Firewood how to

So you moved out of the city and found out that your new country home can be heated by wood! Few elements of country living are as fulfilling as warming the homestead with firewood. Getting away from fossil fuels and electric heat is just common sense, especially if you can burn the firewood on your property. That accomplishes two endeavors, saving money in heating, and using up combustibles that otherwise would be adding to the wild fire danger to your home.

Of course, not everyone has an unlimited supply of firewood on the back 40. There are other ways to source firewood other than cutting your own fallen limbs and downed trees. If you live fairly close to a National Forest, they offer firewood permits that are affordable. The quality of the wood varies, both in substance and availability. Some regions are more lenient with what practices you must follow than others.

And you could always buy firewood. Truly, if you don’t enjoy the work, buying a couple cords is a much better (easier) way to go.

As a kid, my father introduced me to fishing and hunting. Like hunting, putting together the year’s firewood also was a fall season sport, and in fact, a jaunt deer hunting into the mountains of the Six Rivers National Forest also usually included filling the available space in the pickup with firewood.

That’s how I knew, when I was 17 and 18 years old, that you could get a permit in the national forest to gather downed firewood. Often, I had to settle for “soft” woods. Back in the day, it was hard to find good hard wood that was within a reasonable distance of where you could get the truck.

These days, with all the old burns in on forest service land, finding dead standing or downed oak and madrone is not so tough. Again, every ranger district can be a little different with what is allowed. Some may only want you to clean up old logging decks, while others allow you to cut down standing dead trees. Still others only allow gathering of downed dead wood.

For the past 20 years, I’ve had no need to buy the forest service permits because I have several lifetimes of firewood on property I own, yet I still will go up to get federal firewood for kindling and to just enjoy the outdoor experience.

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Whether you cut your own, or are just new to buying a cord of wood, you’ll want to know the basics. Any cut and split tree round can be burnt, but there is definitely better wood choices for firewood. Most will want a good supply of hard wood like oak. “Hard” is really about density. Other popular hard woods include orchard woods like walnut and almond, as well as madrone and manzanita. Other areas of North America have options like maple, ash and cherry.

Having some soft wood around is also great for getting the fire started. Soft woods include pine, fir and cedar. While easy to ignite, there are drawbacks particularly with the speed the wood burns. If you are only burning pine or cedar, you’ll be restocking the firebox every couple hours on chilly nights. Being able to stoke with oak means you can close the damper and still have coals in the morning to rekindle the fire, plus have nice steady heat all night long.

There are areas in the Rocky Mountain states that only have soft wood options for firewood. For practical purposes mostly relating to moving the firewood from point a to point b, the pine and fir they are required to use means they will be stocking up on three or four times the amount of firewood than someone with access to hard wood.

In my perfect world, I’d have a good supply of seasoned oak and some seasoned western red cedar for kindling. Cedar has a great aroma, starts easily, and burns cleanly. If I do go onto national forest land for firewood, it’s going to be for the cedar. As it stands, most of my kindling is seasoned and dried pine and fir.

Dried and seasoned

“Often, when working on downed trees and limbs, the wood is already seasoned. While harder on the chainsaw teeth, at least this wood can be sawn into rounds, split and burned the same day.”

Seasoned firewood is wood that has been cut and stored for some time. Wood is considered perfect for burning when at 20 percent moisture content. There are meters that can measure the moisture content, but unless you are selling firewood and feel a need to convince a customer that the wood is seasoned, a meter is a little overkill.

All wood that I’ve ever worked with is easiest cut into rounds when “green,” still harboring the moisture trees have in their tissue when alive. Equally, wood rounds split best when dried. As a result, I will stockpile cut green rounds, then split them after they have become mostly “seasoned.” While rounds split easiest when dry, the drying and seasoning time can be shortened if you split them green. The smaller sections of wood will lose moisture faster.

Often, when working on downed trees and limbs, the wood is already seasoned. While harder on the chainsaw teeth, at least this wood can be sawn into rounds, split and burned the same day.

Indications of well seasoned firewood include bark that falls easily off the log, if there is any bark on. The pieces will be lighter in weight than green wood, although seasoned oak can seem heavy because of its density. Pine, fir and cedar gets noticeably light when dried and seasoned. Seasoning also darkens the log, and larger pieces may show end splits.

When actually working with wood, splitting is an easy way to see if the rounds are seasoned. Green rounds retain a fibrous consistency, and these fibers will often string pieces together. A seasoned log splits cleanly, with little or no fiber connections.

Once seasoned, firewood can get wet again. That’s where the “dried, seasoned,” firewood description is what you want if you’re buying cords. Once your firewood is cut, split, seasoned and dried, you must keep it dry. Moisture can invade from below as well as above, so a good hard and sloped base to stack the wood on is important. A tarp should be fine for covering, just make sure you anchor the tarp so it doesn’t blow off. Ideally, firewood can be stored in a barn or shed with air space around the stacks and a hard floor that doesn’t collect water. If you don’t have the protected space to store all your firewood, you can reload a smaller dry space from a bigger outdoor pile so that when you make your fire, you’ll have a decent supply of dry wood.

While cutting your own firewood is an ongoing project that carries on throughout the year, if you’re buying firewood, you’ll want to stay ahead of the curve. Quality firewood is at a premium in the cold, wet months of the year. Duh. And it’s not because firewood suppliers are raising prices and gouging. It’s because their delivery schedules are pushed way out, orders maybe weeks out from delivery. The only dealers who can deliver in a rush in December are those who ask premium prices for their firewood, and even at that, delivery may not be prompt.

The absolute best time to buy firewood is in the early summer. If there is any doubt about how seasoned it is, you’ll have a few dry months to add to the drying time. If saving money is your goal, you may order a year in advance and ask the firewood dealer if he’ll give you a better deal on green wood. For sure, you’re likely to get a delivery in a more timely fashion at least.

I like to start my firewood process by cutting green wood in winter. The rounds sit until mid-summer, then I start splitting. I’ll continue to split the rounds as time allows, even if it starts tapping into my greener stuff. Again, a personal preference, I’ll split a good percentage of my soft wood for kindling in super small pieces. Starting a wood stove or fireplace is much easier on a damp winter night if you have a variety of kindling sizes to work with.

Once the year’s rounds are split, the search continues of groves that need thinning, diseased trees to fell and fallen trees and limbs to buck into rounds for next year.