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Firewood and Kiln Dried Firewood: A Comprehensive Guide

 

Introduction:

The use of firewood as a fuel source dates back thousands of years, and it remains an essential resource for millions of people worldwide.

In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the world of firewood and its kiln-dried counterpart, exploring their history, benefits, uses, and more. Our discussion will include essential information on selecting the best firewood, proper storage techniques, and how kiln drying has revolutionised the industry. We’ll also provide an FAQ section for all your burning questions on the topic.

10 Key Points:

  1. Firewood is a renewable and carbon-neutral source of energy.
  2. Kiln-dried firewood is a more efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional firewood.
  3. Properly seasoned firewood has a moisture content of less than 20%.
  4. Hardwoods are denser and provide more heat output than softwoods.
  5. Kiln drying reduces moisture content, improves combustion, and minimises creosote buildup.
  6. The type of firewood used can greatly affect the heating efficiency and emissions of a wood-burning appliance.
  7. Proper storage is crucial for maintaining the quality of firewood.
  8. Kiln-dried firewood has a longer shelf life and is less susceptible to pests and mold.
  9. Regulations and certifications ensure sustainable forestry practices and responsible firewood production.
  10. The use of firewood and kiln-dried logs is growing in popularity due to increased awareness of environmental and energy efficiency concerns.

Firewood: A Timeless Resource

Firewood has been a vital source of heat and energy for millennia, with evidence of its use dating back to prehistoric times (source). As a renewable and carbon-neutral resource, firewood is an environmentally friendly choice for heating and cooking. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that residential wood burning in the United States accounted for approximately 2.1 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2019 (source).

Selecting the Right Firewood

The type of firewood you choose can have a significant impact on the efficiency and emissions of your wood-burning appliance. Hardwoods, such as oak, maple, are denser than softwoods like pine and spruce, providing more heat output per volume (source). Seasoned firewood, with a moisture content of less than 20%, is also essential for efficient and clean combustion (source).

Kiln Dried Firewood: A Modern Alternative

Kiln-dried firewood is a more efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional firewood. Kiln drying involves placing logs in a controlled environment, using heat to reduce moisture content. This process results in firewood with a moisture content of less than 15% (source), improving combustion, minimizing creosote buildup, and reducing the risk of chimney fires.

Benefits of Kiln Dried Logs

  1. Increased heating efficiency: Kiln-dried logs produce more heat per volume compared to traditional firewood due to their lower moisture content (source).
  2. Reduced emissions: Kiln drying reduces harmful emissions, such as particulate matter and volatile organic compounds, by up to 75% (source).
  3. Longer shelf life: Kiln-dried firewood is less susceptible to pests and mold, extending its usability (source).
  4. Faster ignition: The lower moisture content of kiln-dried logs allows them to ignite more easily (source).
  5. Cleaner burning: Kiln-dried

firewood produces less creosote, resulting in cleaner chimneys and reduced maintenance (source).

Proper Storage for Firewood and Kiln Dried Logs

Storing firewood properly is essential to maintain its quality and ensure efficient combustion. Keep firewood off the ground and protected from rain and snow to prevent moisture absorption and decay. A well-ventilated and covered storage area, such as a woodshed, is ideal for promoting air circulation and preventing mold growth (source).

Regulations and Certifications

Sustainable forestry practices and responsible firewood production are crucial to minimizing the environmental impact of wood burning. Certifications, such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), ensure that wood is sourced from responsibly managed forests (source).

Growing Popularity of Firewood and Kiln-Dried Logs

As awareness of environmental and energy efficiency concerns grows, so too does the popularity of firewood and kiln-dried logs. A study by the Biomass Energy Resource Center found that wood heating in the United States increased by 34% between 2000 and 2010 (source). This trend is expected to continue as consumers seek sustainable and cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuels.

Conclusion: Firewood has played a vital role in human history, providing heat and energy for countless generations. Today, innovations such as kiln drying have revolutionized the industry, offering a more efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional firewood. By selecting the right wood, properly seasoning and storing it, and adhering to regulations and certifications, we can harness the power of firewood while minimizing its environmental impact.

