Frugal Framnett

Okay, so now you have a fireplace and of course it is cold out and you want to warm the house.

Now you need to get wood. Now, there are some things you need to know about wood before you go out and buy it. There is only one kind of wood to burn and that is properly seasoned wood!

By seasoned wood we mean wood that has had time to adequately dry out. The wood in a freshly cut down tree contains a fair amount of water and that moisture is bad for in many different ways.

First, unseasoned wood is harder to start a fire with. Unseasoned wood also spends its burn heat in evaporating the moisture making for cooler fires. Cooler fires also means smokier fires. Smoke is inevitable, but it is also undesirable — smoke from a cool fire contains creosote and if your fire is cool that smoke does not draft out of the flue quickly and has time to coat your flue. The result? Higher risk of chimney fires!

So, make sure your wood is properly seasoned before burning. After making sure your wood is seasoned purchase the hardest wood available in your area. Consult the Chimney Sweep Online chart of woods & their heat content, again the higher the BTU content the more heat the wood will release on burning (meaning you are warmer). Typically, people look to buy wood from a hardwood species, but as long as its properly seasoned softwoods should be fine.

How long for seasoning? Wood should be cut & split and then sit outside for about one year before it can be considered to be properly seasoned. Some years ago we bought some wood and cut & split it and that same season the wood burned very poorly, but the next fall it provided for fantastic fires. I will snap some photographs of signs you can see to gauge whether the wood your considering is seasoned or not.