@@thefirewooddoctor It feels fun catching a channel kind of at the very beginning. I atarted watching six months ago , and if he started a year ago then i was close!
Good information Chris you tell them guys that don't sell much and are giving us a bad name for us that do it the right way. I want people to know that there are guys out here that do it the right way. Let's keep our customers happy with the good firewood. Goodnight Irene
Recently started heating with wood, and yeah you guys are right, there are a ton of snake oil salesmen out there! So bad I decided I'm cutting my own wood from now on. Even if I can only get cheap pine. Dry CHEAP pine will burn better than wet OVERPRICED hardwood. Now I'm toying with the idea of starting my own business, starting the same way you did Chris. Split 10-20 extra cords with my maul and see how it goes. There's obviously a demand for honest hardworking men in this area.
Working on it! I have only been at this for a year and I do not have any girls in yoga pants and tight shirts prancing around, so... maybe I'll put some on and start prancing!! HA!
That sounds great, I had a bunch of the blue light weight ones and they busted up in the winter because they are brittle when cold. The heavy black ones are great though!
Chris, I've been around firewood as far back as I can remember and all your information is 100% correct. Sadly, I am surrounded by idiot neighbors who think they can cut a tree down on Monday, let it sit until Friday, cut and split it over the weekend and burn it the next week... I believe in the 3 year plan. What I cut this year, waits 2 more years to burn. My neighbors think my wood is TOO dry and it will cause chimney fires.. LOL when I burn my truly dry wood the chimney will have only a light coating of dusty ash, not the glossy hard creosote like my neighbors have. I stack on pallets, top cover only, and try to stack only 2 rows deep... My neighbors say my wood will "rot" because it's been sitting so long. I've tried to educate them, but they won't listen. I do firewood for myself, I have more than enough. I'd like to get in the business, but the prices for face and full cords around Hayward, WI are so low that I could never sell my hard work that cheap. Thank you for all the great videos!
Thanks for the background info. My brother Ken lives in the sticks by Park Falls and he sells hundreds of cords a year, so I know you can too, the cottage people want and need delivery, so you might want to try that! Good luck!
Storing my wood on pallets and in the open, once dry it goes into the wood shed and and along the outside....where it is still getting sun and almost always the wind is hitting it. Another good video Chris.....
Good morning Chris!!😀😀 Years ago I was talking with some old times and they claimed that the rows should be stacked north and south so both sides of the stack get the Sunshine. If you stack it east and west when the sun gets lower in the sky. The north side of the stack doesn't get any direct sunlight and dosen't dry as fast. That's why when we used to shock grain for thrashing we always built the shocks north and south. If you made them east and west the north side wouldn't dry out enough to put it through the thrashing machine. So I always try to stack my wood north and south. Take care my friend!!😀😀 Logger Al
Chris is the voice of experience. Get your 🪵 off the ground, split and stacked in rows where the sun and wind can speed the drying process….out in the open for three seasons and covered in winter…get more wood…keep cutting and stacking you’ll be toasty 🔥🪵😁
Would you ever consider doing a spotlight “Show me your Wood Yard” segment every so often to let your viewers see how others are set up for their firewood? Just a thought 💭 not sure how much work incorporating the pictures or short video segments would be.
Winter is my favorite time to season my wood. Because of climate change, we get like two days of snow in the winter here in Delaware, plenty of time to stack wood for the next season. The wind gets aggressive during the winter and there's zero humidity. That zero humidity is key to getting wood dry when there's little sun. Summer here is a humid swamp, I hate it.
wow . !! very good . i grew up and my dad would go to a place and get hard wood ashe . and we always accross our back yard in full sun .{{{{ ALSO B4 STACKING UP , MAKING THE BASE RAISED UP ABOUT A FOOT 4 AIR MOVEMENT. }}} the wood , he got was by the pickup truck . . and generally was about 3 or 3.5 feeet long . .
Skidder kev told me that they dont put pallets below their mountains cuz they scoop it with the skid steer, the pallets would be in the way, for those who do wood for their own use I'd recommend making a layer of pallets and just throw it there, that's what I'll try next year.
