I just bought 7 acres of old farm land in Poland. Abandoned for 30+ years. Overgrown with Maple, Ash and white Birch. The Ash has up to 45 cm thick trunks and have started to break from own weight. It grows with mulcible stems, so each "tree" has 7 - 12 "trees" in bundle. One bundle can last me a year I think as firewood. And I have hundreds. But soon I can build temporary cabin - so I can stay there over night. It is 1 hour drive from home. But the end plan is good homestead, off grid and mostly self reliance in food. I will have to hunt and fish for protein. And buy occasional cattle and pig for butchering. I plan to use excess wood for gasifier generator to help the solar system to drive the homestead in winter. This winter firewood harvest will be salvage fallen tress and dead standing.. Perhaps one day I will make furniture from the Ash and smoke fish and meat with the Maple.

Its always nice feeling when you know no matter how cold it gets, you have enough firewood to stay warm and cozy.

There are 2 seasons in the north country, Winter and Getting Ready For Winter

Shawn, I built a slightly larger version of your wood shelter about ten years ago. I added a tarp to the front of my shelter to keep the driving rain and snow out fall to spring. I just rolled up a length of 1x3 wood in the top to screw through and hold the top and the same at the bottom to keep it weighed down. Works perfect!

Save your back and use the tire trick when you chop wood. Fill the tire cavity with large pieces and then chop away. Everything’s stays in the tire. Bending over back gets old fast.

Taking notes! I have learned a lot about wood and creosote! Sharing with my sons! Thank you! God bless you and your lovely family! Take care!

I absolutely love everything you do, Shawn, and you deserve much merit for your ongoing patience in your projects--much less the burden of filming it all and editing like a pro!

Greetings from PEI. I'm on four acres on the North Shore, mostly Black and White spruce, some paper or white birch. Hurricane Fiona destroyed part of my land so I'm set for firewood. I have a Regency mid size wood stove for my 1100 sq foot log home. I burn about 2 1/2 cord of softwood and 1 cord of hardwood a year (if you consider Birch Hardwood). Most of the red oak were pillaged by the settlers for ship masts. I have some beech, but not cutting it for firewood. Eastern part of the island has nice stands of yellow birch, rare as hens teeth in my area. I'm retired now so filling the stove frequently with softwood isn't an issue. Much Aspen here as well, I use that for kindling. I have about 20 cord put down under various covered structures. I normally start burning on a regular basis around Mid November.

I really appreciate the deep dive into the various properties of wood and how they burn at varying degrees. I learned something from this!!

Love all of this. Was bed ridden for two years. Really admire what you have done. I am about 20 years older but u inspire me to do at least some of what you are doing. Congratulations! Dane

Thank you , Shawn . 🐺 Loupis Canis .

Nothing like being prepared, Awesome job Shawn. 😁👍🏼

In the 70s, we had elm diseased wood, and it wiped out our mature trees. So burning elm was the choice. We were able to cut for 6 years when our kids were small, and they never had a cold floor in the house. Southern Minnesota.

In the North East of England (the old one) here. As far as availability goes, it's Scots Pine and Sitka Spruce from all our plantations in this area, though obviously they have all the soft wood downsides you mention. There's a fair amount of beech woods but mostly unmanaged, so firewood from them is few and far between. It's amazing to see all your progress, Shawn. All the best.

Dear Shawn James. 👍👌👏 I love making firewood and I like watching people making firewood. Please kindly allow me to suggest that you build yourself a simple cutting rack for the slab wood. It was quite frightening 😱🙈 to watch you cutting into the pile with your chainsaw. 2) Additionally: Please get yourself a second chopping block. For making kindling wood it should be much higher than the one you use for chopping the big pieces so that you don't have to bend over at all. Thanks in advance for consideration. Best regards, luck and health in particular.

Brings back childhood memories of the day when my brother mow grass told me my real name was not chop wood it was Michael. He said our oldest sister wash dishes told him.

