What Kind of Firewood Should I Buy?

If you're wondering what kind of firewood should I buy to get the most heat with the least amount of creosote you're among many. Every year fireplace owners try out different types of wood, often with mixed results. When you use a wood burning stove as a source of heat you want to get the most out of it. Fuel efficiency extends beyond the reach of cars and furnaces.

The question isn't really what kind of firewood should I buy? It's more along the lines of how well seasoned is the wood? How old is the wood? This is what makes the difference between warm fire with lots of smoke and a hot fire than burns clean. If you're trying to use fresh wood you will find that the overall effect is somewhat grim. There is no real heat that comes off of fresh wood. Fresh wood is defined as wood that has been split within the last year.

Fresh wood retains a lot of moisture. Moisture, of course, doesn't burn. When you're working to get a fire started and get the flames roaring only to watch the fire die before it starts the most logical explanation is that the wood is too fresh. The natural moisture leeches from the fresh wood faster after the wood has been split. This is why you look for split wood that has been seasoned for more than a year.

Moisture from fresh wood, which is often referred to as green wood, does more than just burn with little efficiency. A single cord of freshly split oak holds quite a bit of moisture when it is freshly split. In fact, if you could wring out the cord like a washcloth you could very well wring out six of those fifty five gallon drums worth of water. That's a significant amount of moisture that you're going to try to burn through.

That moisture has a secondary impact. Wood that is moist develops a higher rate of creosote. What happens to the creosote as it burns? It goes up the chimney. It does not, however, come out of the chimney. It clings to the sides of your chimney and creates a messy, unappealing fire hazard.

Looking at firewood will give you an idea how to answer the question what kind of firewood should I buy considering what is available. It should not look fresh. In fact, it should look older, grayer, and filled with lots of little cracks all over the rings. It does not look like the picturesque firewood on the front of greeting cards but rather like drier, more brittle, and dusky wood that will burn clean and hot.