Logs

Prime Fuel for Woodburning Stoves

The Preferred Choice

Dried Hardwood for Wood Burners

Theoretically you can burn any species of tree logs in your woodburning stove, as long as it is dried/seasoned and not treated, but not all types of wood give you optimum performance when it comes to your heating experience.

Any wood burner expert will tell you – including the team at Humphries Stoves in Hungerford, Berkshire – that the best and most cost-effective fuel you can buy for your wood burner is kiln dried hardwood logs – preferably Oak, Ash, Beech or Birch.

Hardwood is well-suited for firewood because of its high density which means a high heat output and a convenient tendency to burn longer than softwoods, so you won’t have to top up the fire as often. Hardwood also burns with a steady flame, emitting a pleasant fragrance, and has a low resin content (which means less spitting, sizzling, smoke and tar).

Kiln dried softwoods like Pine or Cedar logs can be used as fuel in your wood burner – indeed they tend to light easier and are usually cheaper to buy than hardwood – but being more resinous they are more likely to cause tar deposits in your flue and won’t burn as efficiently as hardwoods. It’s recommended softwood be confined to use as kindling, catching quickly to get the fire going from a cold start.

The best and most cost-effective fuel you can buy for your wood burner is kiln dried hardwood logs.

Fuel Facts

What NOT to Burn in Your Woodburning Stove

A woodburning stove is specifically designed with a flat floor to allow air above to initiate combustion of logs. You therefore cannot burn coal or solid smokeless fuels like anthracite and lignite, which need a stove with a raised grate allowing air to circulate above and below.

Coal and smokeless fuels can, in fact, cause serious damage to a wood burner, because they burn hotter than wood and can cause the stove to warp – perhaps even melt.

Don’t burn treated or painted wood because they contain chemicals that are released as toxic fumes as they burn – not good for you or the environment. There’s similar danger with burning plywood or chipboard, which typically contains binding resins.

One of the biggest no-no’s with wood burners is to stoke it up with green or wet wood. Any wood with a high moisture content will burn with billows of smoke, leaving a residue that can cause corrosive damage to your stove and chimney and put you at risk of a chimney fire.

Seasoned or kiln dried

How to Dry and Store Firewood

A newly cut log naturally has a moisture content of 60% or more. For safe, efficient use in a wood burner, however, you need to burn logs with an ideal moisture content of between 10% and 20%.

You can dry out logs in the old-fashioned way – stack them out in the open, under cover, and allow them to season for a couple of years before you use them.

Not many of us have the time, inclination or space nowadays to build up woodpiles, but fortunately there is a commercially available alternative – kiln-dried logs. Logs are dried in dehumidified kilns at sawmills to a consistent quality, ready to buy in various quantities to keep your fire burning brightly throughout the winter.

Kiln-dried logs are the best for your wood burner, but there are some alternatives available on the market, such as artificial logs or compressed sawdust logs, designed to produce little smoke but lots of heat, specifically for use in your wood burner.

Whatever you choose to burn in your stove, make sure you store it in a dry, well-ventilated area, away from the stove. Logs should preferably stacked up off the ground, the top of the stack covered but the sides open to allow for air circulation.