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ryanwalsh

The ultimate guide to kiln-dried firewood: Top 10 benefits and more

 

Introduction:

Within this blog post, we’ll explore the many benefits of purchasing kiln-dried firewood from us in Newport. We’ll also dive into various statistics to understand the advantages of this type of firewood and why its so much better when compared to other types of solid fuels. To make it easy for you, we’ve also summarised the key points of this post in 10 handy bullet points:

  • Improved burning efficiency of kiln-dried firewood
  • Reduced creosote build-up within chimneys and wood burning stoves
  • Sustainable
  • Low moisture content ensures much better heat output
  • You dont need to season the wood
  • Less mold growth, wet wood can grow mold and even mushrooms!
  • Safe for indoor burning, in a stove and outdoor use
  • Supports local economies and job creation, rather than relying on natural gas
  • Available in various sizes
  • Convenient delivery options
  • Let’s dive deeper into these topics and explore the benefits of kiln-dried firewood in more detail.

Benefits of kiln-dried firewood

Improved burning efficiency

Kiln-dried firewood has a significantly lower moisture content compared to other types of firewood, such as seasoned firewood. This makes it much easier to ignite and to burn, resulting in improved burning efficiency.  

Reduced Creosote Build-up

When wood burns, it produces creosote and soot, a flammable byproduct that can accumulate in your chimney and cause a fire hazard, this is why you should get your chiney swept as regular as the chimney sweeper advises. Kiln-dried firewood produces significantly less creosote / soot than other types of firewood, such as wet wood, this is due to its low moisture content.

Sustainable

Kiln-dried firewood is a sustainable heating option. The wood used for kiln-drying often comes from sustainably managed forests, ensuring that trees are responsibly harvested and replaced. 

Low moisture content ensures better heat output

The lower moisture content of kiln-dried firewood ensures that it produces more heat per unit volume compared to other types of firewood.

According to the Biomass Energy Centre (http://www.biomassenergycentre.org.uk/portal/page?_pageid=75,20041&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL), kiln-dried firewood can produce up to 4,500 British Thermal Units (BTUs) per pound, while air-dried wood produces around 3,500 BTUs per pound.

This increased heat output means you’ll need less firewood to warm your home, reducing overall fuel consumption.

Kiln-dried firewood is safe for both indoor burning, say in your wood burning stove, or fireplace and our firewood can also be used for outdoor use, say in a firepit, making it a versatile fuel source for various heating applications.

Whether you’re using it in a wood-burning stove, fireplace, or outdoor fire pit, kiln-dried firewood provides a consistent, clean-burning, and efficient heat source.

Supports Local Economies and Job Creation

Purchasing kiln-dried firewood from local suppliers, such as our company supports your community by creating jobs and contributing to the local economy. 

 

We can offer you convenient delivery options

We can offer convenient delivery options throughout South Wales, making it easy to get your firewood supply right to your home. 

Conclusion

In summary, kiln-dried firewood offers numerous benefits, offering improved burning efficiency, when compared to say seasoned wood, reduced creosote / soot build-up, and better heat output, you’ll enjoy a cleaner, safer, and more efficient heating experience. 

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ryanwalsh

Are you planning on heating your home solely with solid fuels?

Introduction

After the recent spike in energy prices, we’ve all noticed that diesel and petrol is more expensive when compared to just a while back, and so is gas. This has meant that a lot of British homeowners, have reopened fireplaces within their living rooms, bought new wood burning stoves and some homeowners, may well be planning on using logs as the main way to their homes, not just this year but for the foreseeable future as well.

Therefore this makes sense, to have a firewood company, like ours to regularly deliver logs right throughout the entire year, and that’s exactly what we can offer.

We can deliver quality kiln dried logs, in any quantity that you would like. So, for example, some of our customers have a full load, that’s a vanload of logs delivered every single month. Perhaps you would like less firewood delivered, and we can offer to deliver this also. We can deliver any quantity of firewood that you would like, we mostly deliver in the cities of Newport and Cardiff, as well as all of the surrounding areas.

 

Are you worried about gas prices increasing further next year?

It’s perfectly understandable that a lot of homeowners are worried if gas prices are going to either going to increase a bit more, or could prices jump much higher next year?

This is why a lot of people like to have either logs as the main way to keep their home, or at least have an ample amount of logs stored in a log store in their garden, so that they can use their logs when they want to.  

What’s the sure is that our logs offer really good value for money, because they are competitively priced, but also our logs are also very high quality, and that’s because they been kiln dried, so they are ready for burning straightaway, in say your wood burning stove.

