Firewood Tips – Seasoned Wood
Dry wood burns best. Because it’s dried out.
This advice about seasoned wood is from Master Sweep, who says, “It does not matter what kind of wood you burn: as long as it is really, truly seasoned.”
We have a caveat about PINE or fir. We think a little Pine kindling is great for helping to start your fires, But pine tar from burning too much PINE can cool on the way up your chimney or smoke stack and crystalize, adhering to the chimney walls. This can create a Fire Hazard.
Firewood Tips – Seasoned Wood
Seasoning wood is the process of letting the wood dry thoroughly over a period of a year or more.
Unseasoned wood contains too much moisture, so it smolders instead of burns, and it doesn’t produce substantial heat. If you look closely you’ll see that wet wood’s moisture changes the looks and smell of the smoke. It’s heavier and can back up more easily.
It makes sense. Wood’s carbon famously burns at Fahrenheit 451. Water boils off at 212 degrees. So the wet woods can’t burn as hot while they cook off the water. And the steam in the smoke makes it heavier to lift up the chimney.
Unseasoned wood can be used in moderation with a nice roaring fire to calm it down or lengthen the burn time.
Good dry kindling – piles of sticks and branches saved, old wood cut up and split thin, and chips from splitting your wood – stacked atop tightly balled/twisted newspaper is a special SECRET STARTER sauce. Build your log teepee or stacked logs around dry kindling, and touch a torch to it. Then give it a moment. Let it start burning to build up some small bit of heat. Then come in with your Blow Poke and spread the goodness throughout with just a few breaths at the base of the fire.
Wood will season best if it is exposed to the sun and allowed to dry. And that means drying in a wood shed if you live in a rainy locale.
We’ve found that wood does not need to be split before seasoning, and some woods are actually easier to split after it has dried.
On the other hand, splitting the wood early gets the job done early and it will help it dry a little faster faster.
You can also speed up the seasoning by thin-splitting fresh cut wood and stacking it in the sun. Don’t stack it too tight. You can speed drying by laying the rows of wood diagonally across the top of the previous row, and with wide spacing to allow through air flow (diagonal fluffed stacking). And it’s best to cover it during rains to prevent re-hydrating.
Once your wood is dried and stacked, It’s a good idea to cover it with a waterproof tarp. And that means tie downs or weighing down the edges – top and bottom – with rope or rocks and wood so that wind does not blow it off.
Putting aside the issue of seasoning wood, experts recommend burning hard woods such as oak, madrone and eucalyptus.
Hardwoods are heavier and more energy dense. Hardwoods will burn longer than lightweight softwoods, like pine.
For those who light up their fires only occasionally, they allow for recommending Pine or fir (Softwoods) for its easy, consistent burn and pleasant smell. But if you burn pine wood more frequently, we recommend you get an annual check-up by a chimney sweep to clean out the creosote build-up that can crystalize in the chimney.