Norwegian Wood

February 20, 2013 4:36 AM

“Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood — and the Soul of Wood-Burning” This best selling book by Lars Mytting highlights a passion for firewood and inspired a TV program in Norway about cutting, stacking and burning firewood. The TV program, on the topic of firewood, consisted mostly of people in parkas chatting and chopping in the woods and then eight hours of a fire burning in a fireplace. Yet no sooner had it begun, on prime time on Friday night, than the angry responses came pouring in. “We received about 60 text messages from people complaining about the stacking in the program,” said [Mr.] Mytting .... “Fifty percent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down."
posted by caddis (81 comments total)

As someone who has cut and stacked firewood, and burned about a gazillion fires in the fireplace, I can relate to this passion. The bark goes up by the way.
posted by caddis at 4:37 AM on February 20

Why does it go up? Because you said so?
posted by thelonius at 4:41 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I put mine the side, and then when it dries, I peel it off and cook it with butter, the way God intended.

And doesn't faketroversy sound a lot like toilet paper under-over?
posted by Old'n'Busted at 4:47 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]

The game is seasoning one's wood so that it's nice and dry (after a year or so) and burns efficiently in the stove. Some must believe that having the bark up will help the wood to repel water and dry more quickly.

I'm of the "howsoever contributes to the stability of the pile"-type stacker, though I secretly envy those sexy conical piles that one sees here and there.
posted by mr. digits at 4:47 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]

It goes up because the bark keeps rain from soaking into the wood, presumably speeding the drying/seasoning process.

It's not perfect, but if the wood faces up, rain soaks straight in. The bark helps shed quite a bit of it.
posted by Malor at 4:47 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

I guess bark up kinda makes sense to an outside non-chopping observer: Bark protects trees, trees are rained/snowed on, therefore bark would protect chopped wood.
posted by DisreputableDog at 4:47 AM on February 20

Doesn't the wood beneath the top layer get shielded from rain by the wood above it?
posted by thelonius at 4:49 AM on February 20

So this Norweigan wood, it actually *is* good?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:51 AM on February 20 [5 favorites]

Indeed it is, thelonious. Yet, a woodpile stacker must obey the inexorable exhortations of their soul.
posted by mr. digits at 4:52 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Bark up might be an advantage if you're going to leave it out in the rain. Otherwise, it's not important.

Also, you can get the wood drier much quicker if you split it down into pieces about 3 inches in diameter - I find that wood I cut in the spring and summer is ready to burn by the winter that way.
posted by pipeski at 4:57 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I think the most important factor is stacking it so that it doesn't fall down, especially on top of you. Around here the top of the pile usually has some corrugated roofing material on top- presumably this sheds water even better than bark.

And I'm so envious of these 10-20 cord stacks of wood I see in other people's yards.
posted by MtDewd at 5:00 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: Fifty percent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 5:09 AM on February 20 [9 favorites]

Bark orientation becomes most critical in soggy climes and where the piles won't be covered. But everyone I've ever stacked with goes with bark up, for the reasons given above.

I've spent days in the woods alone with a bow saw cutting up fallen trees, where a day's labor might yield a cold week's worth of wood. But from this I would feel a depth of satisfaction never experienced in any other pursuit. It's a very primal thing.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:14 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]

“Solid Wood,” the title of Mr. Mytting’s book, has a double meaning in Norwegian,

*snigger* I'll bet it does...

signifying also a person with a strong, dependable character.

Oh. How disappointing
posted by fatfrank at 5:22 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

I'll be right back, I need to go throw a log in the woodstove.
posted by HuronBob at 5:22 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: sexy conical piles
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:28 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

those sexy conical piles that one sees here and there.
Holz hausen are pretty great.
posted by zamboni at 5:28 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

bark

ʞɹɐq
posted by DisreputableDog at 5:30 AM on February 20 [7 favorites]

If you like stacking wood, I know a book you might enjoy.
posted by box at 5:31 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Bark up if it's exposed to the elements and weather, bark down if it's well covered and in direct sunlight.

This article seems to be puzzled and amused by the existence of the show, or am I misreading it? What about the show makes less sense than anything else on television?
posted by Stagger Lee at 5:32 AM on February 20

I'll be right back, I need to go throw a log in the woodstove.