Shawn I really enjoy your video's, especially the ones of you actually building your cabin, your outdoor kitchen, and anything else you build with your hands. You go into such very good detail when building, or anything else you do such as your garden, or even getting your firewood ready. I'm sure thousands of your fans can hardly wait until you build the bedroom addition to your log cabin. It's a great idea to add it on to the side of uour cabin, instead of taking up space inside to build the bedroom. I also think you should do the same for your bathroom, instead of taking up the corner space in the main living area, I think you should do the same as you are doing with your bedroom. Add a separate room off of your main living area on the back wall, and add the bathroom, then you can make it bigger, and it will have enough room for you to put in a bathtub, a jacuzzi, and/or a separate shower stall. By doing this you can keep more of your cabin space for the living area. You could also make the bathroom off of the new bedroom you are building in the spring. If you lay it out properly you can have access to your new bathroom from your bedroom, and another entrance to it from your livingroom area. This will allow guests to use your bathroom without entering from the inside of your bedroom. Any way these are just some of my personal thoughts, that I like to share with you. Regardless of how you do any if it, I am sure you will attract hundreds of thousands of people no matter how you do all these additions to your awesome cabin, I know I will be watching for sure! Thanks for posting such great content Shawn!

I'm in West Virginia. We're at 1,700 ft elevation. Our woods are oak dominant, with mostly chestnut oak here and some red oak. On my property, we also have maple and some young black birch with yellow pine dying out. As the elevation decreases, you see more tulip poplar, beech, and white oak. I burn chestnut oak almost exclusively. There's a beetle killing them. I cut them after they have been standing dead for 2 years. They burn hot and long, leaving an amazing bed of coals. I go through 3-5 cords a year. It's our primary source of heat.

We used to load free truckloads of slab wood from a water powered sawmill in Southern NB...all we burned for years when times got tough...had to clean the chimney a lot more but our heating costs were reduced to whatever fuel we used for transport. My used to hand cut everything with a bow saw to firebox lengths. Ahhhh, childhood 😂😂

Living in Central Texas. It is known as the Hill Country. Here we have Mesquite wood which burns very hot and very fast. Makes great coals for BBQ and also for heat beds in the fire places or stoves. We use Oak Trees for longer burning fires after we establish a bed of heat with the mesquite. At least that's what I did when I lived where there was a fire place. Lots of folks use just mesquite, but it burns out a fire place or stove quicker. Our State Tree is the Pecan. Sometimes, when am desperate, I used fallen and dried limbs. Love your videos. Even though I live way down here, a learn a lot of useful lessons from you. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge so that we can learn,.

I have been watching you for years and I want to commend you as one of the hardest working man I have ever seen. On KZfaq. I watched you put up your first house, etc. Keep up that energy level into older age, and you will experience the values to your health. Just remember to relax and enjoy your family from time to time. 😊

I'm glad to see the firewood adding up. But please don't cut willy-nilly into that stack of slabs. Great opportunity for a kick back of that power saw blade and chain.😉 6:15

Thanks for sharing your knowledge on wood and wood stoves, much appreciated Sir! You got a lot done this year, nice work! Love the cabin, it’s incredible! ✌🏼❤️🙏🏼

I've also seen Martijn Doolaard on his channel throwing a strap around a bunch of wood and chopping it that way. Shawn is such a great teacher.

Now i am fire Wood Master 😂,thank you Shawn James, krep care and healthy 👍🙏❤️

I only use firewood in my BBQ smoker. When my tree trimming guys trim my live oak trees every 3-4 years, I have them save me some of the branches, which I split and dry out in the garage. I have also bought bags of hickory, pecan and mesquite wood in the past. Mesquite is especially good for smoking beef brisket and pork ribs. Mesquite comes from south Texas and has a unique flavor.

If you put the saw right up to the dog teeth at the beginning of the guide bar you'll have more control over the timber, it'll stop it sliding so much especially with a saw that looks like a 562. I'm a lumberjack from Ireland. Just a tip

You are an inspiration. Persevere.

Build a V rack on 16" centers for your scab wood. When full, cut through the entire rack on 16" centers. Easy Pizzy.

Uncle Ray used to say, "Firewood warms you twice. Once when you chop it, and once when you burn it." He was from Michigan's UP.

What a great way to explain how wood seasons over time 👍

Shawn, many years ago my dad made a cordwood saw from an old Isuzu truck engine that my mom still uses. It has a good size blade on it (don't remember the size now), and it really works well. My mom uses pallet wood for some of her firewood, as well as some logs that my brothers pick up locally. A saw blade is easier to maintain than a saw chain, and has only one part to maintain of itself.

