Your firewood process

[sirbuildalot]

I've seen some really sweet setups where guys will stack the firewood on pallets and move it into a garage or large walkout door with a machine. Unfortunately, my house has a bulkhead and isn't setup for that. The way I typically do it is I cut all my own wood from my land. Its easier to handle it in stove length than log length, so usually I cut it to stove length and move it with the trailer to a spot where I stack the rounds for splitting. I process to 20" lengths.







Once split I stack it outdoors on wood pallets and let it season for a year+. I usually do 2 rows deep so the wind and sun hit at least one side of each stack. The two rows seems to be a lot more stable than a single row.

Here is some fresh stacked stuff. I like a wheelbarrow around the piles as its easier to maneuver than a tractor or trailer. Holds a decent amount.





In Sept or Oct. I will move the firewood into my basement and stack it in my "bins". I have a typical sized bulkhead. So I throw it in there and can usually get 1.25-1.5 cords in before it is flush with the doors. All together I can fit about 5-5.5 cords in the basement and still have room for my other stuff.






This is probably about half of my wood down there. These 2 "bins" are each 2 rows of 20" wood. 8.5' wide x 6.5' high. I usually accomplish this either by a tractor with a trailer or a special box I made for my little tractor that will dump directly into the bulkhead.









To transport the wood from the bulkhead to where I put it in the basement I made what I call a "miners cart". Basically a wooden box on a caster. It holds about 10 cubic feet when flush with the top of the wood box. This load of Shagbark is more like 12 cubic feet.











I've tried having the wood outside and bringing it in as I need it, but when there is 2 feet of snow on the ground and/or its -5 out, I prefer having it inside. I don't seem to get too many bugs. Plus they told me they like being warm too. LOL. The woodstove also seems to dry out the nearby wood just that little bit extra.


How do you do your wood???

 

[NSMaple1]

A lot like yours. Except I have a walk-out, so pallets & pallet jack help a lot. Also put the whole winters wood in the basement.

One other difference, is that along with cutting to length where the tree lies, I also split right there too, and toss into a trailer right off the splitter. (All towed there & back with an ATV). That saves a handling step. Pile to pallets at seasoning area from the trailer. Next touch is to the fire - so 3 touches from tree to fire. Some or maybe half of it, I do an extra touch, piling from pallets once I wheel into the basement, to on top of other full pallets already in place.

 

[svk]

Most of my trees are either in my yard or the surrounding woods. Cut, buck, haul to splitting/stacking area. Split then stack. I have made racks either 8' or 12' long out of 2x4's then spacing them 8 or 12' apart so I know how much volume of wood is in every row.


Wood is hauled to the wood door by wheelbarrow and fed directly to the boiler.

 

[captjack]

Its a lot of work but its got to be nice to have it all inside before the weather gets bad - I bring mine into garage in a box that holds 1/2 cord. I can get several days if not a week from each box load. which allows me to load up before rain or snow etc - the wood is in a shed at the end of my property. It still sucks bringing it in in plastic totes from the garage to the wood stoves - next house is going to have an out door wood burner with covered wood storage next to it !!

 

[Logger nate]

Most of the wood I cut is 5-35 miles away and it's usually pretty warm so normally go early and get a load of rounds or short "logs" and get back before it gets too hot, if I'm going to split before winter I uaslly just throw in a pile or if I don't think it will be split right away I'll stack it. After being split wood shed gets filled then I start stacking on pallets where ever I can find roomthen when it gets cold goes to stove in the house

 

[Armbru84]

I cut wood all over. Normally I stack my trailer full in log form and transport it to my house. I put the wood in my pasture where I will cut it to length and place on wood pallets. If the wood is already seasoned I put it in my wood shed so it's close to my furnace. I have a loader and cement buggy that I use to move wood around. If I need more I just move it from one place to the other.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Its a lot of work but its got to be nice to have it all inside before the weather gets bad - I bring mine into garage in a box that holds 1/2 cord. I can get several days if not a week from each box load. which allows me to load up before rain or snow etc - the wood is in a shed at the end of my property. It still sucks bringing it in in plastic totes from the garage to the wood stoves - next house is going to have an out door wood burner with covered wood storage next to it !!

You burn 1/2 a cord a week? Wow. I burn about that a month!

 

[user 122190]

Same here, 12 to 14 hours a day I burn. Only time I burn 24 hours if I know the temps are going to be single digits or below zero.

6 cords I stack to ensure I'm warm Nov thru March, leaves me plenty of extra just in case.

You burn 1/2 a cord a week? Wow. I burn about that a month!

 

[Jere39]

My process is long, and slow, just the way I like it.

I hike this hill top of old growth PA hardwoods every day with my trusty companion. In the summer, we identify and mark the dead Red Oaks:



Then throughout the Winter, we cut them down:




Usually process in place



Sometimes the rounds are too big for me to lift, so I halve them on the ground with that old hardware store maul. Then lift the halves onto a block for precision splitting with a Fiskars x27


Then haul in small cart-loads to stacks that can be reached by truck

Stacks rest in the open for a year or two:



Every once in a while, a tree ends up in thick briars, or is just more convenient to drag the logs to a processing area (like one with a fire pit to toast the fingers and toes a little every once in a while). I hitch to a log arch I built out of scraps around here. My arch is short, manueverable, and only lifts the front end.