Agree with all your drying points Chris. But for those of us who cut to burn and heat in the winter-#1-store wood as close to the burning appliance as feasible. Easier fetching sticks in inclement winter-and less dragging snow/ice/dirt into the house. Just sayin😊
I'm in the deep south US. All our firewood is oak of some variety. Mostly Red Oak, Water Oak, occasional Live Oak and White Oak. Split, stacked, under a roof, but in the shade 80% of the time, only in the summer. It takes 2.5 yrs to get right. Sometimes soon as 2 yrs for small pieces, but 3 yrs is usually perfect. In a year, it's still wet and will just smoke and turn into a charred mess. As the OP mentions, sun is critical.
Stack it anywhere it can get sun and a breeze. I finally got the person I'm renting from to agree to cut down a few trees so have more room to stack and store inventory. Right now I pretty much need logs that are ready to burn RIGHT NOW! A side benefit to taking out the trees is can move the wood more out of the way so the snowplow guy won't habe to pile up snow where my logs/wood are stacked. Plus will finally have the room to cut a stack of logs, then split, then stack like you do. Soon I'll be shutting down my 8ft racks for sale, changing that to delivery only. Need to gey some cutting done today so don't have so much to do tomorrow. Saturday afternoon I'll be able to see my favorite Packer from the 90s, GILBERT BROWN, THE GRAVE DIGGER!
Morning Chris, you sure have been on a information roll lately, good stuff, I should consider myself lucky I store my wood on “rock-rock” haha. Have a good weekend
The wood i cut this winter is for next year, i try to stay a year ahead. I split mine down to the size of a football or so. Pure green wood gets stacked outside, and standing dead goes in the wood shed.
The one thing I started doing this year is putting my pallets up on bricks to keep them from rotting. I have 6 yr old rows where the pallets have almost rotted away, & the bottom layer of firewood show signs of deterioration too.
Hey, when taking down aspen you should girdle the tree first until it is dead, most of the time you wont get problems with those root sprouts if you do it like that :)
I have been stacking for years.. If I was selling secession wood like you in the fall and winter I would cover it but since it's green I dont see a point in covering my firewood at this time. Good information Chris.. See you tomorrow..
your wood does look nice and grey all stacked up, i just can’t justify it, i do like that guy you mentioned, skidder kev, my yard is covered in 1-3” clean concrete with french drain runs under it all to wick water away and i just climb on top with an excavator and flip it over now and then, to me it’s up to the buyer to be prepared and get the wood early and get it stacked.
@@InTheWoodyard probably about a 100’x200’, probably have about a100 tons in that area, oversized clean crushed concrete was about 10.00/ton 4-5 years ago, think it’s about 12-13.00/ton now, my yard is about a acre and a half and with the 300’ long road going back in the woods to it, i probably have 250 tons of the recycled concrete total, so a couple thousand dollars.
4:34 - "whatever size you cut your wood..." I'll tell you; as close as humanly possible to 330mm long. 2 reasons - 3 rows makes pretty close to a metre, making my stack volumes easy to figure, and my woodheater firebox happens to be 365mm deep internally, meaning I can fit it in end on with the amount of room to burn right...👍😁🇦🇺
What is better is stacking the wood 3 x 3 like a jenga tower, provided one has the space as this way takes more room. Wood dries in winter too, but too much snow/ thaw cycles inhibit drying significantly in this season
Yes more space and air flow will dry your wood faster for sure. For me I need to have the wood measured so I stack in face cords and full cords with space between the rows.
You can spray those weeds down without chemicals poisoning the ground. Vinegar, salt, and dish soap. It kills any plant it touches. Yeah a little salt goes onto the dirt, but it's not dumping straight salt at least. And you're using the spots for wood , so it'll dilute out after several rains. It mostly kills the foliage.
I wonder if it would be best to dry wood in stacks and when it gets to 20% or less, move it to a covered container, like a used sea can, to keep it dry. Especially in the winter. More work, yes, but then it frees up more ground for stacking more wood for drying. 🤔
@@InTheWoodyard Yep, you are very right. Hmm. I guess that the wire corn crib might be the best compromise, all around. The concrete pad to set it on would need to be two inches higher in the center, than the edges, to properly drain any moisture away.
Hey Chris, two questions: we had a windfall of 6 or 8 tons of cottonwood from a huge dead tree. Is cottonwood worth splitting and curing for firewood? We won't need it anytime soon but it's a lot of work if we want to keep it. Also do you have any problems with pests nesting in the wood piles?
