How to Dry Firewood 

The world needs more people like you making more content like this.

RU-vid’s algorithm recommended this video. There was something about this video that seemed familiar, so I went to find the book I read last year! The Wood Fire Handbook! It’s great to put a face to the author. Glad to have found your channel

Thank you for another excellent video. As usual, calming and informative.

Thanks for this video and passing on your knowledge. This is a wonderful complement to your book. Looking forward to the next in the series.

So glad to see new videos in your channel. Thank you so much for the content (and your book)!

Passionate about wood burning. Great to see

What calm, soothing delivery. I can listen to you all day. Great content! Thanks .

Very informative. Looking forward to the next in your series.

Great video Vince, you are the fire wood king. Keep them coming.

Love the videos , keep up the uploads, throughout the winter. got some Eucalyptus that needs cutting and drying. Thanks for the help.

Hi Vince! I have your book, but these videos are great to watch and good reminders. I think I'll put that Thoreau quote on a sign for the woodshed.

Well done, look forward to the next upload👍

On the build up to Christmas holiday I was sorting out particular logs for the big day . Not everyone gets that way of thinking but I love it

Thanks vince for another great video, I’ve recently started chopping my own wood with an axe after watching your video on it I can’t believe how enjoyable it is lol I love it . More videos please 🙏🏻

You seem very knowledgable vince. Appreciate the video. I have a load of larch rounds that I now know I have stacked poorly. Need to have a reshuffle. Appreciate the tips and info. 👌🏼

This was a brilliant video to watch thanks for posting

Your literally the best thing on RU-vid 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 keep up the good work 👍🏻

What a wonderful video Vice, thank you. I burn mostly ash and oak here in Michigan. And i often find i have to cut the logs down to a smaller size, that i get delivered. I have 4 log stands. 2 that are for seasoning the wood, 1 ready to burn that i keep near the house,and the other is for pine for the fire pit for outside fires.

great video, thanks for shearing all your knowledge.

Thank you ! Enjoyed the video 👍🏻👋🏻

Honestly brilliant video 👍🏻

Wonderful. Thanks

Well said, Vince. I’m following this rule of thumb. This year I have put in a lot of work to try and get our wood ready for winter, next year. I am on the Southern Hemisphere, Australian and as you do, I love my wood heater. Thanks for sharing your great video.

I am a long time wood burner and firewood enthusiast. Great video sir. ❤

white oak, red oak and hickory i have in abundance in se usa where i live. i never want to go into winter without poplar for starting my fires however. 32 years now weve heated with only wood. i love it

Thanks, Great advice! New subscriber!

Thank you

One of the simplest and excellent videos. I did not know the girdling of the log length wise would help the drying process for rounds. Been burning in my wood stove for years and this is the first I’ve heard of this technique. Excellent video. I also split my oak in 2” plank forms to dry it quicker. Elm is a pain to split with my 25 ton splitter, don’t get it much. Always wondered about the dry time.

South Mississippi here. I split my wood almost to toothpick size. My Buck heater just performs so much better. I don’t mind having to reload a bit more often. Ive learned too to harvest my trees in the dead of winter. Regardless of species, there’s less sap. Seasons better. Awesome video!!

Thanks for another fabulous video. Brilliant to see over 1000 subscribers. I have been trying to get people to sub since I found you at about 980. Great content and relaxing.

For the Aussie hardwoods i burn, 3 summers, split straight away and stacked in a woodshed. Some argue that outside in the rain and weather seasons the wood quicker. I believe its local climate dependant. My wood wont season and just rot/decay if left in the rain. Thanks for the video and great looking stacks👍

I'd never even thought about splitting logs into square or rectangular shapes. I had some what I think is Western Hemlock, cut down in the back garden, so I'm going to use the square method when I split that. Cheers!

Inspired by your video I ran my chainsaw along some small diameter oak logs, and then cross cut. Thank you for sharing your skills and experience.

I found a dead standing Elm a couple of years ago it was excellent to burn.

Very interesting on the splitting size and dry time of oak. Next winter will be my first time burning it, if it measures 20% or lower. I'm liking the idea of smaller splits for drying but also fitting the maximum amount of wood in the woodstove for longer burn times. Here in Oregon I mainly burn alder, Douglas fir, and hemlock. Looking forward to burning red oak and maple the next few winters.. Also interested to see how much better old growth Douglas fir with thick bark burns/heats!

For drying tool handle lumber I leave the bark on so it slows drying and helps prevent cracking. Bark definitely keeps some moisture in.

Alternatively to running your saw along the birch bark you can take your axe or hatchet to put a few cracks in it without splitting through.

Hi Vince, great video. How do you fell the trees/what permissions do you need to do this? Thanks

Good list of "well, it depends on..." s. Imo, the 2 year rule comes into play from folks who A) like BIG horkin' chunks- like 4-6" thick, and B) dry outside in stacks, where the wood is exposed to rain. Most important: GET IT OFF THE GROUND!!! Oak, especially- that wood is like a sponge, and will soak up groundwater until it's even wetter than it was green... The best advice, is plan ahead. Start cutting next year's (or better yet, the year after that) now. There really is no substitute for time. Personally, My all around favorites for burning are: Ash; Sugar Maple, Yellow Birch, Hickory, and Honey Locust. Close behind are oak, beech, and Norway Maple (a decent substitute for sugar) Pine, white birch, yellow poplar, and soft maple for campfires. Cherry and Apple for grilling. That's what's readily available to me, either free or from sellers. I cook with wood, and burn recreationally rather than heat. I'd love a woodstove, but don't have one...

