Goodness Gracious It's Great Logs Afire

by Michele Oksen

It's that time of year again. All stocked up, prepared, and hopeful for a long wet winter.  There's plenty of people and pet food, flashlights, batteries, candles, matches, and a woodshed overflowing with firewood.

Here in these Santa Lucia Mountains, in this cabin, the only heat source is a fire in the woodstove. Besides extra layers of clothing and a down comforter, a supply of good quality dry firewood is essential in order to live here in comfort through months of freezing temperatures and rain.

If you too plan to burn firewood for heat, during a power outage, or for ambiance you'll want to burn dry wood in a regularly maintained fireplace or woodstove. By dry firewood, I mean it hasn't been rained on and it's seasoned. Seasoned means the wood has approximately twenty percent moisture content. Moisture content can be determined with a moisture meter or a practiced ear can get a rough estimate when two pieces of wood bang together. Listen for the clink sound rather than the thud of green wood.  Also, examine sawed ends of firewood because as wood dries it shrinks and cracks.

Is it that important to burn dry wood? Oh, yeah. Dry wood means less smoke, less hazardous creosote buildup in the chimney or stovepipe, and more heat. Sounds simple, but it's a time consuming and laborious process to get the wood just right for the cleanest, most efficient, burning.

My Supervisor, Takoda

First, someone locates broken branches or wind-toppled trees. Next, they don protective gear such as safety glasses, earmuffs, and boots, then fire up the chainsaw – which is very dangerous. After the cut wood is in logs of desired lengths (sixteen to eighteen inches is common) much of it still needs to be split into smaller pieces. An experienced woodsman reads the grain, the cracks, and the knots during each stage to determine where to cut and how to split. Every once in awhile, there will be a log too gnarly to split, period. No matter how many times the wedge of the log splitter rams into that log, the grain is so tangled it will not separate into pieces. Sometimes it's just best to throw those logs aside, rather than risk injury to self or damage to the log splitter.

Which woods are good for heating the home? Dense, heavy local hardwoods are best. Oak and madrone are favored, but eucalyptus, sycamore, and maple are fine woods. These woods put out higher BTU's (British thermal units) than pine and each has it's own unique characteristics such as the smell of the smoke. Cruise by a red oak barbeque topped with red meat and think primal chest pounding and salivation.  Drive through SLO Coast neighborhoods some dark and foggy nights and smell the sweet scent of pine smoke – very distinct. Think comfort and contentment.

Okay, time to pack in more wood and stoke the home fire. Bring on the rain and snow, Mother Nature!