Now for a lot of people they might not have large gardens, so they might not have enough space to store logs and seasoning them for over a year before they are ready to burn. This is why logs unseasoned logs are often sold a lot cheaper, because you need to store them for a long period of time before they are then ready for burning.

However, our logs are totally different, they been put into a kiln, which is extremely hot, and the logs then have their moisture content reduced, so you will start to see on the side of the logs slight cracking sometimes, this is to show they have been heated up, to such a temperature the moisture is evaporated out of them.

Then our logs are ready to burn , once they have been left in our kiln for a long enough period of time, they can then be put into your wood-burning stove or burning in an open fire as soon as their delivered.

So why not have our high quality logs delivered to your door at a very affordable price.

 

We also supply businesses

You may run a chain of hotels, restaurants or perhaps pubs in Newport or in Cardiff? If so then we know that commercial gas prices can be even higher than what many residential customers sometimes pay, so you might want to have a large quantity of logs delivered by us, to your business premises on a regular basis, say every single week?

Our vans can deliver our quality logs to business as regular as every week if you would like them delivered that often, and because we offer that simply fantastic prices for our logs, you may want to heat your business premises using our logs, right throughout the winter, so why not give us a ring?

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ryanwalsh

Does your company deliver firewood during the summertime?

 

Introduction

When we think of the many businesses that sell firewood, often a lot of people instantly think that they only deliver firewood during the colder winter months.

And for some firewood companies this is true, they may only sell firewood throughout the winter  they may only sell their firewood during the winter, and the summer, that business may just concentrate on their tree surgery business, and collect the logs, ready for selling during the following winter, if the wood has been kiln-dried.

However, here at Forestry Firewood Ltd, our company is quite different, in that we supply quality firewood right throughout the entire year.

We therefore supply our firewood, in spring, summer, winter, and also during autumn.

Within this article we are going to explain the common uses for our logs are used during the summer, and we will explain how our firewood offers such fantastic value for money to our customers.

 

Fire pits

During the summer, you might like to sit out within your garden with friends and enjoy a nice bottle of red or white wine?

Therefore within your garden, you might have a large fire pit, and therefore need a quality firewood to burn in your fire pit, so you can sit enjoy a bottle of wine or two in your garden with friends during the summer.

Your garden may well be surrounded by many other gardens; therefore you want a firewood that you can burn which doesn’t produce that much smoke. It’s important to know, that wet firewood, can produce a lot of smoke, and therefore we would not recommend avoiding purchasing unseasoned, also known as wet wood.

Wet wood is very difficult to light, that’s one problem, the other is it can produce excessive amounts of smoke, which can annoy you and your neighbours, if you were to use the logs in say a firepit or a pizza oven for example.

If you were to use wet wood to burn within your home, lets say that you were to burn it within your wood burning stove, then this can damage the stove itself, but also the chimney. The reason damage can occur, is because wet wood simply creates excessive amounts of soot, which can partially block chimneys, and also wood burning stoves. Our best advice would be, avoid purchasing wet wood, and purchase quality logs, from companies that have a good reputation for supplying quality wood, like Forestry Firewood.

 

How do you ensure your firewood is dry, and ready for burning?

Our firewood goes through a drying process, which means that the wood is dried, and ready to burn, so our logs burn without causing excessive amounts of smoke.

Our logs are therefore perfectly suited for use when burning within a fire pit within your garden or within your home, say in a wood burning stove. Our firewood has been kiln dried.

 

Pizza ovens

Pizza ovens are now massively popular, you might enjoy eating a woodfired pizza in a restaurant, yet you’ve now made the decision that you would like to eat the same type of pizza within your home, without having to visit the local pizza restaurant.

Therefore a lot of people have pizza ovens made, and then ask us to deliver our high quality would to their garden. We can supply really high quality locks, that because they can dried don’t produce that much smoke, they are therefore ideal for using in a pizza oven.

You might want an ample quantity of kiln dried logs delivered to your home, so that you know you always have enough logs, ready to burn in say your fire pit right throughout the summer? If so why not call us? We have tipper vans, we can therefore deliver a large amount of logs to your home in just one trip.

 

Do you own a wood fired hot tub?

A lot of us know that because of the sharp increasing electricity costs, how expensive it would be to use an electric Jacuzzi throughout the summer.

