How to Cut Firewood

Jacques Couture: Hello I am Jacques Couture from Westfield Vermont. Our family owns a business called Coutures Maple Shop & Bed & Breakfast. Today I am going to talk to you and show you some of the methods used for selecting a tree to cut for firewood, how to cut it to the length, two methods of splitting the firewood, one manually with a splitting ax and another with using a hydraulic wood splitter. I am also going to talk to you and show you a little bit about how and why you should stack your firewood and the correct way of doing it.

I will be using a chainsaw, a splitting ax, a hydraulic wood splitter, an All-terrain vehicle and some safety gear. When working with some of these equipment that you just saw we need to keep safety in mind. There is a correct way to use the chainsaw, to hold down to the chainsaw so that the bar doesn't pop up and get you in the face. Splitting hammer, you have to careful how you grip that so that it doesn't bounce and get you in the leg. Hydraulic wood splitter, again you have to be careful not to put your hands in the wrong place.

These are all the things that are very good to keep in mind. The helmet that I use when I am cutting wood gives me head protection, eye protection, ear protection. I also wear steel-toed shoes so that if the chainsaw was to slip that wouldn't cut my foot off. My wife and I bought this farm 38 years ago. This farm consist of 325 acres of which a 185 forested. We manage this forest for forest production which includes firewood, timber products, maple syrup production and our forester tells us that even without the wood we cut which is over 50 quarts a year, we have more standing timber and higher quality standing timber then we did 38 years ago.

So that proves that even if you are harvesting wood and as long as you are doing it the right way, it's very environmentally sound, it provides good wildlife management and it provides us a very good renewable energy source. So let's get started.