Drying my firewood,,Inside or Outside ??

[TerryEspo]

After reading online about inside winter humidity I am confused.
I am now splitting my wood for the arch.
The wood I am splitting was cut in the spring of 2014 and is dry as this is the wood I am burning right now in my garage woodstove. I am just making the pieces smaller for the arch.

Now that I am cutting even smaller pieces from my firewood (wrist size), should I be storing this arch wood inside my heated garage or outside covered and protected?

I thought best was inside warm garage but now confused after reading different articles,,,geesh !!

Input is needed please.

Thanks.
Terry

[wishlist]

Ouside is fine Terry, top only covered. Arch wood is no different than wood for the house except smaller splits seem to work better. Good ,dry seasoned wood will get you the most btu's.

[Ausable]

Terry - Do what works for You. If my garage was heated - I would be in it - lol. Hey! No matter what You do - someone on here will tell You it is the wrong way - so what. I agree with Wishlist - outside and covered is good. Sure - splitting down to wrist size is good. But - I have neither the time or energy and with my mis-matched junk firewood - I still managed to make 18 gallons of maple syrup last year. For me - it is just a hobby - keep it as fun as You can and let common sense rule.

[maple flats]

I think inside is likely best, but you must have good ventilation and air movement thru the wood stack or you get less effective drying. If you can't get the moisture moved out, you might be better off outside, with a good cover or roof over it and open sides for the sun and breezes to dry it.
While it is less than perfect, I cut and split my wood and stack it off the ground outside for between 1.5 and 2.5 years, with a tin roof over it. I also have a 3' overhand on my sugarhouse roof, and along one side I have wood stacked the entire length of the sugarhouse and about 5-6' high (I burn 21" wood). As about 1/2 of that gets burned, I refill the stack and then use from the other half of the stack. This means I handle the wood an extra time but it seems to get drier than just outside with tin roofing covering it.
Years ago, I made 1 wood rack that I could carry on forks on my tractor loader bucket, with a sloped tin roof. I loaded it with wood and could then carry it to the fire, setting it just inside a set of double doors and right where I wanted in in front of the arch. The problem was that during the season, as the frost came out of the ground the tractor I had at that time (without power steering) could not move the loaded rack (it was about 54" wide x 65" high and 21" wood filled it) My plan was to build several and just swap them out as needed. Now that I have a bigger tractor with power steering I may test that idea again, but running concentrate rather than 2% sap, I use about 15- 20% of the wood I used to and it seems less important.I was going to test the new tractor with pallet forks mounted on the loader rather than using clamp on forks that move the load out forward more, but in season I never got to it, maybe this next season.

[Sugarmaker]

Keep it as dry as possible, and air movement is good too. We have a open west facing wood shed where we have about 9 cord of slabs. Sure is nice to have the firewood good and dry to go in the arch. We made extra syrup last spring and needed more wood. I had 3 cord of slabs in bundles that were outside, They were aged but not under cover, we buzzed those and used them but they sure did not take off and burn like the stuff in the wood shed!
Happy boiling!
Regards,
Chris

[BreezyHill]

for over 40 years most of ours was indoors. After an issue with powder post beetles it is all outside in the cages of cage tanks. Cages are setup out side and covered to keep the precip off. Next season they will be in a greenhouse to cook out the moisture after plants are out and they are filled.

[Sweet Shady Lane]

My fire wood is two years old, it spends the first year outside in a pile ( it's cut, split and just put in a big pile) then the second year it's put inside the sugar shack to be used, I've always had good dry fire wood, but as others have said do what works best for you. and always have fun with it.