Moisture meters a must for wood burners!

Moisture meters are a must!

Here at Embers Bristol we firmly believe that moisture meters are an integral tool for stove owners & wood burners alike.

Moisture meters are used to check the moisture content of firewood before you use it in your wood burning stove.

The reason for this is that burning wood with a high moisture content can be harmful to your stove. Unseasoned wood is more difficult to burn anyway but it will also increase the amount or corrosive deposits settling in your flue which will cause damage to the steel liner.

Well seasoned wood should be below the 30% mark in terms of moisture content and kiln dried hardwood will be sub 20%. When testing your nets if you do find anything higher we would suggest bringing that particular net into the room where the stove is located and you should see the moisture content drop to an acceptable level quickly. Unfortunately when seasoning it is not possible to test each and every log and occasionally some logs will season more slowly, due to positioning etc.

So how to use you moisture meter:

We use, and stock, the Valiant moisture meter. We have had plenty of different brands over the years and are very impressed with the quality and accuracy of the Valiant Moisture meter.

Firstly you’ll need to take the moisture meter out of the protective cover, remove the lid and protective probe cover. Be careful as the probes are sharp.

Turn on the moisture meter by holding down the on button.

Select the species you are testing using the mode button. (use the below table as a guide)

We are testing our Kiln dried Ash so we shall select Mode 4.

Now we need to insert the probes about 5mm into the wood. The reading will be displayed on the LCD screen. To hold the ready tap the power button. This is useful if you need to pull the probes out and take the probe to a different location.

When complete hold the power button to switch off. Carefully return the probe cover, lid and store your moisture meter in the protective case.

As you can see in the picture out piece of Kiln Dried Ash was read 15% which is perfect for going straight on the fire. Best practice is to test a number of logs to get a better idea of the average moisture content of a net or full delivery.