How long to dry firewood

[lumberjack48]

Over all the years being a logger, when falling timber ahead never leave the tops on in the green season. The leaves suck all the moiscure out of the wood, this is not good when selling by weight.
 When cutting firewood i found this to work very  good, i would fall a bunch of trees down, when the leaves turned brown, firewood is ready to skid in, this is an old Indain trick.

[Pilot1]

As should be evident from the earlier replies, how long to dry depends on the species, where you live (coastal New England vs. Arizona) and other factors, such as size--a large piece dries slower than a small one.

So here's what I suggest.  Go to Harbor Freight and buy a moisture meter for about $12.  Get some pieces drying and check them regularly.  At some point they will not dry much more, no matter how long you wait.  Even when "dry" the moisture will vary somewhat.  My wood, which is in dry storage dried down to 12%, which is the same as I had in the timbers in my dry pole barn with a concrete floor.  Then we had lots of rain, higher humidity, of course, and the wood moisture went up to 15%, even though none of it got rained on--it just absorbed moisture from the air.  It's mostly Doug fir with some cherry mixed in and it burns well at either moisture level.

[Magicman]

Pilot1, Welcome to The Forestry Forum......

[Pilot1]

Thanks for the welcome. 

Used to participate as Pilot, then kind of dropped out a couple years ago while I worked on building an airplane, but got back on OK a couple days ago.  The next day the site wouldn't let me log in anymore.  Had to reregister as Pilot1.

I'm a retired silviculturist, about 25 years experience--about 3 years in Montana, the rest in the Oregon Cascades, mostly on the west side, but some time on the east side also.

[Magicman]

I wondered about the name    Jeff probably can fix whatever is /was wrong.