Is Splitting Firewood Necessary?

by Randy
(China Grove,N.C.)

Hello,

I am a bit of a novice, but I was curious. If you have some fallen trees that are good and dry, but not rotten, do they have to be split? I know that they would be easier to handle, but I waited too late to cut my wood and let it season properly? Thank You for your help, Randy


Answer

Randy,

It's important to split your firewood for a couple of reasons. One, because it allows the wood to dry out properly. Can wood season without being split? Yes, but not without perfect conditions and significantly more time than split wood. A dead tree in the woods is almost always in need of more time and proper conditions to fully season for firewood.


Any log that is greater than 5" in diameter, needs to be split to season properly. Also, unless you are using an outdoor wood boiler or another similar large wood burning appliance, the wood needs to be split to burn in your existing wood stove/fireplace. If you try burning a 9" diameter log in your wood stove, unless the wood is super dry and you have a really good bed of coals, it's likely that the log will never fully burn.

So to summarize, logs that look dry in the woods usually (almost always) aren't dry enough to burn as firewood, and you need to split your firewood anyways because you won't be able to keep a fire going with pieces of firewood that are too large.

Hope this helps!

-Firewood Matt