The secret to great firewood is properly seasoned firewood. Whether you’re heating your home for the winter, or just enjoy a nice fire on the weekends and holidays, seasoned firewood is a must.
What is seasoned Firewood?
In essence, to be seasoned means to be dry. Wood that has been freshly cut contains quite a bit of water – nearly half its weight can be attributed to water content. This type of wood is considered unseasoned, and burning it could prove difficult, mostly because wet wood smokes a lot and does not burn well.
On the other hand, seasoned wood has been split, stacked, stored in a dry area, and allowed to dry. Softer woods, like pine or spruce, can seasoned in as little as six months, while hardwoods such as oak can take up to two years to fully season. Since seasoned wood requires more time and effort to prepare, suppliers usually charge slightly more for it, but the extra cost is more than worth it!
Moving ahead, when you contact a professional contractor, it ensures you receive perfectly seasoned firewood. This means it’s been cut, split and dried out of the weather for approximately two years to remove most of the moisture from it. The total moisture will be below 20% after our seasoning process.
Let’s look at the best reasons to rely on excellently seasoned firewood.
Easy to handle
Because of moisture needing more energy to be burned, it can also take longer to ignite. This can be a huge pain if you rely on burning wood to heat your home. Even once you ignite green, unseasoned firewood, it won’t burn as well or produce as much heat. Lighting quality seasoned hardwood for sale is much easier and more effective.
Safety
Creosote is a top concern for anyone using a wood stove. This chemical is released by burning any wood, but burning wet wood dramatically increases the rate of creosote buildup on your flue and chimney, increasing the risk of a chimney fire. Using seasoned firewood can help keep your home safer.
Clean
Wet wood also increases smoke and soot output. In early stages of burning, gasifying occurs which emits harmful pollutants. This can color your glass in front of your fireplace, the brick on your fireplace and is also harder on the environment.
Efficient to use
Seasoning wood, or removing moisture, increases the efficiency of heating in a wood burning stove. If there’s water in the wood, some of the heat energy created by burning will need to be used to remove the water – instead of to heat your home.
Wood with moisture at just 40% can hurt your burning efficiency by 50%. Fresh cut wood usually has 60% moisture content.
It is beneficial for the environment
The seasoned firewood is also a benefit to the environment since the drying process rids the wood of pests and potentially harmful spores.
- It can be taken on camping trips where firewood in Sydney is scarce, without fear of spreading infestations, adhering to “Don’t Move Firewood” mandates
- Helps stop the spread of harmful insects like the Emerald Ash Borer
- Emits less smoke into the air, compromising air quality less than moisture rich firewood
Black Forest Firewood 