[Stoves] wood: air dry, damp, moist and too wet to burn

[Lanny Henson]

Has anyone broken down the moisture level of red oak wood, or biomass, into categories similar to:  air dry, damp, moist and too wet to burn? 

(Damp and moist may not be the best names for the two middle categories.)

Also is there an energy balance chart? 

Moisture levels for red oak wood: 

  1.. Air Dry:  (13% and below), will ignite and maintain flaming combustion, without fire starter.
  2.. Damp:  (13% to ?%), needs some assistance to reach and maintain flaming combustion on is own, paper dry biomass, wax or other. 
  3.. Moist:  (?% to ?%), needs extra help to reach flaming combustion and needs help more than once to maintain flaming combustion.  The fire may burn a while until the moisture displaces the combustion air and then the fire goes out. You may have to top light and use a fire starter more than once to dry the wood to a point that it will burn, but once the combustion zone is hot, the wood will maintain flaming combustion.
  4.. Wet:  wood, (?% or more), too wet to burn, the energy in oak wood equal to or less than the energy necessary to evaporate its moisture content. Adds no energy to  a fire.

Thanks, Lanny
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20130427/b05b6a79/attachment.html>