 0.6g per cubic metre before reaching saturation point. Conversely, a cubic metre of air in summer (20c average temp, 60% average humidity) can carry 10.06g of water (or 16.77 times as much).

 

I've got firewood dry in about 3-4 months in crates in my lower barn in the height of summer. In winter, I often find that my air dried sawn timber will go up in MC to around 22%, from 17% in summer.

 

Jonathan

 

But how many more cubic metres are there in a howling winter wind compared to a still summers day?

[Tom D]

Frost can really push the moisture out big time!

 

Definitely, a week of cold frosty weather, especially with a bit of wind will work wonders.