Fire it up!
It’s sure getting chilly! Frosts are an every day occurrence and at times, while the sun pushes through the fog, there may be only hours of daylight heat to savour.
We had 10 cubic metres of dry firewood delivered several weeks ago, plus wet wood from a recent prune to a big old plane tree – and, after much chipping and splitting, the existing wood shed is full already.
With heaps of firewood, we discarded the axe and reached for something a bit more ‘sturdy’ and time-friendly as I wrote about in Countdown to Winter. The tin woodshed is now packed to the rafters and there’s a pallet of ‘ready to stoke’ wood at the backdoor. Still, with huge amounts of dry wood under tarpaulin and wet wood needing to dry for NEXT winter, it was time to build a new woodshed.
Luckily I have my very handy Englishman at hand to bash and create a masterpiece to house it all.
Wood takes around 6-12 months to dry, depending on the type of wood. If you’re getting wood delivered be sure to check – you don’t want ‘wet wood’ (fresh wood) if you are needing it for this season. ‘Dry wood’ may need further splitting into burnable logs, but can be used straight away.
If you doing some winter pruning and are chopping your own from wet wood, you’ll need a place to dry it. For example, our Plane Tree prune gave us copious amounts of wet wood. Despite winter it dries from the inside out so it still needs to be stored someplace protected from the elements.
Where and how?
With a bit of research we learned some Do Not’s. Like: do not store wood against the house, nor in the garage. This is interesting as many people do it, so we’re not making judgement here. Wood although drying, contains moisture and attracts various insects and vermin. ‘Nuff said really. You don’t really want moisture (including undergrowth too really) against your weatherboards. While it may be handy to the back door, that’s about the only upside. For the same reason do not store large amounts of wood in your garage. Borer and other creepy crawlies only have easy access to the interior of your house, something I’m sure you’d want to discourage.
The best place? A Wood Store. We’ve built something extra sturdy but it’s not necessary. It should have airflow, so leave open sides, or gaps at least to help circulation, plus a roof to keep the rain out. This can be as simple as tarpaulin of course.
Also, keep the wood off the ground. Mud in winter will only reverse the drying process and encourage moisture, plus wood can begin to rot if left sodden directly on the ground. We built a floor (similar to a simple pallet layout) that we are sure will do the trick.
Anyway, happy wood gathering and storing. If June is anything to go by, we’re in for a crisp winter!
