Curing firewood

[Pete Kurki]

So, with the help of the stimulus bill I now have a high-efficiency wood stove in my shop. A city boy that I used to be, this is the first time in my life I am dealing with a wood heater, and I have some very trivial questions about firewood. I thought that they would have been covered already but I could not find much help by searching the creek. So here it goes:

How long is the minimum time I need to cure the split firewood in my covered shed? The advice I have got so far goes anywhere from 4 months to 2 years. Most of the firewood I have piled in my shed are from trees I had to fell this summer on my property, but some are from older logs that had laid around for couple years outside in the weather, and I just needed to cut them shorter and split this summer. So, is it true that I still need to buy fully cured firewood for the first winter and not use my own stuff until the following winter earliest? And since obviously the local humidity matters, I live in central MN, where we usually have daytime rH around 50% but nighttime rH goes often above 90% in summer. Winters of course are usually cold and dry.

Lastly, while I don't currently have a wood moisture meter, I am going to acquire one in the near future. Can I just simply measure the wood moisture to know when it is ready for clean burning? Or is there something else about curing firewood in addition to just getting rid of the excessive moisture?

Again, sorry for these stupid trivial questions, but I am just trying to avoid making stupid trivial mistakes.. :confused::D:D:D:confused:

[Chris Damm]

With good air flow you should wait about a year.

[David Christopher]

Pete, if you cut the wood in the winter just split and burn....when I was growing up we heated with wood only and you couldnt wait a year to cure or you would freeze to death.......cut when sap is down and burn

[David G Baker]

Don't burn pine! It can be used but it must be very dry and aged. Pine will load your chimney with creosote and that is a major fire hazard.
If you don't get the answers you need here, do a Google or Bing search.

[william scott]

Back east, where you are, it's best to cut in the winter when the sap is out of the trees IF you are cutting hardwood, decidous trees.

But for evergreens like pine, you can cut it anytime of the year. The problem with burning 'green' evergreens is that you gets lots of smoke, and not much heat along with it being a PIA to get a fire going. BTW, Pine is not going to ruin your stove. Lots of us out west burn pine, fir, and cedar with no problems. You just need to get your flue cleaned out every couple of years as these woods deposit creosote and can sometimes cause a chimney fire. If you're burning mixed soft and hardwoods, the heat from the hardwoods should take care of the creosote buildup. If in doubt, have a chimneysweep check the flue in a couple of years.

If you want to know if your wood is dry enough to burn, it's pretty simple to tell. Cut a round from those trees that have been down for a couple of years as they will be dry. Then, cut another round from the wood you just cut this summer and compare the weights. It should be real obvious if the wood from this summer has cured at all.

The other way to tell is to take a splitting maul and hit one of the rounds with it. A dry, well cured round will just fly apart with an almost hollow sounding 'whack'. A green round will feel like hitting a wet, heavy sponge and you hear a dull 'thud'. If it's green, you'll have to let it cure over the winter and burn it next year.

So, get the wood split and seperate out what is cured and what is green. Take the green stuff and make sure you stack it right (actually, you stack both cured and uncured the same. It's just really important for the uncured stuff). You want to stack it so there is plenty of airflow over/around/through/ the stack. I lay a line of split wood up and down, and then the second level is going right to left. I just keep alternating that pattern until the pile is 4 ft. tall, 4 ft. wide and 8 ft. long, which makes a cord.

[Rich Aldrich]

We burned firewood when I was a kid. When I built my first house, I burned firewood in an indoor wood stove similar to what my parents had. My dad is in logging, so he would always take wood cut by the end of June. We would cut the wood in July and put it in a wood house - basically a pavilion. By October we would be burning wood and kreosote was not an issue. The "harder" you burn the stove, the less kreosote is an issue - ie in the cold weather, you demand more heat, so you burn with the draft open more than the warmer weather.

I would use wood cut June or before for the following winter. 2 years is pushing it for heat value. Dont even bother with punky stuff.