Therefore, a lot of people are looking for alternative ways to heat their homes, and to power items such as hot tubs. This means rather than relying solely on electric and gas, many people are using logs, to heat their homes, but also to heat items, such as hot tubs, which can be heated via logs.

 

Quality logs delivered to your home

We can deliver our high quality firewood to your home, we have tipper vans, and we can quite simply tip a  large quantity of firewood off on to say your driveway for you.

 Therefore this will save you having to purchase firewood say from a local supermarket and lift it yourself out of car.

Therefore, our customers like to have a large amount of firewood delivered by us, all in one go, and that’s exactly what we can offer, and we can offer this firewood at very competitive prices.

We simply can deliver very high quality firewood right throughout South Wales, if you would like to purchase our quality logs, why not call us?

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ryanwalsh

Do you need quality firewood delivered throughout the summer and spring- then we can help

Introduction

When most people think of firewood, we normally think of logs burning a roaring open fire, and having the fire on during the colder months such, as during December.

However, firewood is now being used right throughout the entire year by many homeowners, whether it be to heat a large pizza oven, to heat a woodfired hot tub, or perhaps the homeowner likes a glass of wine or two around a fire pit within their garden.

Also due to the increasing price, of natural gas, a lot of people use their wood-burning stoves during the colder evenings during the spring and sometimes even the summer. That’s to say, some homeowners may have only used their wood burning stoves occasionally during the winter, yet, because gas has now got so expensive, some homeowners, are now using their wood burners much more often, and even during the summer evenings, if it gets cold.

 

Large quantity of firewood in stock

Some firewood retailers, sometimes only stock a small amount of firewood, and therefore once it’s been sold out say during the winter, they may not have any more to sell for a number of months.

However, the reason why so many people purchase their firewood from us in South Wales, and keep returning to purchase from us, is simply because we always keep a really large quantity of firewood in stock. We have a large barn, where we store a huge amount of kiln dried firewood.

This means that whenever you want firewood delivered, we can deliver it to you, and right throughout the entire year. Plus, if you would like to set up with us, to have a monthly delivery of our firewood delivered to your home, then we can arrange this for you.

 

Quality

Some low quality logs, purchased from some other log suppliers, if the wood is burnt say in a fire pit, within your garden, can sometimes produce a large amount of smoke, that’s if the firewood is wet.

 So, if the logs are therefore not seasoned or kiln dried, they are likely to produce a lot of smoke, and you don’t want this when you’re sitting around your fire pit in the summer with a beer.

This is why you need a quality wood instead, which burns very hot, and therefore produces less smoke, and all of our logs, are top quality, that’s because it’s been kiln dried in our very own kilns here in Newport. This means, that when you burn our logs, they produce less smoke, than wet wood, because our logs, have been kiln dried.

So, when you purchase from us, you can be assured that your purchasing high quality firewood.

 

We deliver in the spring and summer

If you live within South Wales, then we can deliver our quality logs right to your home. We know that it can be an inconvenience for some homeowners to keep buying their firewood from a local shop, for example, you might be buying logs in small net bags and purchasing these during your weekly shop at the local supermarket? Its just now, you want to buy your logs in greater quantity.

So, if you like much larger quantity of firewood, and to have a lot of firewood delivered all in one go, then why not call us? We sell is sold loose, so we can tip it onto your driveway for you. This will save you having to keep buying firewood from a local shop.

This means that once you have stacked all of your firewood, that’s been supplied by us, within your wood store, you will then then have an ample amount of quality firewood to simply use whenever you like.

 

An affordable way to heat your home

Recently natural gas has increased substantially in price, this is meant a lot of homeowners are now looking for alternative ways that they can heat their home rather than having to rely on gas. Many people in Wales, are therefore switching to burning our firewood, as our firewood is very competitively priced, which means that you can heat your home as a reasonable price.

 

Would you like firewood delivered on a monthly basis?

For some homeowners, they will burn a vast quantity of logs during the winter in order to heat their homes, however then during the summer and spring, they may still need more logs, because they may own a fire pit, a pizza oven and also a woodfired hot tub, so they then need a large number of logs during the summer and spring as well. This is why so many people call us, here at Forestry Firewood, because, we have a huge quantity of firewood, that we can deliver all year around.

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