Selecting an correct firewood to burn in your fireplace is a necessary process. Different types of wood contains different amount of heat and burn for different lengths of time. People experience cold room within the house because the firewood dont burn for long enough to heat the room throughout the night.
In order to avoid experiencing cold rooms within the house, people must understand the difference between hardwood and softwoods. Hardwoods, like oak and hickory, contain dense wood. Because hardwoods contains dense wood, hardwoods burn slow and produce long lasting coals.
How to Choose the Right Firewood
Softwoods, like pine and cedar, do not have dense wood. For this reason, softwoods ignite quick, but they burn quick as well. Softwoods can be used to start a fire, but they are not a good firewood to use to heat a home for many hour.
Depending on the goal that an individual set for the fire in the fireplace, different types of wood can be used. If the goal is to heat a home overnight, people should use hardwoods such as hickory, apple, or oak. Both hickory and apple burns quickly and produce a high amount of heat.
Oak create a steady heat within the room that is to be warmed. Hardwoods require a long period of seasoning before they can be ignited. Hardwoods must be dried before they are burn.
Hardwoods require seasoning for up to two years before they can be burned effective. If hardwoods are burned before they are seasoned, the hardwoods will produce smoke into the fireplace instead of heat into the home. If an individual’s goal with the fire is not to heat the home overnight, but for casual use throughout the evening, then hardwoods in the mid range, like birch and cherry, can be used for the fireplace.
Birch and cherry produce a bright flame in the fire. However, the flames from birch and cherry do not last as long as hardwoods like oak. For this reason, individuals will have to add more of birch and cherry to the fireplace than hardwoods that burn slow.
In addition to these types of hardwoods, all of the firewood must be seasoned before burning. Seasoning the wood allows the wood to dry enough that its moisture content is below 20 percent. If the wood has a high amount of water content, the stove will use energy to evaporate the water from the wood when burned.
Burning wood with high amounts of water can cause smoldering and smoke within the fireplace. Additionally, burning green wood (wood with high amounts of water) can create creosote within the chimney. Creosote is a flammable substance that can create a chimney fire.
Therefore, ensuring that the wood is seasoned before burning will help to avoid these problem. One tool that can help season the firewood properly is a moisture meter. Moisture meters help to provide a factual measurement of the moisture content of the wood.
In order to stay safe in the fireplace, avoid burning certain type of wood. Avoid burning treated lumber because the chemicals in the lumber will burn and create toxic fumes in the home. Avoid burning driftwood because the salt in the wood can damage the metal in the chimney flue.
Only burn natural, untreated logs to keep the air in the home clean and the chimney intact. Finally, the method in which the fire is built can have an impact on the life of the fire. Many people start fires by adding wood from the bottom of the stove up towards the top.
However, another method of starting a fire, one that improve the efficiency of the stove, is to start the fire from the top of the fireplace down towards the stove. This method will preheat the chimney with the fire started at the top. Additionally, starting the fire from the top will reduce the amount of smoke that comes from the chimney.
Additionally, starting the fire from the top allows hardwoods to burn slow and form deep coals beneath the fire. If pine is used to start the fire, if birch is used for a casual fire, and if oak is used to provide heat for the night, then the individual will use their woodpile effective.
