What is the buying price of firewood?

A fireplace, wood stove, campfire or outdoor fire pit does significantly more than provide warmth. It's nice to sit in an appropriate chair and relax with a crackling fire, and if you're in the mood to entertain, it's fun to gather with friends or family. Choose bundles of dried hardwoods or packaged logs for fires that burn cleanly, last a long time and produce heat without plenty of smoke.

Utilize this firewood buying guide to find a very good firewood for the indoor and outdoor needs.

Dried Firewood vs. Fresh Wood
As you could gather fallen wood from your own yard or cut trees (if you've permission from who owns the trees), wood that's been permitted to dry thoroughly burns faster, produces less smoke and creates more heat than wood that's fresh, green or wet.

Ideally, wood must be seasoned, or dried, for six to nine months to lessen its moisture content. It's often sold as kiln-dried, this means it's been dried in a kiln, a type of oven.

Seasoned wood should feel dry to the touch and might have loose bark and splits or cracks in ends. It will feel lightweight because of its size.

If you buy a bundle of wood wrapped in plastic, ensure it's already dry or unwrap it once you get home. When it still feels wet, stack it on a firewood rack in a sheltered spot off the bottom and let it continue to dry. However, don't lean or stack firewood against your home or any other structure in order to avoid possible infestation from pests that might be in the wood.

Hardwoods vs. Softwoods
Firewood burning in an outdoor fire pit.
Hardwoods like oaks, beech, hickory and ash are among the best woods to make use of as firewood. They last a long time, although they could be harder to ignite than softwoods.  

If you're cooking foods over a fire, use maple, cherry and other fruitwoods to include flavor. Be safe, and never cook food over painted, pressure-treated, ground-treated, stained or manufactured woods that could give off toxic gases. Never burn those types of woods indoors for almost any reason.

Softwoods and semi-hardwoods, such as poplar, spruce and pine, are good choices for fire pits and other well-ventilated, outdoor areas. Softwoods are usually more budget-friendly than hardwoods, nevertheless they don't last as long. However, they are more straightforward to ignite.

Avoid using woods which contain plenty of resin, such as spruce or pine, in fireplaces, wood stoves and other indoor areas. When burned, these woods create creosote that will build-up in chimneys and result in a fire hazard.

Buying Firewood by Cords, Bundles and Other Measurements
Someone carrying a couple of pieces of australian firewood from a sizable rack of stacked, split firewood.
Assess the opening in your fireplace, fire pit or wood stove before you buy pre-cut firewood to make sure the logs will fit. The typical length for a bit of firewood is 16 inches.

Firewood is normally sold by the pallet, cord, face-cord or bundle.

The full cord is a collection of firewood that measures 8 feet long by 4 feet deep and 4 feet high, or 128 cubic feet. If you buy a full cord of firewood, you'll need to cut the logs again to make them fit into most standard fireplaces, wood stoves or fire pits.

A face cord, sometimes called a rick, is 64 cubic feet and typically measures 8 feet long by 4 feet high. As the logs in a face cord are 16 inches long, a face cord is 1/3 of a full cord.

Most firewood bundles are .75 cubic feet. Bundles are usually sold wrapped in plastic or net bags, so they're easy to deal with, and some campgrounds sell them to visitors. Bundles are often at the larger end of the firewood budget range since they're convenient to hold and use and don't require further cutting.

The Home Depot sells firewood in bundles, as individual logs, as cases of logs and by the pallet. If you get a wide range of firewood, you may well be able to own it delivered or haul it yourself. If you will need a rental truck, contact your local Home Depot store to ask if rentals are available.

Be aware that regulations for measuring cords, face cords and other levels of firewood may vary from state to state, so make sure you understand how much wood you are getting whenever you buy. Be skeptical of buying firewood from anyone other than a reputable dealer who provides you with a receipt.