"It's been said that a long straight row of firewood standing in the yard in springtime is like money in the bank.
It is indeed.
As it dries in the summer sunshine, you're collecting interest."
What is the best tree species for firewood? While there is always room for debate, we like to suggest that the best species in your area is the one that is most plentiful, easy to split and doesn't cover your hands and clothes with sticky sap.
All wood, regardless of species, has about the same energy content per pound. The different species vary only in density. Traditionally, the favored trees in central North America were oak and maple because they are very dense and produce long-lasting coals. But these are valuable trees and in many areas are not plentiful enough to burn. No problem, just use softer woods like birch or poplar (aspen) or any other tree that is readily available. Keep in mind that people living in the coldest areas of North America have no hardwoods to burn and they get along just fine. Ultimately, it is more important to have wood that is cut and split to the right size and properly dried than it is to get the hardest wood available.
The Fuel is the Thing
How to prepare your firewood supply
Burning wet wood in a fireplace or stove is one of the two top barriers to pleasurable, efficient woodburning (the other is bad chimneys). Your wood fireplace or stove can only operate with high efficiency and low emissions if your fuel wood has about the right moisture content. Properly seasoned firewood has moisture content of around 20 per cent and is a pleasure to use.
The symptoms of poor performance related to wet firewood include:
difficulty getting a fire going and keeping it burning well,
smoky fires with little flame,
dirty glass,
rapid creosote buildup in the chimney,
low heat output,
the smell of smoke in the house,
short burn times,
excessive fuel consumption and
blue-gray smoke from the chimney.
In short, trying to burn wet wood in your fireplace or woodstove is annoying and wasteful. Many of these problems can be eliminated by burning properly seasoned firewood.
Seasoning wood is not just a matter of cutting your wood and throwing it into a pile. Dry wood is the result of specific actions you take. A commercial wood supplier may claim to have wood "cut last summer", or "two years old" and so on, but, if the wood has been heaped in a field or just recently split, it will prevent your heater from performing to its potential. This is particularly true of modern EPA certified stoves which perform extremely well when given the right fuel.
Properly seasoned wood has another important but less obvious benefit. If you cut and pile firewood right away, molds will not have time to grow. Mold, if it allowed to develop, will escape into your home’s environment when you bring the wood inside. Mold is an undesirable (although almost inevitable) component in modern homes and comes from many sources in addition to firewood, but minimizing its growth and circulation improves comfort and reduces allergic reactions. Stacking and air drying firewood before mold has a chance to grow is a good plan.
To help you achieve a great fuel supply for your fireplace or woodstove, here are five simple guidelines to follow:
1. Cut the wood to length
The wood you have purchased or cut yourself should be the right length for your fireplace or stove. This is usually about 2 inches shorter than the firebox width or length, depending on how you load the wood. In general it is better to have wood a little shorter than perfect rather than longer, first because it is no fun trying to jam too-long pieces into the stove in January and second because shorter pieces are easier to handle and quicker to dry.
2. Split it to the right size
Next, split the wood to the proper size for your burner. For most efficient wood stoves, this is usually no more than 6 inches measured at the largest cross sectional dimension. Furnaces can use wood that is larger, up to 8 or 9 inches across. Even for furnaces, though, big unsplit pieces make lousy firewood. A range of piece sizes is best so that when kindling a fire or reloading on a coal bed you have some smallish pieces that will help you achieve the desirable instant ignition. A selection of sizes from 3 to 6 inches in diameter for wood stoves and a couple of inches larger for furnaces will probably serve you well.
Keep in mind that firewood only begins to dry seriously once it is cut and split to the right size because in log form the moisture is held in by the bark. So, when buying wood, ask when the wood was cut split and properly stacked to get an idea of how ready it is for burning. For this reason, experienced woodburners like to get their wood in the spring so they can manage the drying process themselves.
3. Pile in a single row exposed to the sun and wind.
If wood is to be below 20% moisture content when you burn it in the winter, it must have the moisture removed. The only practical way homeowners can do this is to allow the sun and wind to dry the wood for them.
With this in mind, the wood should be piled in a place where the sun can warm it and the wind can blow through it. As the sun heats and evaporates the water from the wood pile the wind whisks it away. Here is a picture of my wood pile up against the back fence curving over the hill with plenty of exposure to the prevailing winds.
I pile my wood in a single row about four feet high. It extends about 100 feet long and contains the four cords I usually like to have for the winter. Here’s how I figure it:
1 cord is four feet wide, four feet high and eight feet long.
1 of my ‘face’ cords (or stove cord) is 16 inches wide.
3 of my face cords equals one full cord.
3 of my face cords is a pile four feet high and 24 feet long.
4 full cords, or 12 face cords is a pile 96 feet long.
I usually use a little over three cords per year so that I have a bit left over, just in case.
If you don’t have enough space to dry your wood along a fence row, you may be tempted to stack a few rows together, but be sure to give some space between rows for the sun and wind to penetrate the stacks.
Here is a more detailed discussion of firewood stacking technique.
4. Let the wood dry all summer
Most folks who split their wood and stack it in well-spaced rows find that they can dry their wood in four or five months. If you have your wood stacked in May or June it should be ready to put away for winter’s use by October. There should be no need to dry it longer than that, unless you live in a damp maritime climate and/or use very dense wood like Oak, which is notorious for taking a long time to dry.
A wood moisture meter. Ideal moisture is 20 % +/- 5%
5. To cover or not?
The theory behind covering the wood is that it will dry faster because rain will not soak the pieces as they dry. My experience is that the wood is dry enough by the time I want to bring it to my wood shed. Of course I may have to delay my wood shed filling if my dry wood gets rained on. I may have to wait a day or two after a rain to continue stocking my shed; it’s a great excuse to put off a chore!
If it makes you feel better to cover your wood, do it. If not, just make sure you pile it in the shed after a couple of days of sun.
The most important rules for preparing good firewood are:
Cut, split and stack the wood in the early spring and let it stand in the sun and wind all summer.
Do that and you can’t go wrong.
