What Type of Wood is best and How to Store it?

No matter where you burn your wood, a furnace, stove or fireplace, the quality of the wood that you use is extremely vital because it dictates the manner in which it burns. Great quality wood is the key to safety and convenience. Look for split and seasoned firewood and store it in a safe place, dry place up off of the ground. If the kind of wood you attempt to use does not match the shape of the enclosure that you are burning it in, it burns inefficiently. It results in the deposition of creosote, which fuels the dangerous chimney fire. In order to successfully burn a piece of wood, it is critical that they are stored in a safe place in a proper manner.

Steps to Keep in Mind in order to Buy Good-Quality Firewood

• The first thing to keep in mind is that fact that you should never strive to order wood via phone, because that way you would not have any guarantee of its quality. The ideal way of purchase would be to go the supplier, visit the store, check the quality properly and then place the order.
• Firewood is sold in units called cords. A full bush cord is 4’ high x 8’ long x 4’ deep.
• When you visit the store make sure that the wood you are about to buy is clean because wood with dirt or mud on its surface will, first of all, be messy in your home look very unattractive and will not burn inefficiently.
• You should ask your friends who burn wood regularly because they can provide you with helpful tips and who their supplier is.
• Try to buy wood in the spring, definitely before winter sets in and store it somewhere until winter. This will allow you to control and maintain the seasoning process.
• You need to make sure that the wood is split in a proper manner, so that fits your fireplace accurately. Ideally, the firewood should be 3” shorter than your firebox. The logs should be split into a variety of sizes. You should do this in order to ensure that you do not need to re-split it to fit your burning space.

What are Best-Quality Tree Species that can efficiently be used for Firewood?  

It is a very common fact that most people are aware of is that The degree of hardness of a wood dictates the period for which that particular kind of wood is going to burn. The harder the wood, the longer it will burn, accordingly, soft wood will burn out very fast. The examples of hardwood are ironwood, Rock elm, Hickory, Oak and Sugar Maple. While a few noticeable examples of softwood are Balsam, Spruce, Basswood, Pine and Poplar.

Unique Features:

However at the end of the day, all kinds of wood are chemically similar, no matter what their species are. Moisture content and density are the characteristics, which dictate the behaviour in the fire, and the value of that particular piece as firewood. Maple and Oak apart from being a long burning type have higher energy content per cord, which means they release more heat per firebox load.  

Generally hardwoods are the preferred choices for firewood. Softwoods are generally considered during the seasons of spring and early fall. The modern fireplaces and woodstoves, use the new and advanced technology. They can equally make use of a wide variety of wood. This is because of their immense amount of control over the combustion process.

Suggestions that will help you in stacking wood in a proper manner:

Traditionally softer woods, like for instance, spruce, aspen or pine, should be cut, split and stacked in the proper manner during the period of early spring, in order to make them ready for use in burning, during the fall. However, immense hardwoods, like maple and Oak, along with other large pieces of firewood, take far longer, almost a complete year to properly dry. The process of drying might even be longer if the climate is damp.

The following are a few tips that would guide you properly about the process of stacking

• Cover the tops of your wood piles. Do not cover the sides to allow air flow. You must always strive to cover the top surface of the wood. This can be done with some kind of material, material so as to prevent them from being damaged by rain.
• You should always stack your wood in separate rows. The summers can appropriately warm them up. The moisture is removed.
• Never let the wood to lay bare on the ground for more than a few days. This is before you decide to stack them up. This is because rotting and moulding can set in very easily and quickly.
• It is highly recommended that you stack the wood, up off the ground on pallets, lumber rails or poles.

How to appropriately decide whether a particular piece of wood is dry enough?

With a slight amount of experience you can very easily judge the dryness of the wood. The moisture content in the wood can be effectively understood with proper practice. There are few foolproof ways in which you can effectively determine make out between dry and moist wood. The ways of judging the wood are given in a descending order, starting with the best to the least-effective.

Moisture meter is a battery operated device that will tell you the percentage of moisture in your wood. You insert the device’s probes into the end of the firewood and ideally you will get a reading of 20% or less moisture.Grains and checks are generally considered to be very effective indicators of dryness; however they are not always as conclusive. This is because there may be an existence of a situation where dry wood is free of cracks and vice versa.

Sound & weight –

By banging two pieces of firewood together you will hear different sounds depending on whether it is dry or wet. Dry wood will sound hollow, wet wood will give a dull thud. Also wet wood is very heavy because of the water. This method will take some practice. Another very significant and effective factor is the colour. You can judge its dryness, depending upon its colour. As wood when moist retain their original colour of white or cream and when they actually become dry, their colour tends to change to grey or yellow.

Colour & appearance –

Dry wood will lose that creamy colour, and darken or turn grey. You also want to see radius cracks in the wood or checking.Third point of consideration is weight as dry wood weigh higher than wet wood.

Sizzling & steam-

If you put a piece of firewood on a briskly burning fire, with the end showing you will see steam or hear sizzling. This is the water being boiled out of the wood. Wet wood doesn’t have as much heat as the energy of the wood is being used to boil the water. Lastly, another factor that dictates its dryness is if it is cut off. When you slice a piece of wood and feel the sliced surface, if it feels damp then it will not burn.

Properly seasoned firewood is the magic that makes your stove or fireplace burn safely and efficiently. You can avoid creosote build up and add warmth. Dry wood is the best form of wood for burning. In fact, there are many ways of stacking them.