I predict that this thread wins the "highest number of potential obscure euphemisms" award for the month....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:34 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

If you're air drying wood - I mean really air drying wood, with sticker stacks and moisture meters and stuff, the maxim is one year per inch of thickness. If you fail to paint or PEG (pdf) the ends, though, you'll get checking that goes in 3-6 inches in two or three weeks. The physics of mass drying of wood is going to be a little more complex, but really, I think this is arguing about which side of the crouton it's better to pet.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:35 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I really want to watch this show, if english subtitles exist. And I really want an english translation of the Lars Mytting book. The article does not tell me if such a thing is possible, and google just shows various permutations of this article. Any ideas?
posted by dubold at 5:37 AM on February 20

which side of the crouton it's better to pet.

The inside, obviously.
posted by dubold at 5:38 AM on February 20

Typical Norway. People in the East (where the climate is drier, and it's generally sunnier) probably swear that bark-down is the way to go, as it probably allows the wood to dry quicker. In Vestlandet (where I live) they probably swear that bark-down is the way to go, in order to shelter the wood better from the rain (somewhat humorous, since it's typically horizontal rain). Let the holy war commence. I do what most people actually do and throw it in mesh bag to dry (bark everywhichway).

FYI, as a person living in Norway with first-hand experience with cutting down trees and splitting them into firewood, I can tell you for a fact that I have never once seen nor heard of someone actually doing this with an axe. At the rate the Norwegians burn wood, there is no way to split wood with an axe fast enough to supply your demand.

If you want serious controversy, you could observe that most Norwegians do not know how to start a fire in the correct way. Suggesting a way other than how they learned how to do it as a child is simply heresy.
posted by grajohnt at 5:39 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

If you want to make your hard-earned wood last about twice as long, you should read up on gasifying woodstoves. Not only are they pretty, their combustion efficiency is about ~80%, as opposed to ~40% from a plain single-pile stove. If your chimney is smoking, you're throwing unburnt fuel away.
posted by anthill at 5:40 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Around here the top of the pile usually has some corrugated roofing material on top- presumably this sheds water even better than bark.

Hell, when I was a kid my father stacked our firewood to dry in the garage, so it didn't make a difference where the bark was. I didn't even know that was a Thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:41 AM on February 20

“Fifty percent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down."

TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!!!
posted by blue_beetle at 5:48 AM on February 20 [7 favorites]

It's Ron Swanson's world. We just live in it.
posted by dry white toast at 5:49 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Wow I guess my obsession with splitting logs is genetic. Apparently some gene from my Norse ancestors is responsible for the utter zen like transcendent state I can reach in spending a whole day splitting wood.
posted by humanfont at 5:51 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Holz hausen are pretty great.

I tried building one of those a few years ago. On my first attempt, I got the walls built halfway before they collapsed in a cacophonous radial explosion of firewood. The second time around I reduced the scope a bit and ended up with something halfway decent.

I wouldn't recommend building a holz hausen unless you're planning to let the wood sit drying for a few years. They're very laborious to construct and even harder to take wood from without toppling the whole thing. If you're just laying in firewood for the winter, it's easier to just stack it up in a boring old rectangle and put a tarp over the whole mess.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:58 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

It was when I received a moisture meter for Christmas that I knew my family had accepted my obsessive tinkering with all elements of wood cutting, storage, and burning. They heard me talking wistfully about wanting to monitor the moisture levels of my firewood, and they listened.
posted by itstheclamsname at 6:01 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

I do all my firewood stacking in Iron Age Finland in URW. He needs to implement an option for bark orientation, apparently.
posted by history_denier at 6:11 AM on February 20

Does bark up/bark down matter if you're tarping your pile?

I've been in the stack for stability camp so far, but am willing to make changes if necessary. This winter's wood spent a good long haul under a heavy tarp, and is burning just fine.

I do a lot of stacking. But I will totally recommend the volunteer splitter who wants to get in shape for a challenge race and offers to cut rounds with his lovely, lovely ax. Thank you, Norwegian wood karma!
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:12 AM on February 20

Doesn't the wood beneath the top layer get shielded from rain by the wood above it?


The layer on top is always the layer you are about to use. It doesn't help you much if they wood in the middle of the pile is nice and shielded by the top layer and the wood you're trying to burn is soaking wet.
posted by gauche at 6:17 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]

It goes up because the bark keeps rain from soaking into the wood, presumably speeding the drying/seasoning process.

If the bark is up you can get rot and mold on the bottom.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:40 AM on February 20

The bark goes up by the way.

There's a passage in the book where Mytting explains how different areas in Norway use different practices and how that's liked to the climate.
"New research shows that the drying process is completely marginally faster when the bark faces down, but the difference is marginal...no matter which it is important to make use of the water-repellant properties of the bark in unprotected woodpiles...logs with the bark on top function like a roof...downward pointing bark in the lower layers protects the wood against humidity from the ground...
These factors explain why Norway has formed two schools ... close to the coast the wood is stacked with the bark facing up, further inland they put the bark facing down. The reason is that inland, the [should be "most"] precipitation comes down as snow, and since one hasn't the same problem with driving rain as along the coast, nor the same good drying conditions as given by the winds of the coast, the wood does in fact dry faster with the bark down."
Slop-translated from the Swedish version, p. 109.

