So should you buy that cheap bag of firewood on Facebook marketplace?, or even more tempting, that pile of logs left on the side of the road by the local authorities that you have been driving past for a few days eyeing it up and planning to snaffle it at the weekend (only to find someone nabbed it on the Friday), after all its all wood and all wood burns, yes?
Well, yes it does, but it's a bit more complicated than that, and are you doing it for the excitement of it being cheap or even better ....free?
So in general there are three types of fire starters (I'm not sure what the real name for a fire/log burner owner is, but, anyway.
So first of you have your old school owner of an open fire or log burner, who was probably in charge of lighting the fire when he was a lad and has either an open fire or old-style country log burner that will literally burn anything, conifer, pine, tyres, lumps of concrete, you name it, it will go on there and you can guarantee that chimney has never been swept, and it's never seen a decent bit of firewood.
The enjoyment there for the owner, is not in the lack of heat that it produces, or the amount of smoke and pollutants that come out of the chimney it’s a fire,and it was free, job done!
Next, we have the slightly more discerning fire starter, most probably started off with some good seasoned or kiln-dried logs when he inherited the burner with the house (and probably a few leftover logs), it gave off heat, the glass in the burner stayed clean, but then one day after telling his friends about it, and how much he was about to pay for a new delivery of wood, there will be that one person who pipes up ...What? You pay how much? My mate can get you a builder's bag for £50, and then feeling like he was about to be ripped off for overpaying for kiln-dried firewood gladly takes a bag of this bargain wood.
This is where the lesson of 'not all wood is equal' begins so without doubt this will have at least 40% moisture content, KD is 16-20% fully seasoned wood is 30% after 2 years) also, it will all be mixed wood of various sizes and varieties.
It will all look dry on the outside, as all wood does after a few weeks after being split, and so the process of lighting the fire begins, It starts off well...then after the dry outer wood burns off, the flame hits the center at 40% moisture, the flame dies, the heat goes, and at best it will limp along....the result, lots of smoke, no heat lots of unburnt wood left in the grate. The remaining bag will then be left outside to dry for a few more years, by which time it will be dirty, full of insects and other little furry animals which would have made it their home, ultimately it will be useless.
Then next we have the owner of a modern efficient stove, a big glass screen that is easy to clean and maintain, has it swept every year and at best an eggcup full of soot is removed.
This person only burns kiln-dried logs and to light, it is as easy as riding a bike. 2 logs on the bottom, 3 or 4 very small logs on top of that then 5 or 6 pieces of kindling, and 1 fire lighter on the top, works every time, no matter how cold the flue is.
This person then just keeps it ticking along, one or 2 logs every now and then to keep it going, no huge roaring fire that you have you keep furiously feeding, or windows you have to open as it got too hot, just easy like Sunday morning.
So the moral of the story is, if its cheap ,its because its low quality, if it's free and freshly chopped down and lying on the side of the road, it will be fine in about 2 years after you have cut it with a chainsaw split it with a splitting axe and stacked it somewhere dry, and then realised how much effort goes into producing not a lot of wood, and that's before you have to go and hoover the boot of the car out!
Or you could order a bin load of wheeliegoodfirewood and have a bin load of kiln-dried logs delivered to the door for the next day!
With very warm days behind us and a few ahead, there is probably no need to get that fire on just yet, however, there is no point in having an empty wheeliegoodfirewood bin empty with colder days just...well days away!
Next week, why do I buy my firewood from Latvia and not from the woodland just down the road?
If you have got this far, thank you for reading!
"Warmest" regards
Alan
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