Many believe heating with firewood to be an art form, when actually it’s just common sense and hard work. The key to firewood production is to plan your work. I think of firewood production as a crop to harvest – whether to heat your own home or to sell. You don’t just throw seeds in the ground at any time and hope to get great tomatoes. In the same way, you want to plan for the best harvest in your woodlot.
I’m going to share the process I use but, realize that each of you have a different situation.
There are a number of things to consider: Is firewood a by-product of other timber work you are doing, an actual crop you manage, or a combination of both?
On our homestead of 500 acres, timber is our top crop, however major timber sales only occur every 15 – 20 years. Firewood production is a secondary crop to cover expenses during the non-harvest years. When we bought this property, we knew that it needed to support itself and firewood production has been part of the financial plan since the beginning. Some homesteads support themselves entirely from firewood and timber sales.
We have heated totally with wood since 1985 – no other heat sources but a good pot of vegetable soup.
Yes, we will harvest the occasional tree as dictated by nature and/ or economic issues. If we have a timber harvest, we can usually cut a cord of firewood for every 2000 board feet of timber harvested. However, the firewood from tree tops is only good for 3 years before it deteriorates. Our forest management plan has provisions for harvesting firewood for sale and our own use.
This tree has many uses in the woods. It may be a habitat tree for squirrels or raccoons, it is good for firewood, it may produce food for wildlife, too, with either nuts or seed pods.
However it had a large canopy and was blocking sun for healthy trees still growing.
It came down and produced a lot of high quality firewood.
Manage your woodlot for firewood production
(Read my previous blog, Crop Tree Release/Timber Stand Improvement which explains how to manage your woodlot for optimum timber production.)
If we did Crop Tree Release (CRT) in 2021, we will have 8 – 10 cords of firewood/acre of woods to cut and process in 2022. (Not all of our land is accessible for firewood removal.)
During CRT, we kill and/or remove low quality tree species, broken or damaged trees, poorly formed trees and over-crowded trees to provide growing room for quality trees, much like weeding and thinning your flower garden. CTR improves the quality and growth of the remaining trees, increasing the potential income of your woodlot. These trees often provide an abundant source of firewood.
Another area of firewood production is land clearing for crops, pasture, building sites, etc. I have been clearing a 5-acre strip-mine spoil bank for pasture. The spoil-bank has been planted with desirable trees, tulip popular, white oak, and red oak, which I left to grow as future timber, and low-quality species, box elder, black locust, sycamore, sweet gum, and cherry, which aren’t doing well on the site. (Since I am grazing cattle and sheep in this area, all cherry is cut down during the winter to prevent the animals from eating the toxic leaves.)
Box elder is pushed out and piled up for wildlife habitat. The black locust on this site won't produce good fence posts and they tend to decay after 5-6 years but it is great firewood for the house. It is considered too ‘dirty’ to sell commercially. The sycamore and sweet gum are undesirable firewood which is too bad.
I love burning locust with its BTU value of 28.1 million, sweet gum (20.2 million BTU), and sycamore (19.1 million BTU). Most customers want cherry with only 19.6 million units.
Customer complaints about these woods are locust bark becomes crumbly and is dirty when handled, sweet gum is hard to split and doesn’t split cleanly, and sycamore requires 2 years to cure completely.
Despite these issues, of the 1 ¼ cords we have burned, it’s been 80% sweet gum this year so far. The rest is locust and sycamore. We cut, split, and sell the more desirable types to our customers.
The third area of firewood production can be fence rows, roadways, and odd, unused areas. As you go around the homestead doing the inventory – look for low-quality tree species and poorly formed trees that will produce good firewood. Depending on you circumstances just because the tree is a poor timber tree doesn’t mean it needs cut down today. The tree species may be good wildlife habitat or a food source. Also, do you need firewood now or would it be better to let the tree grown for a few more years and produce more firewood for you? Remember firewood only has a shelf-life of 3-5 years, even when stacked under cover/in a building.
A typical firewood quality tree - notice the many branches off the main trunk.
This tree will never be good for timber, but there is a lot of firewood here.
We live in Ohio and I lived through the blizzards of 1977 and 1978, so I always leave potential dead or dying trees near the home/barn area in case we get extreme cold and deep snow. No one wasn’t to travel a ½ mile on foot in subzero weather to get firewood when it’s too cold for the tractor to start.
Anticipation
The key to starting next year’s firewood is as soon as this year’s leave drop and through the early winter (late Nov – Dec), I drop trees. Then I process the good (sale) quality firewood during Spring and early Fall in the year I need it. This would be my maple, walnut, oak, etc. which are not suitable for a timber log, but need to be removed from the woodlot. These trees may be laying on the ground for 2 years or so. However, there are exceptions - if you split sweet gum too early (Spring/Summer) it will dry out too much. I generally cut down sweet gum logs in the Spring, splitting them in October and November for the winter I plan to burn them.
My firewood motto is Sell the Best, Heat with the Rest. I heat using outdoor burners with cut-offs, bug-infested wood, ‘punky’ or softening wood, irregularly shaped logs. The wife doesn’t like this wood in the house.
One other thing I have learned during the 50 years I’ve been selling firewood: people ask if we are selling hardwoods – they don’t want a softwood – but they ask for pine to start fires. Pine builds up the creosote in your chimney. It also sparks. Well dried, split ash, sassafras, basswood, and buckeye are great starter woods without the creosote or sparks. Add a bundle of it to your cord as a marketing plus.
Most people don’t really know what a legal cord of firewood it – it is 4 feet high, by 4 feet wide by 8 feet long. However, most folks want their wood cut into 16” lengths, so a full cord is will be 4 feet high by 24 feet long when stacked in a single row. You will not get a full cord in the back of a Ford Ranger or S10 Chevy pick-up. ½ ton pick-ups and most ¾ ton pick-ups are not able to haul that much wood either. A full cord weighs 2 – 2 ½ tons! Don’t get cheated!
Know what a true cord is! The first image is approx. 1/3 of a cord. The larger rack holds 1/2 a cord when full.
We bought the racks this year on the Walmart website. The larger rack has a heavier gauge and larger diameter tubing than the small. Both are doing a good job keeping the wood off the deck and stacked.
There is locust and sweet gum on the smaller rack.
If you provide good quality, clean firewood with a true measurement, you will always have a steady supply of customers. And a healthy side hustle and potential customer base for your other homestead products.
One more thing – any time you can produce a product or service on your homestead, for your own use, you are saving more than the cost of the product/service. You are not paying taxes on those products and when you consider fuel taxes for your heating oil and propane, you are saving a bundle of money each year. A cord of firewood compares to 125 – 200 gallons of fuel oil (@ $3.50/gallon including taxes) so a cord of firewood is equivalent to $500 of fuel. That is some serious savings for a little sweat and time. The next part of that saving is that you are NOT paying income tax on that saving, $500.00 not spent, saves you at least 20% or $100.00 of income taxes you would have had to earned to purchase heating for your home.
Happy Heating Season,
Bob
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