Last of the 2015 firewood

Newly felled timber is about fifty per cent water, the best firewood contains twenty per cent water so for every tonne of green firewood we have, on average, to get rid of  300 - 400 kg water from every tonne.

The logs come with a waterproof covering, the bark, so most of the water loss is through the butt ends ergo to speed up the drying and seasoning I cut the 5' lengths of wood up into 15" lengths to increase the surface area  available for moisture loss which is quite fast in early summer but this load was collected in August.

Splitting these short logs further increases the surface area but as we move into winter atmospheric humidity increases and the moisture in the wood becomes increasingly difficult to remove. The logs in the picture were about 30 % moisture as tested by drying a sample in the oven, they are burnable but a further ten per cent drying would be good.

The workshop is dry and draughty so we've stacked the last couple of tonnes indoors with wind blowing through the gaps ( gaps big enough for a mouse to run around inside the stack). It's a slow time of year for wildlife photography so I roped in Hamsa to help with the skilled work. It may be useful firewood in another three or four months.