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Ok I have a woodburning stove and I love it! It's even worse as it is multi fuel, so occasionally I burn smokeless fuel from Aldi on it.
What is the consensus about the most economical method of buying firewood? I can't find it, and haven't got any mates that are tree surgeons that could drop off a limb!
Softwood is cheaper and burns quicker. Hardwood is more expensive and takes longer to get the fire hot, but burns for slightly longer. Stovewood who knows?! I guess its a mix of the two but with probably more softwood in?
What is the cheapest way to buy wood? A kiln dried crate from a local or national company? Local suppliers seem to favour the bulk builders bags, but it seems almost impossible to work out which is the most efficient way to buy firewood. I need it ready to burn.
I don't have mains gas, oil, or a heat pump of any sort!
Kiln dried is safest unless you have a recommended supplier of naturally seasoned. I got scammed last year with a large delivery of wet timber that was delivered late so I wasn't in to check it. Seller was adamant that it was dry even though he'd bought the trunks 'seasoned' that autumn and chopped them straight up to sell. It was so wet I couldn't get it to burn properly after getting the stove going on dry wood. Apparently it suddenly unseasoned itself as it was on my concrete drive under a tarp for 24 hours!
If it's free/cheap/collected, it really doesn't matter if it's softwood, you just use a bit more.
Stove wood, not heard that term for a while, it could be mixed or it could be timber that likes to spit and hiss a bit, so fine for stoves but not for open fires.
I get half n half, but if I had to choose I'd use softwood.
Always thought kiln dried is a bit pointless, once it's been sitting for awhile, it'll be no drier than air dried.
Never heard of stove wood!
buy unseasoned and dry it yourself, should be half the price.
softwood usually offers more heat per £, Hardwood more hours of burn per £
Buy unseasoned as above, then just odd bags to keep you going until it’s ready.
Not quite McMoonter standards but chopping this lot kept us busy in first 3 months of lockdown - reckon we have about 5 years worth (but cost a few thousand in tree surgeons fees!)
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with lockdown and wfh all year I managed to scrounge up and process about 18m3. good job i did as I've burnt about 8 already this winter!
Have you worked out roughly your annual usage? Can you (or could you if you started building) store a whole season's worth? If you can buying everything you need for a year in the spring, stack and store you are good with naturally seasoned. Got to say I've rarely bought wood I'd choose to use straight after delivery. If you can get a load of ash that might be a good bet as it is ready super fast.
But you are right - it's so hard to know how much you are buying. Current supplier quotes by cubic metre. The other does it load or half load as is very vague about what that means. Someone else does it by the tonne - but unclear if that means 'tonne bag' or an actual tonne. Bit of a mess.
New rules coming about having to sell wood with a moisture content under 20%.
Do you have any storage space to stack and season fresh timber? Keep an eye out on FB marketplace, Gumtree etc, it's surprising how many people just want shot of wood from the odd tree from their garden. It soon builds up.
Stovewood from my local suppliers is like Douglas fir and larch. Burns well but spits.
I would get in touch with local tree surgeon to ask for where next job is that the client doesn't want. I 've found loads all seasoning nicely. Then just buy what you are running low on.
I have 3 piles, small medium and large.
My neighbour pays a fortune ordering mixed loads and getting them to stack it, they just throw it in a pile.
If you have means of transporting ie access to pickup, van etc. I've found cheap or free stuff on ebay /gumtree / facebook market place. 1. There was a local tree surgeon advertising on ebay seasoned logs in builders bag cheap but collection only, required a pickup or similar. 2. Someone selling their full log store for £30 on gumtree (they had removed their log burner), I did 3 twin cab pickup loads so it was a large amount for £30. Lots of other free or cheap if you have the transport to collect.
I've now got a normal car, so basically ordering seasoned mixed loads locally delivered. Buying from local tree surgeons where i can, seasoned, anyone delivers shite, then i just won't use them ever again
Good advice above. Plus One for building a log shed and a small space in which to process logs. I burn a mix of hard and soft wood, largely because I take what my tree surgeon can give me. Wood seasons best once split.