Piles over-winter and next summer, till September when the whole one man/one dog harvest of about 16 cord is bought and paid for. Deliveries begin in October, and last till I run out, like about the time the major cold weather rolls in:



So, it's a year round process, enjoyed at the pace my pup and I like to work at:

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Same here, 12 to 14 hours a day I burn. Only time I burn 24 hours if I know the temps are going to be single digits or below zero.

6 cords I stack to ensure I'm warm Nov thru March, leaves me plenty of extra just in case.

Sept through May here. I just heat with wood.

 

[Ryan'smilling]

Fun thread.

I cut here, there, and everywhere. Mostly here on my property, but sometimes down the road at the neighbor's, and sometimes in the next town over.

I try not to cut wood without my tractor. It just makes life safer and easier. I'm very excited about my new trailer which will allow me to bring my tractor along to more places.

Normally i cut wood in the winter because it's when I have the most free time. I also like skidding over snow and frozen ground. No mosquitoes is a plus too. Here's a shot of my Kubota pulling a nice red oak:

Recently I built this log wagon for bringing smaller sticks back to the sugarbush from the other side of the property, or down the road.

I prefer to bring logs back to the sugarbush where I can cut and split at my convenience, but sometimes I cut them and process in place. In which case I usually load the splits into a trailer or on pallets and bring them to the bush.

I split all my wood by hand. I use a Gransfors Bruks splitting maul and occasionally an x27. Here's a before and after of some ash rounds:After:

It took my 18 minutes to split that log. I usually leave the rounds right on their side and swing the GB like a golf club. Works for me. I don't think i bent over once to split that ash.

Then I stack it in various ways, in rows, on pallet racks, in a big round pile, depending on the final use. Then I burn it, which is my favorite part.

Most of it gets used to make maple syrup. Here's a picture of some wood getting put to work:

 

[sirbuildalot]

I was able to get my trailer mods done. Now when I go deep in the woods, and forget something it wont be a big deal. I have my 4 saws, Logrite 36" pickeroon, Fiskars isocore maul, hatchet, 2 log tongs, brush knife, loppers, saw gas, bar oil, rope, chaps, chain, felling wedges, stump vise, files, googles, ear plugs, a hand saw, and I think there may be a partridge and a pear tree somewhere in there. LOL

I do want to mount the Cant hook to the side of the trailer.







The box sticks out roughly a foot, so I put a "marker" closer to the tractor end, and painted the tip bright orange. Hopefully I'll see it hit a tree before the box does.

 

[sirbuildalot]

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I cut EVERYTHING over a wagon,

It takes ALL the lifting out of cutting/splitting firewood! And when you cut loads like this you don't want to have to throw them all on!

And, once loaded, I pull the load home,

Once home, I back the splitter up to the wagon, and roll those bad boys right onto the beam,

And everything get's pushed through the 4-way,

That load made a LOT of splits!

That my wife loads into half cord boxes that I build,

and then I can move them with the tractor to a sunny spot until the splits are dry,

Then when we need firewood for the heating season, I move the box to the house,

so the splits can be thrown down into the basement, right next to the wood stove, to be burnt.

That's the easiest way for me to handle firewood...

SR

 

[Sandhill Crane]

That looks good. I'm guessing cutting over the trailer is a two man job? One cutting, one on the tractor?

 

[sb47]

Cut, haul, split, stack, repeat.

 

[sirbuildalot]

You have a nice setup Rob. How many acres do you have there?

 

[dave_dj1]

I get most of my wood from log landings. I drag my splitter, tractor and dump trailer there and work it up into splits, then bring it home and dump it. The less cutting and splitting I can do at home the better, I just don't have the room and I like to leave the mess in the woods.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

That looks good. I'm guessing cutting over the trailer is a two man job? One cutting, one on the tractor?

Yes and No... IF I can get help, it goes faster.........if not, I just get up there and do it myself, like I said, it just goes slower...

I really like going to the woods with a helper though, it's just a lot more fun. Some times when we take a break, I turn a big block of wood towards us and we have a friendly handgun competition. lol

When I work alone, "I" run out of gas before I get a full load, so I just come home when I'm tired. lol

SR

 

[CaseyForrest]

I don't have access to a wood lot so all of my wood comes from scrounges or work. I do have permission to cut on the property behind me, but its all covered in poison ivy. At work, we are getting ready to clear the last section of woods, probably 10 acres and that will be the last wood coming from work. So I intend to bring loads home every night its possible. Quite a bit of dead standing ash mixed in with red and white oak, and hickory.

Ive gone through a few iterations of cutting, splitting and stacking.... with the final, I hope, change coming in the next month or so. The lean to I built last year will become firewood storage for the last year of seasoning. Everything thats stored under it now will get moved to a soon to be built 16x32 shed which is getting built to house a pool filter/pump/electrical panel. Nice thing about the lean to is its right across the driveway, so bringing a weeks worth of wood to the house wont require the tractor/trailer/tote. And there is more than enough covered area to store a years worth of wood.

I will continue to stack wood along the property line for initial seasoning in which the tops are covered with 40mil textured HDPE liner that I get from work. My normal processing steps have me splitting right where the wood is stacked so splits come off and the kids stack... Weve had a warm winter and the ground is currently not frozen, so Ive had to use my fall back splitting area which is a concrete pad/basketball court. I prefer to split here except for the hauling the splits across the yard to be stacked.

I had grandiose notions of streamlining the handling steps.... But every step forward in reducing the number of times the wood is handled brought a new issue that needed to be dealt with. In the end, its just as easy, if not easier and cheaper, to handle the wood.