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When Is The Right Time to Cut Wood

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By Allen Brown

The ideal time to cut wood is often argued to be during the colder and winter months, preparing for the following season. There are several reasons that many consider this as the best time, but not everyone is aware of the reasoning. Here are some facts to help you understand when is the right time to cut wood.

Cooler Body Temperatures

When you are wearing safety gear to chop wood during the summer months, this will often feel too hot. With the physical activity, you end up increasing your body temperature and cannot reduce your number of layers if you are left with your safety and protective gear. In the winter, you can reduce your layers as you warm-up, and as you complete your job, your body temperature will begin to return to more temperate levels allowing you to put your coat and other layers back on.

No Bugs

Gnats and mosquitoes are annoying, and with the physical strain of cutting wood, you don’t want to deal with any added trouble of pests and bugs. Not only are they inconvenient and annoying, but some bugs can carry diseases. It is best to avoid exposure to things like lime disease that can be transmitted through pests, such as ticks. To prevent these risks, do your cutting in the later winter months and early springtime.

Allowing Your Wood To Dry

You have to think about when you use the most firewood during the year. Although you may use a few during the summer nights when you have family or friends gathered and want to spend time around a fire, or even toast some food or snacks, most of the wood you will be using will be during the colder winter months. Wood takes time to dry out, so in order for you to have solid dried wood by fall and winter, you want to have it cut by the spring.

You can cut your wood in the fall but you will find that this is inefficient as you will use a lot more wood as it will have excess moisture in each log. This will go through your stockpile faster forcing you to have to do more overall work. Of course, if you want to make easy work of cutting wood, the best electric chainsaws would cut down your efforts considerably. These allow for easy and light work, making them perfect solutions for chores around the home as opposed to larger chainsaws for felling trees. Even if you have more effective equipment, you still want to ensure your wood has time to dry. Otherwise, burning more wood will also translate to chemicals and creosote buildup in your chimney, meaning you not only have more work in having to cut more logs, but also needing to clean more often.

Harder Ground And Surface

During the winter, the ground is more solid and harder. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you live on a large property that you have to maintain, going out to different areas to cut wood by truck can leave tracks, divots, and marks on your property. During the winter, you won’t have to worry about leaving ruts around if you are dragging your bundle back home.

Keeps You Active And Fit

One additional bonus of cutting wood during the winter is that it keeps you active. Working on a farm or having to do physical labor around your property is tiring work. This requires you to be in good physical shape. During the winter months, and the holiday season, it can be very easy to get lazy, preferring to stay indoors where it is nice and warm. That is great, but when you finally do get to working outside during the summer, you will find that getting back to a routine will take longer if you let your body relax too much. Cutting wood is a straightforward chore, and allowing you to do something simple but strenuous enough will keep your body active all year.

Best Time To Cut Down Trees

Late winter and early spring is not just a good time to cut logs for firewood, but also an ideal time to cut down trees as well. These would be classified under the dormant season. The reason this is a good time is that cutting during this season allows your trees to grow better and improve their health during the springtime. This is especially important if you are not cutting down a tree fully, but leaving about one-third of it to grow back. Cutting a tree during the late spring or fall seasons risks extra stress on the trees which may lead to further damage and disease, something you want to avoid if you want to save your trees.

It is important to consider when it is best to cut and chop your wood. Working on your property or farm requires a lot of effort throughout the year, and you will have to abide by schedules and manage your time. Winter is the most recommended time for many reasons, but you have to determine when is the ideal time that works for you.

Body Temperature, Bugs, Chainsaw, Cut, Dry, Exercise, Firewood, Ground, Reasons, Seasons, Wood

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