I had an issue with my chimney building up kreosote. I was cleaning my chimney every 2 weeks, so I quit burning wood in the house.

Now I heat my house with an outdoor wood boiler. The only difference is that I can burn it green, but letting the wood dry for a few months, I actually get more heat out of the wood. Not as much heat is used to drive off the moisture (heat of vaporization from thermo dynamics), so there is more heat available for heating the house.

The first year we used our outdoor boiler, I cut wood in September - trees from my property. Until the end of January, kreosote would string from the door when I opened it. If the kreosote burns in the boiler and its pipe chimney, no harm is done.

[Steve Clardy]

We heat with wood about 90%.

Best to cut in fall/winter and use that for next years burning.
Sap is down, less moisture.

Old logs that have laid a year or so, are usually fine for burning a couple of months after cutting and splitting up.

Mixing in the occasional green chunk of wood doesn't usually bother anything, which we do sometimes.

I'm cutting wood now for next year.

As above, the punky stuff doesn't burn well.
Especially oak, if it's been on the ground for 3-4 years.

[Matt Ranum]

Growing up wood heat is all we had and last year I decided to put in a high efficiency fire place. It was a late decision and didn't get any wood cut until mid summer. I cut only downed dead oak with the bark falling off and split it relatively small to help give maximum drying. We burned 100% wood from Nov. till May and when I swept the chimney down last month I got a pile of ash and a little creoste that would barely fill an ash shovel.

Now there are a lot of variables like how hot will you burn, length of chimney and how many corners, outside chimney or inside etc. but I wouldn't be afraid to burn wood that has been dead for a long time with only a few months of dry time. The new high efficiency burners have secondary air tubes resulting in a secondary burn and they need to run pretty dang hot in order to do that. The more you burn in the box the less buildup in the chimney. Not to mention the secondary burn looks really cool too.

[Pete Kurki]

Wow, what a great advice you guys have. Not that I can say I am surprised, after all this is the creek!

I think my stove is definitely designed to run very hot, as I understood it burns the exhaust gasses in four combustion points before exiting. As a matter of fact I was warned not to use too much of my super dry hardwood shop off cuts or 2x4 off cuts without mixing it with some regular firewood, as it will turn the stove all red, which is not good for it on regular basis. Based on this I believe this design would not be too prone to creosote buildup. BTW, if anyone is interested, this is what I got:

http://www.fireside.com/consumer/products/stoves/woodStoveDetail.asp?f=4300MILL&b=QDF

I had it installed in April and had a chance to try it for a couple cold days last spring. It would keep my 70'x21'x11' shop in 70 degrees without any problems when it was 20 F outside. It will be interesting to see how it goes next winter when it gets to -25F outside.

[Jim Becker]

'Depends upon the wood, but I like 9+ months with good airflow. That said, ash can be burnt "greener" if you need to in my experience.

[John Grabowski]

Another good site for firewood and place info is hearth.com

[David Hostetler]

They guys above pretty much covered it. I generally split, stack and wait about a year.

I grew up with wood heat, and we would have the current year's heating wood, and then the next years wood aging... Every fall after the loggers have gone through, we would follow up on woodcutting runs to clean up anything that they were leaving on the ground. (generally LARGE limbs that were left behind after the mill logs were hauled off...).

I can attest to the description of how a properly seasoned round / half round simply pops apart when split, but a green one the head of the axe simply sinks in a hair with a thud... Like slapping Jello... Green wood is no fun to split.

[David Freed]

There is quite a number of people that burn firewood in this area. Most will wait until this time of year to start gathering firewood to burn this winter. Some will start gathering earlier in the year, but not because they want it cured. They just want to beat the rush. The sawmill nearby will dump loads of freshly sawn slabs and offcuts on a small lot for people to buy at $20/load. Lots of people will get a pickup load at a time all winter long until they don't need to heat anymore.

I am not going to say this is the right way of doing things, but very few people around here care whether the wood is cured or not.

[Robert Hill Idaho]

Thought I would break my "posting" cherry on this thread. Although it is a bit dated.