The book is a success even here. For us, house owners who exclusively heat with wood (even the warm water...), it has actually proven to be genuinely helpful. It has made that I re-ckecked and refined every single step in the (quite substantial) chain of actions around my wood reservoir. And I've already been out, cutting and splitting and piling, a month earlier than otherwise.
posted by Namlit at 6:46 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]

I am really impressed with Norway's ability to produce longform video that I find extremely compelling. Remember the 9 hour train video from a few years back?

This stuff appeals to me with a fervency and longing that surprises me, and makes me wonder if even 6 generations deep into American muttitude my Norwegianness shapes my tendencies and tastes. At any rate, I would love to watch the firewood video ("but occasionally her hands could be seen putting logs in the fireplace, or cooking sausages and marshmallows on sticks." OMG!), and I would also love to read that book.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:52 AM on February 20

The layer on top is always the layer you are about to use. It doesn't help you much if they wood in the middle of the pile is nice and shielded by the top layer and the wood you're trying to burn is soaking wet.

What they're talking about up there in Norway is in fact not the "use" pile but the "dry" pile: the one you create after you've cut and split your next season's wood.
"Dry" piles are assembled in these parts from around this time and - depending on the climate - until the end of April. You pile up the wood in airy rows, space between, in sexy conical piles, or whatever else shape that actually allows for some real air drying, and you have to stack as loosely as possible without causing collapse. Air drying only happens if you don't seal the stacks off too tightly, so no permanent tarp - perhaps a bit of corrugated roofing on top, but nothing more.
Then you can stack away everything in July, in a protected shed or similar, and it's ready for use. At that point, it is more efficient to stack the wood as tightly as possible, and the orientation of the bark doesn't matter a bit, since the wood's dry. Permanent protection is the most important.

You never use wood from a pile that's still drying out there, unless you're out of stock (been there).
posted by Namlit at 7:04 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]

mrdigits - I am named after a Stevie Wonder song. Check it and you will find the spelling is perfectly correct!
posted by thelonius at 7:06 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Bark up? To shed rainwater?

That's why Dad built the wood shed. To keep our firewood dry. And to have a cozy place to chop.
posted by notyou at 7:12 AM on February 20

Did you hear the one about the Norwegian who stacked his freshly chopped wood all jumbled, and then tied it up with a sloppy knot? His bark was worse than his bight.
posted by chavenet at 7:16 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]

"Its publication appears to have given older Norwegian men, a traditionally taciturn group, permission to reveal their deepest thoughts while seemingly discussing firewood."

For no good reason, this suggests to me a uniquely Norwegian version of the Voight-Kampff test.

Also, a vision of the late Brion James saying "My firewood? Let me tell you about my firewood." <pistol shot>
posted by McCoy Pauley at 7:17 AM on February 20

I stack my bags of wood pellets^{^} label-up. It's the only way to do it. Totally messes up your pellet stove feng shui if you stack them face-down.
posted by XMLicious at 7:23 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I love everything about this thread and conversation, my fondest wish is for a cabin, a wood stove and for 99.99% of humanity to bugger off. Any of you are welcome to come by for coffee and fire contemplation in sensible Scandinavian doses, however.
posted by Divine_Wino at 7:24 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

You’re in a forest walking along in the rain when all of the sudden you look over, and you see a piece of firewood. You reach down, you flip the firewood over on its bark. The firewood lays on its bark, its wood beaten by the cold rain, doing nothing to try to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

You’re watching television. Suddenly you realize there’s a moose in the room.

Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about lutefisk.
posted by frimble at 7:30 AM on February 20 [13 favorites]

Some years back, I took a SAS flight to Oslo. The in-flight entertainment consisted of a documentary on lutefisk, from which I learned a chainsaw was a handy kitchen implement when dealing with lutefisk. In combination with this thread, I gather a chainsaw is a must-have item in Norwegian households.
posted by needled at 7:40 AM on February 20

This is incredible.
posted by mean cheez at 7:42 AM on February 20

I stacked my wood with the bark facing in all sorts of crazy directions, for I was a maverick.

Well, that, and our wood shed had a roof.

