I've got a good sized stack of maple planks, ~ 2inch thick, 18+ inches wide, 8ft long stacked and stickered in my garage. I live in Minnesota, and my garage is unheated - not quite freezing in the dead of winter and kinda humid in the summer. Its been there, undisturbed, since last fall when I had a local guy with a portable bandsaw mill cut it up for me in my driveway. Before that, it had been felled from my backyard about two months previous. I did not seal the ends of the planks and I am getting some splitting at the ends. I don't know how far back that goes into the length of the planks - I hope not too far. Anyway, my question is how long does it need to sit there stacked up before it is dry enough to use? I assume the answer is to get a moisture meter, pull apart the stack, and sample test the planks toward the middle or bottom and then wait for the moisture content to be acceptable but that is a lot of work (very heavy planks). I'm wondering if there is any rule of thumb, for instance, just leave it 2 years minimum, or is there another way to determine the moisture content for the interior planks?