I live in the Ozarks in Northern Arkansas. We have Red Oak, White Oak, Water Oak, Post Oak and Hickory is what most folks use for firewood with the Red Oak being the best. Hickory burns super hot and is hard on a stove and also pops sparks everywhere but it will flat put out the heat.

We burn a lot of red and white oak , hickory and yellow birch here in Arkansas. The white oaks here are getting hit with some type of oak bore and many are just rotting at ground level and falling The pine here is very soft and burns hot and very fast . I'd love to see you do a video on your cleaning process for your chimney . Thank you and Be safe !

THANK YOU for a very comprehensive overview of how to use wood for heating and cooking.

Thank you for the explanation of difference uses of the different types of wood. Very interesting. Beautiful journey.

Hey Shawn I truly love how you explain all the awesome things you do on your property and how to make them long term. Thanks so much for sharing! 👏👏👏🤩🤩🤩💯💯💯

Amazing work!

The most common firewood in most parts of Norway are the birch spp (Betula pubescens and B. pendula). Though 80% of our forests are either spruce or pine not so much is used/preferred for the same reasons you said (sparks, low BTU). However, always when I walk the woods or cut timber and I come across old stumps of pine, preferably from old burns, or when the top of a pine has been attacked by a special fungus (tyritoppsopp) and died off, I shop off a bit of the dense heartwood full of resin/tar. It smells wonderful in the fire place, burns like a torch and was in fact historically a good source of light in dark winters.

We cut down a ponderosa pine tree that the diameter of the tree was 22 inches. 36 inches up from the ground we counted 125 growth rings. This was in the mountains of Colorado at 8,000’ elevation. The tree died last winter.

You are really getting that fire wood done thanks for sharing.

Just south of you our family has a camp in the mountains of northwestern Pennsylvania (also known as The Pennsylvania "wilds") and we get hammered by lake effect snow from lake Erie. We have Pine, Maple, Birch, but lots of Cherry which is what we primarily heat our place with. Actually your woodlands remind me of our place, I even hear the same birds calling (and who can forget about those spring peepers too). Speaking of birds, nice to see you're getting some bird houses up, let them do the dirty work and take care of the bug population for you. I think i even saw a bat house on your property (last time i checked our bat house, there were so many bats in it that i couldn't count em). Owl boxes are good too, they'll take care of those rodents. Anyway, keep on living for a "living", i think it's safe to say you are inspiring people. Thanks!

Hi Shawn, 🔥🪵🪓very well explained! I know that there are many good types of firewood, but the ideal is to know how to balance a “mix” of hard and soft woods at the same time....because soft woods generate a lot of flame (and heat up quickly), but they are consumed in a short time, while hardwoods do not generate large flames, but they take much longer to burn and allow us to have a more even and lasting fire... here is the white Eucalyptus as soft wood to make a flame mixed with Quebracho to maintain the flame. fire for a long time...the proportion ratio we use is for every 300 kilos of Eucalyptus, 100 kilos of quebracho.

Killing me! I’m in the PNW here and we primarily burn fir and hemlock for heating. Maple, oak and wood like that is hard to come by and takes a while to season. I’ll burn alder and cedar if I have to but they are fast and hot burns. Love madrona, that’s a good hardwood if you can get it. But yeah, my dad and now me and my brother cut and heat with fir and hemlock. We love it.

Chainsaw You finally figured it out

Love the science behind wood processing whether it be for lumber, firewood, furniture design and so on. Working with wood is so relaxing, I can spend hours splitting, stacking and so on and never think of it as anything other than pure bliss. I often smell the wood, too, after I split it as different species have their own unique bouquet. Thank you for explaining moisture content, wood burn based on type and age and creosote build up.

Here in West Virginia where i live we have lots of Hickory, oak, ash if it's nor dead and rotten. And lots of Locust which is excellent firewood , and great heating value.

A great lesson in wood storage. Good to know.

Out here in western Washington State, we have cedar, fir, pine and alder. The alder is my favorite for long burn, good heat. Cedar of course for starting fires, fir and pine for the hot quick fire. One trick with alder, is split it when it’s green, dry alder is murder…..😅😅….thanks for sharing, good video.

Good job. Firewood, like almost everything involves tradeoffs. Good discussion for the public. My wife and I have been heating with wood for 35 plus years the best wood is what you have available.

