Wood moisture meters

Ours is a Stihl one. Pretty sure I got it from amazon. Seems to work well.

At the same I bought a little fan that stands on top of the stove which helps circulate the warm air into the room.

Both pretty good buys.

We work on 1 year drying period for fast growing wood, like the hazel tree we had to cut down this spring, 2 years for denser slow growing trees like oak.

Most of our firewood we use is bought in and is dried to standard.

Thanks, Gonegirl. I'll look at Stihl.

That's the time we've been allowing too, M0nica, and the wood feels lighter than it was, which I assume is a bit of a guide, but then I'm not sure how much it matters if the wood gets wet in the rain. Ours is under cover, but the rain does blow in to the shelter. On the other hand, you see some wood stacks completely uncovered, so how does that work? I am confused!

We keep our logpile stacked up in the garage, so under cover but probably a bit damp and cold.Wood from garden trees we keep at one end and allow at least two years.

Forgot to add, that we have a large log basket on the hearth,
And we keep this filled all through Spring and Summer for the first couple of fires, it’s dried out nicely by then.

Ours is stored in a shed. We have a delivery on Thursday. If fit rains between Thursday and sometime next week, the time it will take to get it under cover, it will get damp, but quickly dry out.

Usually if wood is stacked outside, it is surplus wood and will get under cover and dry for a year before it is burnt.

Think I need to make the shelter more waterproof. We don't keep wood in the house overnight, lemongrove as it sometimes contains slaters, earwigs or even the occasional slug, and I really prefer not to have them wandering about the house, but you're right, it would mean the wood was dried out.

We never had this problem before as the wood was stacked in the garage, but since downsizing, our garage is now full of surplus Stuff, rather than wood (sigh) and so that'a another obvious line to take...

Thank you all for your comments.

When we had a logburner, we found that if it had already had time to get properly seasoned, it dried out enough from getting rain-wet if it spent an hour or two under the fire (it was on legs) before being put inside it to burn.

Good idea, Elegran!

We had a log burner for years and our log pile was outside. It had no cover. Logs sat, cut and exposed for a minimum of two years. The logs need to dry on the inside and just getting rain on them didn't cause problems as this wet doesn't seep in. They were, of course, stored off the ground (on pallets) and the air could circulate freely.

As we needed the logs we brought a couple of dozen into an open porch. Hardly any of ours were "commercial" logs and we normally cut and split them ourselves. We never had a moisture meter and never had a wet log issue.
Not sure if this is useful or not!

Yes it is, thank you, NotSpaghetti. Our logs are also stored off the ground in fairly open shelters. We have never had a problem and we do get the chimney swept annually. I think I have been reading the wrong things and over-thinking it all!