Learning Your Wood For A Wood Burning Stove
Monday, September 19th, 2011Owning a wood burning stove is an excellent investment for any home. Not only is it an elegant addition to your living room or kitchen, but if used correctly they can drastically reduce your heating bill at the same time. However, many new stove owners are unfamiliar with the proper wood to use and can limit the positive impact of the stove through ignorance. Fortunately, this can easily be avoided by learning the ins and outs of your new stove, and getting a basic understanding of the proper wood to use.
The first thing that everyone who owns a wood burning stove needs to learn is to always use well seasoned wood. Almost half the weight of freshly cut wood is water (that’s why it is green), which will burn poorly and create a great deal of smoke in the stove. This smoke leaves tiny flammable particles called creosote in your chimney, which can lead to a dangerous chimney fire if enough of it builds up. Always use wood that has been seasoned (dried) for at least a year, preferably two or three years. This will give you a much cleaner and better burn.
The second tip to keep in mind is that not all wood burns the same, or at the same temperature. It is easy to fall back on simply burning pine logs in your stove, but this is a mistake. White pine, hemlock, and even redwood all burn at a low heat value. You would do a little better using maple, elm, white ash, and white birch (the so-called paper tree), which are all medium heat value wood. The best, and most expensive, wood to burn are apple, hickory, and oak. These hardwoods will burn hotter for longer, and thus are often used in combination with some medium heat value logs to keep a fire going all night.
Learning your wood will save you money and keep your warm all winter long. It may be well worth your trouble to pick up a guide and learn what each different log looks like in order to distinguish it in the wild (or when buying cords of wood from a distributor). As a side tip, try adding a log of cedar to give your stove an auromatic value as well. Enjoy!