Fantastic channel and great advice! I would be interested to know how you rate seasoning firewood out in the open (uncovered) compared to the more traditional (in the UK) covered stacks. It seems to be far more common on the continent and elsewhere to just stack firewood out in the open and fully exposed to the elements so why wouldn't it work in the UK, is our climate too damp? I am considering trying it but being in Yorkshire I am a little sceptical😂

Great vid. Liked abs sub’d. Here in South Carolina

I dropped an elm last autumn and yesterday tried to split it with my Fiskars axe. The axe either bounced off or got stuck. I've never known anything like it. Just bought a maul online, but I may have to cut the logs even smaller. Tough stuff.

Any idea on Sycamore. Just had tree felled and is now axed up. Great content. Thanks.

I do a bit of camping in the summer and like to stock up on my firewood for my trips away. I do chop the wood up into similar piece's you have . I store them in the garage, is that okay to do ?

We dry split Douglas fir and maple in 4 foot rows cross wind to the low RH summer winds. Piles like yours would take more than 2 years to dry to less than 20 % moisture. I'm 84 years old and. getting impatient by the day in our marine climate

The best trick to seasoning firewood is get three years ahead, that's what i do .

try oak takes just as long to dry or try ash burns almost as long and dries fast usually 6 to 12 months

Hi, perhaps I've just missed the info but what is the ground like in your shed?

It's a lot of work but if the bark is removed altogether, the wood dries much faster. Smash the bark with the back of the axe or maybe use a small jack hammer with a compacting foot on it. The wood also burns better without bark on it.

Nice to see some of the myths gently busted. I like your birch wood too. I like to burn birch, but for the last 5 years I have burned almost entirely hazel as I'm involved with restoring 50+ year derelict hazel coppice in an ancient woodland with a huge (sika and roe) deer population. 'Cos I'm keen on woodland ecology and I have no central heating. Hazel is under-regarded as fuelwood, possibly because it is rare in big lumps. The stuff I'm cutting is rarely bigger than 8" diameter and 20 to 30' of usable length. Some of the stools are huge. I knock it over before the end of March (with a following wind) and cut into 5's and stack in a cord under the eaves of the wood where it's breezy. Biggest diameter bits get striped, usually once. End of the summer before the weather breaks (that's the plan) it gets transported home and logged in a brake, 10 or so lengths at a time. Only the very biggest bits get split once. Tops get turned into dead hedges to keep Bambi from the regrowth with directional felling to reduce moving the tops as much as possible. Tenax Dorset gates allow access. Cut logs are stacked in a wooden store with 1-way vapour barrier in the walls and open-fronted with overhang and gutter to the north. By November, it's ready to burn and burns hot and clean. A dense wood, the log lengths are clean and pale with no checking and rare shrinkage cracks, except on the cord length ends. Bark is usually tight. If I can't get it extracted (I miss the weather window) it sits in the cord until the next summer, by which time it is just starting to spalt. If you're interested in what I'm doing, this link will get you to a vid: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LnXjrqp3x5Y.html If you think putting a link to one of my posts is taking a liberty, knock this comment off. Thanks for posting and I look forward to viewing more of your stuff.

The same maple log size as your elm log will burn twice as long and will produce twice as much heat. But you have to dry it for 20+ months.

How do I recognise the difference in species?? 👍

The air is drier in CA. I would say oak seasons at an inch a MONTH, not a year

My pet peeve is when people spread the idea that you should leave it out in a pile in the weather, so it turns darker and looks old. I know that you can dry wood and still have it look like lumber, without all the oxidation and small splits and fungus. Dry is dry, it doesn't help to expose it to the weather out in a field. I think this is a story that firewood processors use to explain why they have a mountain of wood out in the snow, but it's because they didn't have the energy to split and stack it in time.

Can damp-rid dry firewood?

I never found Elm to burn very hot. Burns a long time, but not very hot. Most BTU ratings have it on the low end of hardwoods.

No Sugar Maple? I find it the best firewood.

My man loves his wood like I love my burgers.

I just bought a shed load of logs, they seem to be about 35%. Oh well.

You forgot one important factor... the SIZE of your wood stove. My wood stove takes 2ft. logs... that's 24 inches. If I burned small crap like yours it would burn up in less than 2 hours With big logs It can burn 4-5 hours, and the stored heat in my house lasts another 2-3 hours.

Large wood lasts longer all that little stuff you have burns very quickly if yo need your home 80 F and hotter theres something wrong with you? 12 " and up sugar maple / oak off the stump in summer is DRY for the the winter AFTER it gets to 40 F below here burn little stuff like that you will be up 4 times a night sleeping at 60 /65 F is common sense if your wood heater wont keep youwarm yiu need a bigger heater/ better insulation/ common sense people selling firewood dont want you to use LESS wood lol

Use paper towels

Sorry but that is a back log fml. Wtf 😂

15 seconds into the video and it was apparent it's just another waste of time. Why do folks on RU-vid portend they are the next widescreen Hollywood producer. Just present the process. Takes 3-4 minutes.

Great stuff. I find that myboak split at about 5" or smaller dries in less than a year. I do have Great drying conditions though. I also find smaller splits burn better and give me norw heat than large smoldering chuncks

Really good video, very good information, thanks for taking the time to make this. And another subscriber!!🪵🔥