In a previous blog, I shared about a recent wood stove purchase and learning to heat my house with firewood. I bought the first several cords of cut, split, and delivered firewood for $250-$300/cord.
It was a logical way to get started, but after my father-in-law gave us a Stihl MS 180C chainsaw, I made it my goal to get comfortable with the saw and someday cut log length firewood for a much cheaper price of around $100/cord.
I took the Game of Logging Level One course back in 2018, but hadn’t used a saw since. I made sure I had all the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE), including chaps, steel toes, a helmet with a face shield and earmuffs, safety glasses, and gloves. I worked on bucking up small-diameter blowdowns, but I stalled the saw a few times while cutting. Then I couldn’t get it started again.
Me making a tree felling notch under the direction of Bill Lindloff at a 2018 Game of Logging Level One course.
Disheartened but determined to keep making firewood, I walked the woodlot with a hand saw and cut what I could.
Hand-cut firewood for the backyard fire pit.
I practiced making a felling notch and backcut before pushing over a small, broken-top cherry tree. Then I started cutting the limbs off a decent-sized windthrown cherry tree. I thought the wood might have some rot as it was down when we moved in 16 months earlier. I was pleased to find the wood was good and I couldn’t wait to get the chainsaw back.
Hand-sawing the limbs off a 16-inch-diameter windthrown cherry tree.
Hand splitting small-diameter firewood.
I learned from the local Stihl shop in Delhi, NY (McDowell and Walker) that I might not be giving the saw enough throttle while cutting. I took their advice and haven’t had as many problems since, but I still seem to be fouling spark plugs quite often. I slowly bucked up the big cherry tree into 16-inch-long rounds and split them with a 15-pound Monster maul my Dad gave to me.
Roughly 16-inch-long cherry wood rounds cut with the chainsaw.
Windthrown cherry tree with the limbs removed. Making firewood became a lot more efficient as I got into the main stem.
Bucking up the stem of the cherry tree for firewood with a Stihl MS 180C chainsaw.
The last cut on the windthrown cherry tree.
I estimate I got at least half a cord (64 cubic feet) of firewood from one tree!
Hand-split cherry firewood with the 15-pound Monster maul.
I built some wood racks for storage. The big one in the backyard should hold about 1.5 cords.
Firewood rack in the backyard with a capacity of 1.5 cords.
I watched a MyWoodlot video called How to Pick Firewood Trees from Your Woods and flagged 4-5 standing trees to take down. They are all small-diameter trees with one or more of the following characteristics: poor form, signs of poor health, easy to fell (i.e. they have few safety hazards). For example, one of the trees I felled was a 5-inch-diameter sugar maple that had a broken top. I cut an ash of similar diameter that had partially tipped over.
Update: Since I first drafted this blog, I filled the wood racks and I should have about 3 cords of wood for this winter. In the future, I plan to cut firewood from our EAB-impacted ash trees and later from log length loads delivered to the house. Cutting up the big windthrown cherry tree gave me the experience and confidence I needed to proceed with this plan.
