If you are going to heat with wood you need to come to grips with the fact that seasoning and storing firewood takes up a lot of space. Being that well seasoned firewood is the Holy Grail for wood burners, it is worth the effort to do it right.
Seasoning removes the moisture from the wood. When you burn seasoned wood you get good burning fires, that throw out plenty of warmth, and burn clean. Unseasoned wood burns smokey and cool. Nothing can be more frustrating than looking at a fire that only smudges up the glass on the stove and puts out little or no heat.
If you ask two people who heat with wood you’ll be lucky to get them to agree on how to stack and season. There are many different ways to do it, as long as the wood gets seasoned I don’t cling to any one way. Right now, I’ve got 6, 6’x8′ ricks built on the north side of my yard. The wood gets good Sun all year round, which gives the wood that nice grey seasoned color. I don’t get crazy with stacking to maximize airflow. Where I live it is pretty breezy and I allow at least a year for the wood to season before I burn it.
For an interesting method, check out this article from Backwoods Home Magazine.
If you like what you read here on The Backyard Pioneer please consider subscribing to receive e-mail notifications or check me out on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or my RSS Feed. All of these are available on the top right of this page. -Thanks for reading, Mike
[subscribe2]
Affiliate Disclosure: I am grateful to be of service and bring you content free of charge. In order to do this, please note that when you click links and purchase items, in most (not all) cases I will receive a referral commission. Your support in purchasing through these links enables me to keep the content train rolling
Carolyn Thomas says
So, seasoning wood is nothing more than stacking it (or not) and letting it sit for a year?
Mike says
At it’s most basic, yes. It is when you are really striving to get it seasoned in the shortest time possible, or want it really well seasoned that you start getting into sun exposure, wind exposure, and stacking strategies.