One of may favourite things in life is (finding) splitting and stacking my own wood store. Chain saw and Gränsfors Bruk axes, I have 1-2 year dry and the next 1-2 years green and stacked this year. One of life’s greatest pleasures.

Thank you for this informative segment. Our family only turns the TV on in anticipation of your wonderful posts.

Thank you for the video! For older folks... I use a big tire for chopping firewood to save from bending over after every split log.

Up here in Norway, we tend yo love birch that have been growing in the mountains. Under harsh growing conditions the wood become very dense and gives good heat.

I’m from Ireland and Ash is the gold standard for firewood, timber is very plentiful with the ash dieback disease as trees get cut not to waste them after they die.

A great firewood tutorial. Thanks mate.

A great job..good to have that put away n not have to chase around in the snow for wood ...thanks for sharing!! 👍🦊🧙‍♂️🐺👍

Hello shawn love the videos keep up the good work your new cabin is absolutely beautiful

Wowie that's a lot!😊

Good info

We woke up to snow on the ground this morning in northern Ontario & had a blizzard of snow this afternoon so - 'tis the season ... winter is here. 😊

Great Lakes region. Lots of standing dead ash. Lots of oak. Lots of soft maple. Pretty good stands of pine and fir.

Thank you Shawn for the interesting lesson of the wonderful world of firewood 😂. Heat our little house with wood only for about 10 years and at this time you can't afford to buy coal . In Germany is the Queen of wood undoubtly the beech ,followed by pine and dry seasoned birch. Our maple isn't that hard like yours but our oaks and ashes are. Fir and willow are very hard and to have in some countries but the pure gold dust in heating is the larch .It's a kind of status, I believe it's their slowly growning . I put now a piece of dry birch 15 inch high by a diameter of 18 inch on the coals of some beech quarters and close the dumper to a smale gap. Thank you again for this well made vid . All the best from Northern Germany Ludwig.

For those of us who do not have an extensive working knowledge on this subject, there is a great book. "The Complete Heating with Wood" By Larry Gay, from back in the 1970's It talks about everything in detail. Shawn kept mentioning a "face cord". It is import to know what that is. It is a stack of wood 4 feet high, 8 feet long and "only" 1 layer thick, versus a CORD which is 4 feet high, 4 feet thick and 8 feet long. So, Shawn mentioned "20 face cords". If he cuts his pieces 12 inches long, he will end up with 5 CORDS of fire wood. Great video Shawn. It shows us that even slabs cut offs are good fire wood. ;-)

Hi Shawn: Here in Australia we have various types of eucalyptus - Gum Trees mostly hard wood. Also in some states they have Iron Bark, and in western Australia they have Jarrah trees,these trees in Australia are mostly protected therefore are not allowed to be harvested unless they are dead and on privately owned land. All these trees are excellent for fire wood, and burn very hot.

what a science in wood burning. i changed to a pellet boiler, in Estonia. I just couldn't win with the wood boiler (and sooooo glad i did)

been waiting for a video like this. awesome

Incrivel. Você é muito bom no que faz. Tem tábuas aí que daria belos cachepos para orquideas! Lindo, parabéns! Aquele abraço!

What is it about a chainsaw that is so fulfilling!?! At the end of the day you know you have accomplished something!

SHAWN & OUR CALI How you Make my heart sing !!! This is the thing I NEEDED so Bad to hear that Chain saw !!! Cooking with !!! Any DEER ONES that you got Shawn ??? It is wonderful up North there Shawn !!! I have about 2-3 years worth of wood now for fireplace in the small Cabin !!! Loved that one Blue stove you had in the other cabin so I got a blue one now like that !!! Love the color of Blue any way !!! It does help to feel the wood to find on out how dry it is !!! Am thinking of building a smoke house for ring bologna that will be the apple or cherry or hickory wood for smoking it !!!

One more thing I’d like to add Sean during the winter time these are one of the mini pleasures and simple things in life that we all take for granted is the smell of hickory wood burning in a woodstove when it’s really cold out I can’t put my finger on why? it’s just one of those mini pleasures in life that at least for me I absolutely adore

Great video … what a beautiful country. All the best from the UK 🇬🇧🇬🇧

Depends on your bark. I live in the Pacific Northwest. Douglas Fir bark, that you can find many times 3 to 5 inches thick, when dry makes a long burning hot fire. Used it many time while hiking the the Cascade Mountains or out on the Olympic Peninsula for camp fires.