I use a wood stove in my shop and I cut my own. I've sinced retired this past March from the Marines after 22 years. I'm only 40 so don't hassle me too much.:D I live in Idaho and we have a HUGE infestation of bark beetles here. About once a month I travel about 45 minutes to get to the woods, find a nice standing tree that looks like last years dead Christmas tree and then fall it and cut it up. Darn stuff is super dry and easy to split. I use this method 100% of the time and it costs me about $25.00 bucks for each trip depending on how many times I get coffee.:)

Most of the wood is a pine species but this stuff is so dry and I have yet to have a buildup issue.

Just my two cents.

[Yitah Wu]

We have a woodburner and go through about a full cord each year (that's about six 4x4 racks). A lot of wood I burn is scavenged dead fall. Woodburners tend to be more sensitive to moisture than conventional fireplaces.

The following is my observation, nothing very scientific. Note that trees have very different levels of moisture in them through the seasons.

If you cut , split and stack in the spring or mid-summer, you can burn at the start of winter (~4 months dry time through most of the summer) If you cut, split and stack in the fall or winter, burning at the end of winter (3 months later) is only if you're desperate. Storing indoors helps a lot.

If you don't split, double or triple the time to dry depending on the diameter.

If it's been down a while it can easily be seasoned, unless it's been laying in full contact with the ground. You can often tell how dry wood is as it will "ring" when dry.

I've burned some green or punky stuff now and then - when the firebox is full of red hot coals you can just about burn dirt!

[Kurt Strandberg]

Oak is not good to burn for home heating so if you have a truck I'm only an hour or 2 from you and I could get rid of it for you in my smoker. :D

[Dave Beauchesne]

I currently live on the West Coast - heated the house exclusively with wood when we lived on the Charlottes for a six year stint. I got spoiled - we would get 24 - 32 inch clear logs over 20 feet long of hemlock and cypress - only thing they had a bit of loose centre rot - creamy fire wood to be sure.

Had a great wood stove / wood shed - burned Hemlock, Cypress and Red Alder. BTW, Alder splits great when green - almost impossible to split when dry as it won't follow the grain. I had a rule I would not burn anything that was less than a year down, and even then, Cypress had a 2 year rule. It would creosote real bad if less than 2 years old.

Hint: take note of your draft when the flue is spotless and every time you light it up - the initial ' fuzzy ' creosote will diminish the draft enough for you to notice it in lots of cases - if the draft changes, make sure to clean the chimney soon. I was the Fire Chief for 5 years, and every year, we dealt with several chimney fires - scary !! Keep it clean.

When we lived on the Praries, I used to cut green aspen in the fall, and waited till it was - 30 or less, you could split a 10 inch round with a hatchet !

Another good source is maple and oak pallets - I had a buddy at a feed plant that got all the damaged ones for free - had an old B & D circular saw and a 7.25'' cheapo carbide blade - nice, hot, clean wood, and the only downside was cleaning nails out of the ash tray.

Dave Beauchesne

[Anthony Whitesell]

My father has heated with wood for the last, oh, 30 years. He buys the grapple load (10 wheeler log lengths) one year, wait 6 months before picking up the chain saw. Cuts and plits it, wait another few months, and then burns it. The log pile is mostly covered, and the split pile is fully covered.

The problem with pine is that the flue and fire don't generally burn hot enough to combust the creasote which then clings in the flue and if it does get hot enough. POOF! Chimney fire! You can either not burn pine or clean the chimney regularly during the winter (which I couldn't imagine standing on my roof in January chleaning a chimney. Save the pine for the campfire.

[Steve Marcq]

Personally I like to get about 3-4 years ahead on my wood - it's a comforting feeling looking at the woodshed and knowing it's bone dry. I keep about 12 cords ahead, and use 3 or so a year. Having said that, if you have to burn wood cut less than a year or so, you can accelerate the drying time by splitting it smaller. Thinner, smaller splits dry quicker, and give up residual moisture quicker in the stove so more heat goes to the house and less to driving off moisture.