There are only two ways to stack wood

There are only two ways to stack wood.

Now if you are familiar with the concept, because you have been stacking wood for years, or you know the book, Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way, by Lars Mytting, then you will most certainly differ with that opening sentence.   In the Norwegian Book alone, let alone millions of internet images, you will see that you can stack wood in an infinite number of ways.  But let me tell you what I mean when I say there are only two ways to stack wood.  (I’ll get to that at the end).

Wood is our fuel of choice for heating our home and cooking most of our food and heating our domestic hot water during our cold season.  This year, we lit our first fire on October 8th and we will likely light our last fire in May.  Wood heats all of the small cabins here at Rise Above Guest House, and provides guests with campfire enjoyment year-round.  That adds up to a lot of wood and if you need a lot of wood, you likely do a lot of stacking.

As I moved wood from a drying pile into the woodshed this morning, I tried to count in my head how many times we touch, lift, carry or move each single piece of wood. In the olden days when we harvested all of our own, we would cut down a dead or dying tree, then buck it (1), load those pieces onto our utility vehicle (2), dump them and pick them up again to split (3), stack them to dry (4), carry them into the house to a small stack in the mudroom (5), carry them to the masonry fireplace or cookstove (6) and light a match.  This week we are getting pre-cut and split wood delivered. It will be dumped in a pile.  Then we will carry and stack each piece in our woodshed (1), and carry and stack in the house (2) and then carry to the stoves, (3).  Okay great, much better – only three times, unless we help our neighbour load the wood at his house that he will dump at our place and then we are back to four, or if we decide we want to split the freshly delivered wood into smaller pieces – add another one.

Each bush cord of maple (a common hardwood here) weighs 3680 lbs dry (we won’t even talk about how heavy it is when it’s wet).  A bush cord is three face-cords.  A face-cord is a stack of wood 8 ft wide and 4 feet high.  Sorry if you just got lost in the numbers.  It changes every year based on the depth of cold, but it is possible that we will burn 3 bush cords of wood during an 8-month cold season.  That’s 11,040 lbs of wood or 5 plus tons of wood, that we will handle at least 3 times.   This has never been the easy way to go.

There are really only two ways to stack wood, alone or with company.  I prefer company.  Come on over and help us stack.  :-)

written by Marilyn October 8th, 2024.