1. Cut the wood to length.  The wood you have pur­chased or cut your­self should be the right length for your stove, fire­place or fur­nace. This is usu­ally about three inches shorter than the fire­box width or length, depend­ing on how you load the wood.  2.  Split the wood to the proper size for your burner. For most effi­cient wood stoves, this is usu­ally no more than six inches mea­sured at the largest cross sec­tional dimen­sion. A range of piece sizes is best so that when kin­dling a fire or reload­ing on a coal bed you have some small­ish pieces that will help you achieve the desir­able instant igni­tion. A selec­tion of sizes from three to six inches in diam­e­ter for wood stoves will prob­a­bly serve you well. Keep in mind that fire­wood only begins to dry seri­ously once it is cut and split to the right size because in log form the mois­ture is held in by the bark. So, when buy­ing wood, ask when the wood was cut, split and prop­erly stacked to get an idea of how ready it is for burn­ing. For this rea­son, expe­ri­enced wood­burn­ers like to get their wood in the early spring so they can man­age the dry­ing process them­selves. 3. Pile in a sin­gle row exposed to the sun and wind. If wood is to be below 20% mois­ture con­tent when you burn it in the win­ter, it must have the mois­ture removed. The only prac­ti­cal way home­own­ers can do this is to allow the sun and wind to dry the wood for them. With this in mind, the wood should be piled in a place where the sun can warm it and the wind can blow through it. As the sun heats and evap­o­rates the water from the wood pile the wind whisks it away. 4. Let the wood dry all sum­mer.  Most folks who split their wood and stack it in well-spaced rows find that they can dry their wood in four or five months. We rec­om­mend wood that is dried for 1–2 years.