At the time of writing this winter is not technically over but there are only a couple more weeks to go. This is the time of the year when you are probably preparing for other projects and planning your garden. However this is also the right time to process your firewood for next season.
Because the leaves aren’t on the trees yet and its easy to move around in the woods if you are lucky to catch that perfect time before springs rain come you will have a good opportunity to collect any standing or recently fallen dead trees and consider if there are other trees you need to cut back.
How do you even tell if a tree is a standing dead tree when there aren’t any leaves on it? Well tell tail signs are trunks that have a good amount of bark pealing off. Other types of damage such as cracking up the trunk face from lightning or dead branches that let you remember that tree was the dead one you saw earlier. Another way would have been if you marked the trees with a ribbon in late summer.
Transporting Your Firewood
Once you have selected the trees you will be harvesting you need to realize that dead wood because its dryer is normally much harder to cut and split so you want your chain freshly sharpened and your saw operating at its best. You also want an easy way to transport it. You can use your pickup truck and even put a dump trailer on it. You can use your 4 wheeler with a trailer or even a small trailer on a riding mower can work in a pinch if you can get it where you need to go.
Decide on a length that you need and start to cutting. If this is your first year with a fireplace or wood stove its always better to give yourself a little room and cut shorter because you don’t want to be grabbing some wood and having to cut it when you need it.
I am really a proponent of using all of the tree that you can. For me that means you don’t throw away everything but the main trunk you should make use of branches that are even down to the half inch thickness. If you have some small branches its easier to start your fire. This way you aren’t chipping kindling out in the cold you just grab a bunch of smaller branches that you have cut to length and you’re ready to start your fire. And a single piece of junk mail will light those twigs on fire but not so much a 4 inch log. I see people resorting to pulling out their map gas torch and wasting it to start their fires and it really makes me wonder. At $15 a can you won’t be seeing me do that when i get so much enjoyment burning junk mail.
Seasoned Wood Never As Good As Kiln Dried But Its Still Great To Use
Dry wood is very important but Seasoned Firewood is not the same as Kiln Dried Firewood. Kiln Dried is normally only a commercial option because the better kilns do cost a lot but they can also process a lot. A couple of my friends that run firewood companies were talking about kiln dried and one is a small operator that doesn’t offer the service and the larger one does. For every cord of firewood you can expect 1,500 pounds of water to be shed from green wood when it is processed in a Kiln. A gallon or water weighs just over 8 lbs so that means close to 200 pounds of water is being sweated off that wood in the kiln. It also means that if you were to buy kiln dried firewood you are likely to get more wood for your money. Not only does it lose moisture but it shrinks in size. So if you have to buy then buy kiln dried if its in a similar price range.
For everyone else that is processing their own wood you will be seasoning your firewood. The drier you get your firewood the better. Dry wood is going to burn easier and its not going to cause a lot of moisture in your chimney which can be a danger. The longer you can season your firewood the better but also you want to do so in a way that rain and humidity isn’t fighting you. You need a lot of air passing through it and you need it covered at least from the top. That can mean you need to build a wood shed or maybe you just put some plastic over the top. You want to make sure it gets full summer sun so don’t store it on the north side of your house.
Using a moisture meter is the best way to tell if your wood is drying correctly but you don’t want to just stab the surface because your wood is going to dry from the outside first. So take the time to cut a couple pieces in half that are in different places in your wood stack.
Final Note
Processing firewood isn’t the funnest job to do but if you are heating your home with wood and you are able to save money by using your own wood then you have to give yourself the best chance for good results. Green wood will burn but if you have ever seen it you can watch the moisture bubble out of it at times as the heat makes it boil. Dead standing trees should not be considered dry because they aren’t. As long as the roots are in the ground and those pathways exist then the moisture will wick up into even the deadest looking trees.
Get the job done early before your other spring and summer jobs take priority and let your wood dry out the best it can. Honestly after a couple years you really should get to the point you have extra wood and can have a buffer of a few cords that build up over a few years. Always use the oldest wood first but wood that has been seasoning a couple years isn’t a bad thing to work towards.