If you’ve recently invested in a property with a wood-burning fireplace or stove, you’ll save a lot of money if you learn how to cut firewood.
Or perhaps you just want to further your survival skills so that you can harvest and cut your own firewood when you’re out camping in the woods.
Either way, we’re here to help by telling you the best way to cut firewood.
With our tips and tricks, you'll be cutting firewood quickly and efficiently.
Cutting firewood can be very rewarding. Not only is it great exercise, but it’ll also save you money and offer a sense of pride and accomplishment that you’ll otherwise miss out on.
It can also be a fun task that the whole family can play a small part in.
While you and your partner are cutting the firewood, you can task your kids with loading and stacking it away to keep them busy.
Before we tell you the best way to cut firewood, there are some things you need to think about before you get started.
Before you begin, we implore you to take all of the necessary safety measures.
Cutting your own firewood involves dangerous power tools, flying debris, and splinters galore.
Thus, always ensure you have the proper safety equipment, clothes, and know-how before you start chopping away.
Ensure you’re dressed appropriately, including:
Set up your cutting area away from anything, such as your car, house, and garage windows, that could get scratched or damaged by flying debris.
Also, make sure any children and animals are being looked after and kept away from your designated chopping area.
Most people will agree that the ideal time to cut firewood is in late winter or early spring.
You want to give the wood plenty of time to dry, around six months usually, before you’ll need to burn it.
Softwoods, such as pine, spruce, and fir, will burn more quickly.
As such, you’ll need to cut a lot more than if you were burning hardwoods.
Hardwoods that you should look out for include oak, beech, birch, and eucalyptus, as they are fantastic, long, and clean-burning trees.
Hardwoods such as elm and hickory are more knotted and gnarly, making them harder to split.
The most common way to cut firewood is to order it from a logger by the semi-load.
After that, cut it to a suitable burning size yourself.
Another option is to fell the trees yourself, but if you’re doing that, you probably already know how to cut firewood.
Most people cut the wood down to size by using a chainsaw.
Then they switch to using a wood splitter or ax to split the wood.
Although some people like to use a chainsaw for the entire project.
If you just need to split firewood, then you’ll be skipping over steps three and four.
Still, you should read steps one and two before moving onto step five.
If you plan on using a chainsaw, make sure you have one suitable for the type of wood you’ll be cutting.
As a general rule of thumb, your chainsaw should be around two inches longer than the piece of wood you are cutting.
For the most part, you’ll be aiming to make your pieces of wood around 16 inches long.
That is the ideal size to fit in most fireplaces or burners.
Therefore, the ideal chainsaw for cutting wood will be 18 inches long, although you may need a 20- or 24-inch chainsaw for cutting through thick logs.
Once you and your chainsaw are ready to go, you’ll need to start breaking down your trees or logs into more usable pieces.
Aim to break the tree down into roughly four-foot lengths, which you can do by eye. You can also measure it out if you prefer.
If your log is on a sawhorse, then you can cut straight through the wood at your four-foot markers.
However, if the tree trunk is lying on the floor, only cut about 3/4's of the way through each of your four-foot markers.
Turn the trunk over, using a felling lever if you have one, and then finish each of the cuts.
When a log is lying on the floor, you should never attempt to cut all the way through it.
If you accidentally touch your chainsaw to the ground, it may kickback and will instantly dull the blade.
If your chainsaw gets pinched and stuck inside the log while cutting, turn the chainsaw off before driving a wedge into the cut with a hammer to release it.
You also need to cut or split the logs down again, but this time to the size you actually want them. That is around 16 inches.
Measure and mark out your 16-inch segments on the four-foot logs before cutting them to the actual size.
Try to cut the rounds as squarely as possible.
That way, they’ll stand up more sturdily for splitting, especially if you'll use an ax.
The shorter the log, the easier the split, so if this is your first time, go easy on yourself with slightly shorter rounds.
Once you have all your rounds ready, you need to split the wood pieces in half.
That is into more usable pieces for burning.
To split wood with a chainsaw, you need to take a piece of wood.
Then, lay it on its side, either on the ground or on a tree stump.
Use two other logs to stop it from rolling one way or another.
Then cut the log straight down the entire length of the middle.
Dig the bucking spikes at the base of the chainsaw into the wood and then pivot the blade downwards to cut.
As mentioned, if you’re cutting the wood on the floor or ground, stop before you go all the way through.
Lay the chainsaw down, lift the piece of wood, turn it over, and drop it forcefully onto another piece of wood, hopefully finishing the split.
If the round doesn’t snap in half, force it to split using a felling wedge and mallet.
You then want to split these pieces into quarters using the same method.
You can also split firewood using an ax. To do so, you’ll need a chopping block set up on a flat surface.
Make sure you have plenty of room to swing an ax and that your chopping block is no taller than knee height.
Place a round on the chopping block as far away from you as possible so that if you miss, you’ll hit the chopping block instead.
Keep both hands firmly on the ax and remember to keep both arms straight while swinging, paying attention to your distance from the wood.
Aim the ax to the center of the wood round, slightly closer to you, and swing.
You also need to pay attention to the ax's handle as it comes down, ensuring its horizontal.
If your hands are above or below the handle, readjust and swing again.
To cut firewood correctly, you must follow these tips:
As with anything, practice makes perfect. The longer you cut firewood for, the better and faster you’ll get at it.
Of course, once the cutting is done, the job doesn’t end there.
That is because you still have to stack and store the wood.
Choose a storage area with good drainage and stack your wood neatly on top of a base made of treated 2x4's; untreated wood will rot.
Pack your wood tightly enough to remain stable when the wood shrinks and shifts.
Just make sure to do it loosely enough to maintain good airflow through the stack.
Now you’re set up to enjoy your own freshly cut firewood all winter long.
Every time you enjoy the warmth, you can feel a sense of pride that you helped to create it.
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