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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Gene GeRue wrote:

> Well, I don't want you to be disappointed so I will persist. Are you  
> of the belief that firewood can be too dry?
>
> Also, depending on species, dry wood splits with greater difficulty  
> than green/wet wood. And I don't mean rain wet.


Ah, okay, I see what you mean now.
Yes, I do believe that wood can be too dry, not too dry to burn, but too 
dry to put off any real heat for the length of time it burns.  It burns 
too fast.  Since it is our sweat that goes into cutting loading hauling 
splitting stacking and moving wood, I want it to be just right.  I want 
it to be good and heavy when I pick in up, not light and airy.  The more 
I have to open the woodstove to put in wood, the more heat I lose up the 
flue.  I have an old woodstove, no blowers, no fans,,,,it just burns 
wood and heats up the stove/rocks so that heat radiates.
We do use the lightweight-too dry wood to start the fire and early in 
the life of the fire, but we just don't rely on that to put out any real 
heat.  We do mix the woods, heavier with lighter, depending on the time 
of day and such, but still, for heat, we prefer the heavier, wetter, 
wood with some 'life' still there.  They say that 20% is the goal for 
firewood.  I don't have a way to measure wood, but I have plenty of 2 
foot in diameter oak logs out there that were cut in the fall.  If they 
had 60% moisture to begin with, they are probably still close to that 
now.  I don't believe it will really start noticeably drying until it is 
split.
Another thing, Gene, is I really don't want 10 cords of wood split and 
laying around.  Bugs and termites and critters will reduce it to nothing 
in 3 years.
As for the difficulty in splitting, that is the downside, but we have a 
hydraulic wood splitter.  If ours can't get the job done, our neighbor's 
wood splitter surely can.  His would split a pickup truck, I think. :)
If I start splitting in April, that means that the wood is about 8-9 
months old.  What is the difference between wood stored under my shed 
and standing dead wood from a tree that died last summer?
And go ahead and persist..<g>..


B


--
"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will 
not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius 
will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the 
world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone 
are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve 
the problems of the human race"

~ Calvin Coolidge