How To Dry Firewood – Simple Tips For Drying Firewood

Are you aware that several straightforward methods can assist you in drying your wood until it's perfect for burning? A tree retains a significant quantity of moisture even post-harvest, making it ill-suited for combustion. Once you've cut down the tree, it's essential to season your firewood properly to achieve an optimal level of heat output. Drying firewood effectively is simple with a bit of insight into the proper drying techniques, especially when you understand the ideal conditions for drying.

Although air and sun are important factors in firewood drying process, there are also a few paramount techniques you should know that will help you produce more heat with every cord.

Collect woods in advance:

How long it takes to dry firewood depends on the climate. To get best results, it is better to gather woods in one year advance, either you purchase or cut down trees. Give more time as long as possible, at least six months before you plan to burn firewood. Another important thing that you should consider is the season because climate affects the drying process. So choose the best season that contains more air and heat to reduce the length of the drying process.

Split the tree into small sized logs:

Whole logs take a long time to dry and occupy more space into the fireplace or fire stove. Firstly, measure the hole of the fire stove, and then chop down the whole logs into small round sized logs according to the measurement of the hole. The length should be uniformed that will allow you to make stacking easier. Besides, small round and uniformed logs also get dried faster than big and uniformed ones. Last but not least, remove the barks from the surface to let air and sunlight penetrate through the logs.

Dry the surface first:

As the first step of the drying process, you should place the small logs on the open ground where air and sunlight are available in order to absorb the water logs contain into them. Make sure the ground is upper than the place around, which will avoid the risk of flooding or standing water coming from heavy rainfall. The more air flow on the ground, the shorter time it takes to dry the logs. Keep in mind that the ground logs are placed on is dry enough.

Avoid making heap:

A great mistake most of the people make in firewood drying process is to make the random heap of logs. Randomly heap does not allow air circulation through the wood due to the fact that only the outer side of the wood gets air flow and sun, thus creating uniformed drying. Moreover, there is not enough space among the rows of logs in the heap that is why wind cannot pass through the woods.

Stack the woods:

The best way to try firewood with minimum time is stacking the logs in an effective style that allows air circulation among the log pieces. Here are the steps you need to follow to make an effective stack.

1. Make a bed made of something that will not absorb water such as pallets, concretes or grids made of iron.

2. Do not use materials made of something that absorbs moisture from the air in the bed.

3. The height of the bed should be the safe distance from the ground.

4. Choose a dry and hilly ground to place the bed on what stack will be made.

5. One of the common mistakes people make while stacking the woods is to place the bed with the contact of the wall. Stacking the woods against the wall will make a barrier in air flow.

6. Start leaving your firewood on the bed with a single row because multiple rows do not allow air and sunlight heat to pass through the logs.

7. First, make the bottom layer of split wood by placing in the length direction of the bed, keeping every piece facing the cut ends in the same direction.

8. Then make the second layer in the same way except keeping the cut ends opposite direction to the previous row.

9. Keep on building up the layers by changing the direction of cutting ends for every new layer in order to avoid falling down the stacks. Arranging every layer in the same direction causes one side of the stack up or down that will reason fall down of the stack.

10. Leave the stack uncovered in order to ensure air circulation from the top of the stack. But if the weather gets wet or you predict it may rain, cover the top, not sides, with plastic sheeting or a tarp. To get the best result, avoid contact between wood and covering. It will reduce moisture absorption by the wood from the sheeting.

How to understand firewood is dry enough and ready to burn:

After the wood has been stacked for a long time, even one year, you cannot tell if the logs are dry enough if you are not familiar with few things associated with drying logs. Here are the techniques you should learn to know whether your firewood is seasoned.

The weight of the dry logs:

The drier the woods, the lighter they are. Seasoned woods are less weight than green woods.

How the dry woods look like:

Usually, dry logs look faded and torn, especially along the grain. And they are of vibrate.

The bark of the seasoned woods:

Seasoned woods contain loosened bark that you can remove easily. When you get the bark of your firewood looser, it gives you the sign that the logs are ready to burn.

What sounds when dry logs put together:

It creates a different sound like ‘clunk ‘while you put two dry logs together, Which you can distinguish easily from the sound produced by green logs.

Moisture Test:

Last but not least, you can also know if the logs are ready to burn by measuring the moisture content with the moisture meter.

Conclusion:

It seemed very complex to dry firewood, did not it? After you read this article, it has been much easier to dry firewood with the steps and techniques I split down above. I think you are now ready to dry your green logs. If you face any problem in the drying process, feel free to leave your query in the comments.