How to store firewood at the cabin: why your wood never really dries

The most common firewood mistake at Norwegian cabins is not buying poor wood — it is wrapping the stack in a tarpaulin. Here is how to stack, cover and store firewood so it actually dries, and why the order matters more than you think.

How to store firewood at the cabin: why your wood never really dries

You light the stove, it smokes, the glass turns black within an hour, and the room never really warms up. The usual conclusion is that you bought bad firewood.

Usually that isn't true. The wood was probably fine when it arrived. The problem happened afterwards, in how it was stored — and the most common mistake is one that looks like care: someone wrapped the stack neatly in a tarpaulin.

It all comes down to moisture

Freshly felled timber is around half water. For firewood to burn well, it needs to get down to roughly 20 per cent moisture or lower.

The reason is simple physics. The water in the wood has to evaporate before the wood can burn, and that evaporation steals heat from the stove. Burning wet wood means spending a large share of the energy boiling off water. The result is:

• Less heat — much of the energy goes to evaporation rather than into the room
• More soot and tar — which builds up in the chimney and raises the risk of a chimney fire
• Blackened stove glass and heavy white smoke from the chimney
• More pollution from incomplete combustion

All firewood storage really comes down to one question: can air get in, and can the water get out?

The five rules that actually decide it

1. Split before you dry

Bark is a tree's own raincoat, and it keeps working after the tree is felled. A round log barely dries at all. Split wood has open faces where moisture escapes, and dries many times faster.

This is also why thick rounds should be split smaller than you might think necessary — on a large log, only the outer layer ever dries.

2. Up off the ground

A stack sitting directly on soil or grass wicks moisture from below all summer. Put something underneath: pallets, battens, a couple of rough poles laid crossways. Five to ten centimetres of air under the stack is enough, but it has to be there.

3. Cover the top — never the sides

This is the big one. A tarpaulin lashed down around the whole stack does exactly the opposite of what was intended: it keeps rain out for a few weeks, and then keeps moisture in for the rest of the year. The stack sweats, it gets warm and damp inside, and you end up with mould and rot instead of dry wood.

Cover the top only. Rain from above is the problem; rain on the sides dries off by itself within a day or two. The sides have to stay open for the wind to reach the wood.

4. Sun and wind — but wind matters most

Most people think about sun. Wind is actually more important, because it is air movement that carries moisture away from the stack.

Put the stack where it is breezy, not tucked into a sheltered corner. If it stands against a wall, leave a few centimetres of ventilation gap between the wall and the wood. A stack pressed against the north wall of the cabin barely dries at all.

5. Air inside the stack itself

Stack so there are small gaps between the logs. A stack laid like a jigsaw with no voids dries worse than a slightly untidy one. Cross-hatching the ends gives stability and good ventilation channels at the same time.

How long does it take?

The classic Norwegian rhythm exists for a reason:

Fell in winter, split in spring, burn in autumn. Trees hold the least sap in winter, and the wood then gets the whole dry, windy spring and summer to season.

As a rule of thumb, properly stored split wood needs one summer — roughly six months through spring and summer. Birch and other hardwoods standing in shade, or wood split late in the season, may need a full year.

Bought wood in sacks is usually already seasoned, but it can pick up moisture again during transport and storage. If in doubt, test it.

How to tell whether wood is dry

• The weight. Dry wood is noticeably light. Lift two logs of the same size and you feel the difference immediately.
• The sound. Knock two logs together. Dry wood gives a sharp, hollow crack. Wet wood gives a dull thud.
• The cracks. Dry wood has clear splits radiating out from the centre of the end grain.
• A moisture meter. Costs very little and removes all doubt. Under 20 per cent is the target.

Wood shed or open stack?

Both work. The principle is the same.

A wood shed must have open or ventilated walls. A completely sealed shed is just a very large tarpaulin. Many old wood stores are built with gaps between the boards for exactly this reason — that isn't sloppiness, it's design.

An outdoor stack with corrugated sheet or tarpaulin over the top only, ideally with a little overhang, works excellently. Many people argue it dries better than a shed, precisely because it stands open to the wind.

Don't store large amounts indoors

Bring in what you'll burn over the next few days, no more.

Wood stored inside for long periods does dry, but it often brings beetles, spiders and larvae that wake up in the warmth. Rarely dangerous, but not something you want in the living room either. A wood box by the stove, topped up every few days, is the right amount.

Write down when the wood arrived

This sounds pedantic, but it solves the one genuinely difficult question about storing firewood: how old is this stack, actually?

If several people in the family use the cabin, it quickly becomes impossible to know whether the wood at the back of the shed is from last year or from 2023 — so it either sits until it rots, or gets burned before it's dry. Two lines about when the wood was delivered and where it was stacked mean the next person knows what they're dealing with.

It also lets you burn the oldest first, which is the entire point of having two stacks.

Keep track of the wood along with everything else

Digital Hyttebok lets you note things like this where everyone who uses the cabin can see them — when the wood arrived, how much, and which stack to use first. Together with maintenance tasks and the rest of the cabin's history, in one place. It's free to get started.

Wondering how much firewood you actually need for a season, we've done the maths in a separate article. And if you're going through the stove and chimney, it's on the list in the annual safety check.