Early on, we only ever had the woodshed full, but by the time I was a teenager, we mostly kept two years of wood on hand -- one for aging, one for burning. The aging wood was stacked behind the woodshed, on a bunch of cut end blocks, usually but not always split. We would bring in a winter's worth of wood over the course of about 2 weekends in early summer, and dump all the logs, cut to length but not split beside the woodshed.

We'd move the now aged wood into the woodshed and pack it willy-nilly and helter-skelter (in terms of bark -- the actual stacks were *very* neat and tidy for stability, especially as we would eventually stand on the lower stacks in order to stack the upper stacks) because the woodshed had a roof on it. That was usually my main task. Then my brother would split the new wood using a log splitter and we'd stack it behind the woodshed to age, covered in tarps.

I've always felt we could have saved ourselves an epic crapload of moving wood from one spot to the other if we had simply built a roof over the aging wood, too, and switched back and forth each year, which one was aging and which was burning. But then, since my brother and I had to do all that wood moving, I suppose my Dad didn't much care.

I am feeling almost nostalgic about bringing in wood right now, sitting in my comfy chair in my centrally heated condo, but I believe that sense of nostalgia wouldn't hold up to actually having to do any of those things we did. I hated it then, and I'd hate it more now.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:02 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Yet no sooner had it begun, on prime time on Friday night, than the angry responses came pouring in.

I figured it would be people bellyaching about the health hazards of wood smoke. Burn wood and your chimney is like a giant cigarette, ya know.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:23 AM on February 20

The trick to stacking wood is to fell the tree just right.
posted by Kabanos at 8:34 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]

I really, seriously, want to move to Norway so bad.
posted by Shepherd at 8:40 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

mgrimm: Does that apply to the high temperature wood gasification stoves too?
posted by pharm at 8:49 AM on February 20

Before ignightenment: Chopping wood and stacking it with the bark facing up.

After ignightenment: Chopping wood and stacking it with the bark facing down.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:02 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]

Kid Charlemagne -- that's stacking lumber, not wood. And don't forget to weigh down your pile to stop cups and twists too..

That said, ya'll seriously stack your just-split wood that way ? And it dries in a year ?

I chimney stack all my wood. Two pieces one way, 2 pieces perpendicular to the first for the next level. Best way to get airflow all around, prevent rot, etc. I don't cover it until it gets moved into the dry/ready-to-burn pile in my halfassed wood shed.
posted by k5.user at 9:25 AM on February 20

As an Asian-American born and raised in suburban and urban areas, this article made me wonder at multiple times if I was reading the Onion, or if somehow newyorktimes.com had been vandalized.
posted by kurosawa's pal at 10:28 AM on February 20

Apparently some gene from my Norse ancestors is responsible for the utter zen like transcendent state I can reach in spending a whole day splitting wood.

I have (to my knowledge) no Norse ancestry but I agree on the zen part. The sound of an axe head cleaving a log section and the way the weak parts of the wood come cleanly away are extremely satisfying.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 10:31 AM on February 20

I figured it would be people bellyaching about the health hazards of wood smoke. Burn wood and your chimney is like a giant cigarette, ya know.

mgrimm: Does that apply to the high temperature wood gasification stoves too?

Not really, but depends on the stove. In addition to improving combustion efficiency, there are additional technologies that can be used to decrease the particulate emissions. The paper "Ultra Low Emissions, European-Style Wood Combustion technology" provides some comparisons, but could be organized better. Pages 9, 10, 17 and 18 are relevant. There are other wood combustion strategies, such as rocket stoves, that also reduce emissions. It's kind of hard to quantify, though, as things such as fuel quality, wood placement, and proper flue maintenance can effect things quite a bit.

On top of this, complaining about the health effects of wood fires, while certainly relevant, is a total buzzkill. Give me a world where I can enjoy a nice fire with some friends and I will happily live in it.
posted by nTeleKy at 11:12 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

All of you guys waxing poetic on the joys of splitting wood have never had to deal with the remains of the shag-bark hickory that fell on your house.
posted by TedW at 11:16 AM on February 20

Lumber, wood - it's all just dead trees. My point was that the rate at which it dries via the end grain is so great relative to the bark or the split face that it almost certainly doesn't matter much.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:44 AM on February 20

If you really wanted your wood to dry as fast as possible, wouldn't you stack it as vertically as possible so that the moisture would flow out along the natural phloem and xylem channels under the influence of gravity (hence the conical stack, perhaps)?

