How to Select the Best Firewood for Your Wood Burning Stove
When it comes to firewood, there are plenty of opportunities to save money with a wood burning stove. For example, if you buy your wood when its green and store it yourself, then you will already be making a huge saving.
When you buy wood, remember that the denser and heavier it is, the more heat it will produce. The hardwoods such as birch, apple, maple, beech and oak all burn far longer than many other woods, in particular the conifers.
What’s so good about these woods that they can produce excellent charcoal, which will keep your fire burning for longer. The embers of which can stay hot throughout the night, and continue to heat your home longer.
Although some soft wood conifers may appear to burn hotter than some hardwoods, they burn very rapidly and release less heat overall. This also means that you’ll get through more wood and you’ll also have to give your wood burning stove more attention.
A piece of hardwood such as birch will burn for twice as long as a piece of conifer wood. It’s our recommendation that you save your softer woods for use at the beginning and end of the winter season. Your requirements for heat will be less during these periods of time.
Softer woods are generally lighter than hardwoods, so you will need more of it to make up a pound of wood. Each pound of wood will deliver the same amount of heat no matter what its type, whether it’s soft or hard – in the region of 7000 BHTUs.
If you have a large garden or piece of land and want to cut your own wood, always go for the ugly woods first. If you are running a small holding, you’ll know that there are some tress that will sell better than others, so leave these for your lumber merchant and burn up something that is shaggy or knurled and unusable by lumber yards.
Through best practices, you can select good wood for your wood burning stove and get the best from it.