Seasoned, kiln dried or neither: reading a moisture meter

Twenty percent moisture content is the legal limit for wood sold in small volumes in England, and it is also roughly the point below which a modern stove behaves itself. Above it, a large part of the energy in each log is spent boiling water rather than heating your living room.

A meter costs very little and settles every argument. Take a log from the middle of the load, split it, and press the pins into the freshly exposed face across the grain. Reading the outside of a log tells you about the weather last week, not about the wood.

Seasoned means air dried, usually for two summers under cover with the ends open to the wind. Done properly it gets to eighteen or twenty percent. Done badly, which is most of what gets sold by the netted bag at the roadside, it sits at thirty and burns like a wet towel.

Kiln dried wood is dried under controlled heat and typically arrives between ten and eighteen percent. It costs more per cubic metre and gives more heat per log, so the gap is smaller than it looks on the price list.

Whatever you buy, store it off the ground, keep the top covered and the sides open, and bring a day or two of logs inside so they finish drying in the warm. A stove fed on dry wood makes less ash, less smoke and a great deal more heat.

Want a straight answer about your own chimney? Call 01634 786800 or book a free home survey.