Here are a few things I have learned over the years about firewood

That was useful, especially the square cuts, thanks.

One thing I do different than the fellow in the video is to not cut live trees if possible but rather cut standing dead trees or snags that are already mostly dry.

John C Daley wrote:That was useful, especially the square cuts, thanks.

Hey, glad it helped!

Gerry Parent wrote:One thing I do different than the fellow in the video is to not cut live trees if possible but rather cut standing dead trees or snags that are already mostly dry.

Yeah, that's actually where most of mine comes from as well.

So what's the benefit of the square splits?  They make the jenga stacking method work better, but were there any other reasons to do that?  Seems like if the choice is a log split into a square and 4 slabs vs 4 pie wedges, it's certainly quicker to do the 4 pie wedges.

Gerry Parent wrote:One thing I do different than the fellow in the video is to not cut live trees if possible but rather cut standing dead trees or snags that are already mostly dry.

Depends on the wood. Standing dead is great for spruce. Poplar makes great stove wood if cut in winter**, bucked and split, and aggressively dried. Otherwise, it's so full of sugars that the decomposers turn it to punk wood almost immediately. Of course the poplar rootstock is still alive, so it will punch up 100 replacements immediately whether you want them or not.

**Cut live, to be clear

I think it depends totally on your climate.  In dry Montana you can cut pine that has been dead for years and it seems to make decent firewood.  By me, if a pine, birch or spruce is fully dead standing, it's already too rotten for firewood.  I aim for dying or windblown down trees for my firewood...

Over the last few years, I've grown dependent on Peterbilt for my firewood needs...

I guess the square cutting makes it easier for a novice to make end stacks, but I find no difficulty in doing that with triangular pieces... just don't put a round face down, and be aware of the tipsy direction if any and point it into the stack. Triangular pieces have more surface for drying than equal volume square pieces, though making thin slabs of all the sapwood portion does give the bark-faced pieces improved drying surface.