Depending on how committed you are and how much space you have, I seem to remember an arb drop off link that the guys on Arbtalk set up. You can specify logs or chip and the guys will drop stuff off that you’ll need to further process. It’ll be free, but beers or biscuits are welcome. I’ll see if I can find the link
https://arbtalk.co.uk/recycling
I buy from the guy I used to work for. I used to be a cutter. All hardwood and It's generally sat in his yard for 3 years then processed. I then stack it around march and it gets used the following winter so after 2 summers air drying.
We did the volume calcs and it works out buying a cubic meter of logs is about 40% air.
I cut, chopped and dried my own wood for years. I now buy a bag of soft and a bag of hard for £120, and spend my time doing other stuff (I used to work shifts, and had loads of time when everyone else was at work).
It suits me much better, and the wood I get is very good.
Most economical of all is skip diving wood but you have to strip off all the old plasterboard and dodge the screws and nails when cutting it up.
We had quite a lot after a building project and now have loads of roofing lats to chop after our porch / extension got reroofed in the autumn.
Some tree surgeons will sell you trees for you to deal with for not much money. When we had a tree cut down and said we would keep the wood for the fire the guy disappeared after a phone call for an 'emergency' job half way through ours then left us half a birch tree for the fire when he reappeared.
My BIL seems to quite often acquire bits of tree from guys cutting trees for the council. I think the beer he uses as an exchange medium probably helps in that he has managed this trick more than once.
Guy I know with an wood boiler (as in in a separate shed can take up to 1.2m long wood buys in wood from a saw mill that's the wrong size / shape for their machines. Buys a fixed wheelbase lorry plus trailer worth at a time something like £1200 I think but gets all of his heating for a couple of years for a big house, 3 teenage / adult kids.
As it’s multi-fuel why not just find a coal merchant and use a good smokeless coal? We pay £8.50 for a 25kg bag for a slow but pretty hot burning coal that’ll last nearly a week with the fire starting around 5pm and it’s still going when we turn in.
We’ve tried wood in ours but much prefer the burn time of the coal.
Guy I know with an wood boiler (as in in a separate shed can take up to 1.2m long wood buys in wood from a saw mill that’s the wrong size / shape for their machines. Buys a fixed wheelbase lorry plus trailer worth at a time something like £1200 I think but gets all of his heating for a couple of years for a big house, 3 teenage / adult kids.
My mates dad reckons he's too old to chop wood now, used to buy a licence that allowed him to take loads over the winter period from the Galloway forest, he did similar, built basically a furnace that can take whole pallets, he's got a mate who owns a large local kitchen company so he has a pretty much endless supply.
Its the way to do it if you have space and time. Speaking of too old a old boy near my parents seem to have his pension in firewood. Worked in forestry but kept a small yard with huge stacks of cut wood. He kept piling it up while he cold then as he got older started slowly using these massive stacks. Don't see him anymore but again not a bad pension solution!
As it’s multi-fuel why not just find a coal merchant and use a good smokeless coal? We pay £8.50 for a 25kg bag for a slow but pretty hot burning coal that’ll last nearly a week with the fire starting around 5pm and it’s still going when we turn in.
We’ve tried wood in ours but much prefer the burn time of the coal.
+1
We usually get decent smokeless for the lounge burner. Easy to reload and starts up from just a few firelighter cubes.
Or get anthracite. Bit of a knack to using it, but burns both clean and with a very controlled burn. Our Trianco unit runs on it 24/7 from Nov - Mar.
Chainsaw and a transit van is cheapest.
I use a supplier that mainly does kiln dried, but I get a tree that has been felled before drying and store it myself. Usually about £300 at a time but does me most winter months. I always keep a good stock of soft wood for lighting the fire and bringing it back from overnight, and for quick baths lol.
Chainsaw and a transit van is cheapest.
I'm 360 quid a year for wood, tell me how I can run a transit for this, and that's before we even talk about the chainsaw and my time. 🙂