And wouldn't you want it cut with as sharp a saw as possible to avoid mashing shut the water channels on the ends?
posted by jamjam at 11:46 AM on February 20

Log splitting trick.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:00 PM on February 20

I was pleased to find that my guess it's possible to build a solar kiln to dry firewood was confirmed by copious search results for ¿firewood solar kiln‽ - but disappointingly beginning with a USDA study of firewood-drying methods that says they make no difference. Dang it, the gubmint just loves to ruin everyone's fun. Its contents might be relevant to the discussion at hand, however.
posted by XMLicious at 1:33 PM on February 20

Great thread. I do a lot of warm winter camping (not an oxymoron but a style of camping) in the BWCA so end up doing a lot of locating, cutting and splitting of wood to use in the wood stoves we haul out (hence the warm part of the camping). You really become a connoisseur of firewood. There is nothing like finding a great piece of cedar that just explodes under the axe when you split it. Also, here's a shout-out to the Fiskars X25 - a sweet, sweet splitting axe.
posted by misterpatrick at 1:42 PM on February 20

I just keep my firewood in a dresser drawer.
posted by Toekneesan at 1:44 PM on February 20

I lived for three years in a cabin in which the only heat came from a 55-gallon barrel converted to a woodstove. Every fall there was the ritual of buying and stacking a cord or so of wood for the winter. There is nothing more comfortable than the heat from a woodstove, even when the only way to regulate the temperature is to open windows. I miss that place.

Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about lutefisk.

I do not have to eat it.
posted by caryatid at 1:45 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

I really, seriously, want to move to Norway so bad.

Yeah, I hear that. I even have relatives there. I read something like the article on the NHS yesterday and it just gets worse. I have been there twice - in the summer.
posted by thelonius at 1:56 PM on February 20

Pardon my misspelling of your moniker up top, thelonius.
posted by mr. digits at 2:17 PM on February 20

Moving to Norway is not easy, and you have to renounce your former citizenship. But if you get through it, at least you get shows like this.
posted by Megami at 2:18 PM on February 20

No problem mr. digits - I am tired of it to tell the truth - I'd change it to Commisioner Gourd or something if I could
posted by thelonius at 2:24 PM on February 20

Moving to Norway is not easy, and you have to renounce your former citizenship.

I did not know that. My Grandmother was Norwegian - do you know if that would help?
This is not beyond the daydreaming stage yet, anyway.
posted by thelonius at 4:18 PM on February 20

In Australia, people watch woodchopping competitions.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:11 PM on February 20

grajohnt, that cant possibly be how anyone tries to light a fire can it?
posted by wilful at 1:02 AM on February 21

We cover our 20 woodpiles with tarps, sheet metal, and plastic, so the bark direction doesn't matter.
Then we haul in about a cord at a time into the basement, to finish drying next to the main wood-burning stove.
In April we bring in a cord to dry nicely over the summer and fall.
posted by doctornemo at 5:02 AM on February 21

wilful, People do build top-down fires, which appear strange to most of us, but are quite efficient and (so I'm told) reliable. The wood itself is not burning, but rather giving off gases that undergo combustion when they're sufficiently heated. When the combustion area is on top of the wood it's more likely for those gases to combust rather than escape to the atmosphere or condense in the chimney. I still haven't been able to bring myself to try it, yet, though...
posted by nTeleKy at 7:30 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

The Fiskars X25 seriously changed my life.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:41 AM on February 21

In Australia, people watch woodchopping competitions.

Logger Sports, as they call this sort of thing where I'm from, are also big in Canada. Probably everywhere where they have loggers, really.

We did Loggers Sports as the main focus of one of our summer festivals in my tiny town -- pancake breakfast, followed by axe-throwing, nail driving, cross-cut sawing and probably a couple of other things, followed by a potluck supper and dance -- but there are towns with bigger competitions and an official association that runs championships and whatnot.

Stihl sponsors a "professional" series called Timbersports in the US, as well.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:03 AM on February 21

log-rolling is a fun one to watch .. As are some of the hand tools.

The "how fast you can start your 32" bar saw and cut 3 slices off a honking log" activity, however, stretches my ability to call it a sport ..
posted by k5.user at 9:34 AM on February 21

Damn, I miss having firewood and a fireplace.
posted by homunculus at 1:53 PM on February 21

wilful - You won't believe how good it is until you try it. It goes against 'everything you know about building fires', but it really is the most effective way - producing less smoke overall, and burning longer and more efficiently than burning from the bottom up.

Look up 'top down fires', and you'll find plenty of info - and try it!
posted by grajohnt at 6:11 AM on February 22 [1 favorite]

If you take top-down fire building to the extreme, you end up with a Top-Lit-UpDraft gasifier, which runs on woodchip/pellets, burns only the "smoke", and leaves behind charcoal which can be buried in your garden as biochar (actual, working carbon storage unlike this).
posted by anthill at 8:08 AM on February 22