Do you have a wood-burning fireplace? I just love the crackle sound of a fire in the fireplace–and I love the dry heat that pours off them. Here in Washington, it feels wet most of the time, so a nice dry heat on a cold day is awesome.
Yesterday we had a cord of wood delivered so I thought I would share some tips about how to store and dry firewood that I’ve learned over the years.
If you are new to firewood storage, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
First, drying the wood. Dry wood burns cleaner and more efficiently. Green/wet wood puts off a lot of smoke and not as much heat–so the extra step to make sure your firewood is dry is totally worth it.
The easiest way to dry firewood is to split it and then leave it in a sunny dry spot to dry completely. Split wood allows more surface area to get air and dries the wood faster. Resist the urge to cover your wood {unless there’s rain, of course}. More air means faster drying time.
Once your wood is completely dry, you’ll need to stack and cover it. Move it to a shed, garage, or cover it with a tarp. If you go the tarp route, you’ll want to anchor it down with something to keep the moisture out. To stack the wood, it is best to get it up off the ground, if possible. A firewood rack is ideal, you can buy it or make it out of 2×4’s. The goal is to give the wood good air circulation. After that, stacking is simple–take a little extra time to make sure the wood is stacked well, and retrieving it will be a lot easier.
That’s it. A little work up front and you’ll be sitting in front of a roaring fire in no time.
How do you dry and stack your wood?
~Mavis
This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.
$0.99 {
$2.51
$2.99 {
FREE
FREE
