Understanding the actual Moisture Content of your firewood is critical to quality control, which includes mold prevention, especially in firewood bundling.
Using a Pin type meter is probably good for spot checking, but you cannot rely on this for getting accurate readings. There is only one true way to get the precise moisture content of the firewood, which is called the dry/weight method. The wood moisture content measures a percentage of how much water is in the wood when compared to the same wood with no water.
Example: If a piece of firewood weights 3 lbs and 1 lbs is water and 2 lbs is wood, then the Moisture content is 50% ( 1lbs of water / 2 lbs of wood).
Below we have shown a way to use the more scientific method of determining the moisture content of your firewood using a letter scale and regular kitchen oven.
| Choose the piece of firewood you think represent the load. You can do this using a pin meter and pick your preferred sample. In some case you may choose a wetter sample than the rest to get a worst case result, or simply get a middle of the range sample. |
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| Start splitting it into small slivers of firewood no more than 1" thick |  |
| Here we have complete split the piece of firewood into many smaller pieces. |  |
| You may wish to test the firewood with a pin meter for comparison later. This will help you understand how exact your pin meter readings are. In this case we took 6 samples with our pin meter: 1: 37% 2: 34% 3: 32% 4: 33% 5: 37% 6: 26% Average: 33% readings |
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| Now place all the pieces on a scale. In this case we used a letter scale and using grams is easier than lbs/oz. But either can be used. In this case we got 2720 grams (or 6.00 lbs) |
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| Place the pieces of firewood on an oven tray with space between them. Stacker them if needed as seen on the picture |  |
| Place them in the oven for 24 hours at 250F. |  |
| NEXT DAY. | |
| Remove the firewood sticks from the oven and place them on the scale. We got a reading of 1900 grams (or 4.19 lbs) |
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| PLACE THE FIREWOOD STICK BACK INTO THE OVEN. | |
| WAIT 6 HOURS MORE | |
| Remove the firewood sticks again from the oven and place them on the scale again. We got the reading of 1900 grams (or 4.19 lbs) IF THE WEIGHT IS THE SAME AS BEFORE PROCEED TO NEXT STEP OTHERWISE PUT IT BACK IN OVEN FOR 6 HOURS MORE AND REPEAT THIS UNTIL THE WEIGHT STOP DROPPING |
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| Calculating the actual Moisture content: Before drying: 2720 grams After oven drying: 1900 grams Difference: 820 grams Calculate (820 / 1900) = 43% moisture content |
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| FINAL RESULT: The pin meter said 33% and the actual "true" dry weight method showed us 43%. THEREFORE: Use pin meter for spot checking and dry weigh method for accuracy. |
Actual moisture content: 43% Pin meter showed 33% (reading 10% too low) |