Firewood Drying

I had to take some trees down in preparation for new leach field (erosion removed 80% of the old one build 70 years ago).
Unfortunately, with the new town requirements, I have to install a new 1000 gallon concrete tank, plus an effluent  pumping system.
The new leach field will be 100 feet away from the main tank and about 35 feet higher.
Still haven't had what I'd consider a reasonable estimate for the job.
And while I try to do most jobs myself, moving 10,000 pounds of concrete tank down the hill and around a corner - well, I think that one is just a little out of my league!

But the real point of this thread is - I cut, split and stacked the birch trees and then looked at the wood shed.
Inadvertently, I had stacked almost all the logs with the bark side up.
Since the shed is not entirely weathertight, should I have changed the log orientation or gone all bark side down, does it matter?

When you stack your firewood, do you pay any attention to the orientation of the bark ?

Thanks!

No, I'm not going to restack anything, but I always have more trees that fall over, so this surely won't be my last fell, cut, split and stack day

I suspect you will be fine.  In Minnesota people would stack their firewood outside.  I am not saying it is the best option, but I wouldn’t be too concerned.   It it does bother you, scrounge some plastic that someone has tossed and cover the wood with that.

It just struck me as odd that I did that without even thinking about it.
But I know that birch will rot in a heartbeat if left fully wrapped in bark.
So it piqued my curiosity if, perhaps, bark down would retain moisture and cause problems?

Just one of those things you've probably seen a dozen times and then suddenly the lightbulb goes on - "why didn't I notice the before?"

Maybe as we age, we observe our surroundings better?  One of the VERY few perks of getting old(er)

Bearing in mind that I don't know the exact species, your climate, or the size of the cut pieces - I don't think it matters. Nearly all the moisture loss will be from the cut ends rather than the split sides.

I would tend to stack cut wood bark upwards because it will then shed water and be less likely to get wet again. Especially if your shed is not completely water tight like mine. I especially do this at the edges of the shed where the water will run down the walls. Mind you, most of my split wood is spruce, so may not apply to birch. My hardwood is never big enough to be worth splitting as I use coppiced wood there.

I think that at the end of the day, regardless of if the bark is up or down, the water that lands on the pile will be partially absorbed by the pile and then wicked/dried out later.  Unless you are sure all the bark up pieces will shed all the water all the way down to the ground, I don't think it really matters.

It matters according to this:

The birch would have remained standing if not for the need of a new septic. I'm curious, Nancy - do you split spruce by hand or a powered unit?

My conifers are nearly all Red Spruce with a few Black and Englemann (sp?) mixed in.  NOT fond of hand splitting any of those!

Thanks all for the feedback

Most of our spruce we get ready split now, Randy. We do have a hydraulic splitter to save my husband's shoulders from when we did get complete trunks delivered from the forestry.

How I get most of my firewood...