Woodshed to outside open drying for me…jury is still out. My wood shed is all enclosed concrete floor with a ceiling fan running 24/7. Read somewhere that wood starts to really release moisture over 90*F. Everyone knows how hot an in closed steel pole shed gets. I have 9 full cords stacked in there every year. As sun hits and heats up shed, wood releases moisture, ceiling fan blows it around and it vents away. Basically setup as a dimensional lumber kiln. 95% red oak.
So i get my wood, 9 cord, in march, stack it, and tarp it, stacked on pallets, and gaps in between. Leave it till first of october and put it in the basement...its all stacked in a wide open area like yours, not super dry, theres a little thatvwasnt covered, dry as a corck..deft not, tarping nextbyear
HOW TO FIND NUMBER OF CORDS IN ANY SIZE RELATIVELY SQUARE STACK OF FIREWOOD Use a calculator. 1. Measure the stack in inches. Inches Wide or Deep X Inches Tall or High X Inches Long = a big number. Example: 36 in wide X 69 in tall X 156 in long = 387,504 cu inches. 2. Now divide 387,504 by 1728, (cubic inches in a cubic foot) = 224.25. 3. Now divide 224.25 by 128, (cubic feet in a cord of wood) = 1.75 cords of firewood.
Good Evening Chris, love your videos, look forward to them every night. Do you offer green firewood at a lower price and an option for customers to pick up instead of you delivering? Do you offer other lengths as well? I live in Maine and I sell around 500 full cord every year. There's alot of firewood suppliers within a 50 mile radius of where I live so what makes me stand out is I offer custom lengths and the option for customers to pick up their firewood and purchase green firewood at a slightly lower price. Just wondering if you offered anything like that? Keep the videos coming. Thank you
Those are all good things to do for your customers, you are filling their wants and needs, that is a good thing! Wow, 500 full cords is great! Way to go Jon! Thanks for watching!
Getting the wood wet again or keeping it wet is what causes rot. Aspen, cotton wood, birch, box elder, soft maple, all rot fast when wet or on the ground. Oak, locust, cedar, tamarack last a long time, but not forever.
Great video. I stack mine in the open east to west no trees around. Great for drying is right! How many cords do you stay ahead for the next year? Its wood chucking time!
Chris, love your videos! I have done some cutting, splitting and selling over the years but not on a level anywhere close to you. I’m 73 years young now and can no longer function to a point where cutting wood is a reality. I have been wondering how people like yourself and so many others where it appears you do 90% or better of all the labor of cutting, splitting, stacking, Loading of the transport vehicles delivering and cleaning up, makes your back feel. Most of the time I see you, you’re bending over picking something up of substantial weight. I was in the construction business all of my life and can barely stand up and walk and I did nowhere as much bending over as you do. Seriously, how do you think your back is going to be later on in life when you call it quits?
I guess I am a freak because the more I move the better I feel. My back is my strongest part, I am not real strong, quite average actually, but I just keep moving. I do not work at firewood all day every day so I do have days of recovery and days of not huge work so I hope to keep at this for years to come. Thanks for you concern Walter!
@@InTheWoodyard My back is not my strongest part. I feel WAY better when I use it (without being stupid). My worst days involve Dorito's and a couch...
Question: I've seen a few videos on stacking firewood in the "Holz Hausen" round woodpile style... People say it dries faster that the 'standard' way of stacking wood... Have you ever tested this method??
I know someone who mad one and found that the drying results where the same as stacked rows. HOWEVER, they look cool! BUT, they take a bunch more time to make.
It looks cool but why? I have talked to people who moisture tested a comparison between row stacking vs. holz hausen and it was a tie. So go for it for the looks and send me some pictures!
@@InTheWoodyard that’s ok I laughed at all the things I thought you two might say and all the things I might comment on. Get our selves in trouble pretty easily. Any way have a great day and go take a picture or something
They will be coming soon, right now I have a bunch more stacking to do and the latest videos are usually shot on days when I am working 12-14 hours a day on my other business, so I do not have a lot of time.I have another load of logs on order and I will use the grapple for them. Thanks John!
In my open area the sun hits the sides starting at 6:30 am until noon every day and the other side from noon until sunset at 8:30, so the sun hits the sides too, at least in my wood yard, maybe it is different where you are.