In the Eastern Interior, we burn white Spruce almost exclusively.. fire burns very hot, adding in alder helps it last. Larch is a good mix of heat/ duration

Good video.

I’d like to see an updated view of the entire layout. I love the workshop and haven’t seen it in a long time and forget where it’s located in relation to the cabin.

Great information!

Thanks Shawn that was good to know about firewood. 👍

Excellent video

I'm transplanted from Ohio to Danmark, we use mostly Ash here but because of the hurricane force storms we now have some really nice Mirabella wood (golden plum trees), also some cherry that got blown down. Ash is my favorite, dense, burns well and splits easy enough too. Oh and some black walnut from large limbs also down from the storms, love the smell of that wood.

Impressive work you do Shawn. Greetings from Norway 🇧🇻

Good information!

Wonderful as usual........................Namaste

Awesome tutorial👍 I first learned about trees and fire in S.E. B.C. where gigantic cedars and pines rule...and I had no chainsaw😂. But once having learned, in B.C. and the Yukon, when I returned to the prairies, often I'd be the only one around, male or female, who knew how to prep and start a fire! 👍😎🇨🇦🔥

The problem out here in Saskatchewan with firewood is that really good stuff is either in the far north, or in isolated pockets such as Moose Mountain Provincial Park which has massive birch trees. The "trees" you see on farmland are mostly a result of the PFRA shelterbelt programs from the 1920's and onward and those, although most are hardwoods, are dying and dead rotting hulks. The western provinces also have a ban on elm firewood, so you have to be careful about getting your hands on that. We have had to burn green or rotten poplar far too often out of the simple lack of available quality wood. This year we got too far behind on things so are buying birch from a neighbor that he gets trucked in from up north. He does do poplar as well, but it just isn't as high in the BTU's as birch is, and certainly leaves far more ash behind. It also doesn't smell so nice!

Creosol is the result of complex chemical reactions. 'Pine tar' build up is often considered creosol in a chimney, it's just soot which is unburnt fuel (predominantly birch and conifers logs). Signs of smoke is unburnt fuel.

You might cosider investing in a mobile log cutter splitter for the future. While logging ,cutting and splitting is admirable iI takes a toll on the body 😊👍

About 5:00 minutes into the video Shawn has incredible information about firewood that outdoorsman/women could use for a life time. I highly recommend giving it a listen and taking notes. He's spot on with the types of wood and what's worth burning versus what's not.

wow i'm impressed ,you know your woods i love your cabin you did made an excellent job Shawn, love see your dog too

BE BLESSED 🤲.

I’ve got lots of black walnut and ash some oak for hard wood then soft maple and poplar very little pine for soft wood

Hey neighbour! Watching your vids from Centennial Lake ON. We just finished building our house n getting to know our land more intimately. We've lucked out n have tons of hard maples n dead ash, making our wood pile high quality!

And that right there is what you do with off cuts!!😊

Lots of grand Fir, Red and spruce in my corner. But the Tamarack is the best. It’s available, but you gotta get up into the high stuff.

I love the hat on the raccoon target at the end great video

c'est bien de préciser pour l'écorce, j'avais tendance à vouloir allumer mes feux ainsi...vous avez une très très grande pratique des feux de bois, merci pour toutes ces précisions!!..je fais livrer mon bois, et je râle souvent quand celui-ci est trop humide, et ne s'allume pas! 🔥🪓 bonne continuation, bon courage Shawn petite touche humoristique..j'adore!!

Learn something almost every time I watch your videos. Thanks for the wood talk! 🪵

Hi shawn, we have a small cabin in the alpine regions of Australia, we burn gum trees or eucalyptus timber. Incredibly hot. I have a 100 year old wood cooker and collect the small sticks for this processed into cigar sized bits, very accurate for heat control.

Hi Shawn, yep it's most important to know your wood. Here in New Zealand we have some really great wood for fires. My brother in law had a firewood yard and sold mostly Blue Gum and Manuka for double burner wood stoves. Manuka is a member of the redwood family I believe, but native to NZ. We have a cousin called Kanuka as well. Pine is mostly starting a fire, and the harder wood used to last all night. Macrocarpa spits like an ally cat but gives great heat. Thanks for your North American tour.

Great vid Shawn. Got a lot out of it