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 quite a while and produce heat without lots of smoke.
Use this firewood buying guide to find the best firewood for your indoor and outdoor needs.
Dried Firewood vs. Fresh Wood
While you could gather fallen wood from your yard or cut trees (if you have permission from the master of the trees), wood that has been allowed to dry thoroughly burns faster, produces less smoke and puts out more heat than wood that is fresh, green or wet.
Ideally, wood should be seasoned, or dried, for six to nine months to reduce its moisture content. It's often sold as kiln-dried, this means it has been dried in a kiln, a kind 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 for its size.
If you buy a deal of wood wrapped in plastic, make sure it's already dry or unwrap it once you get home. If it still feels wet, stack it on a firewood rack in a sheltered spot off the ground and let it continue steadily to dry. However, don't lean or stack firewood against your house or some other structure to prevent possible infestation from pests that might be in the wood.
Hardwoods vs. Softwoods
Firewood burning in an outside fire pit.
Hardwoods like oaks, beech, hickory and ash are among the best woods to utilize as firewood. They last quite a long time, although they could be harder to ignite than softwoods.
If you're cooking foods over a fire, try using maple, cherry and other fruitwoods to add flavor. Be safe, and never cook food over painted, pressure-treated, ground-treated, stained or manufactured woods which could emit toxic gases. Never burn those types of woods indoors for any reason.
Softwoods and semi-hardwoods, such as poplar, spruce and pine, are good choices for fire pits or other well-ventilated, outdoor areas. Softwoods are generally more budget-friendly than hardwoods, nevertheless they don't last as long. However, they're better to ignite.
Avoid using woods that have plenty of resin, such as for instance spruce or pine, in fireplaces, wood stoves and other indoor areas. When burned, these woods create creosote that can build-up in chimneys and cause a fire hazard.
Buying Firewood by Cords, Bundles and Other Measurements
Someone carrying several items of firewood qld from a big rack of stacked, split firewood.
Gauge the opening in your fireplace, fire pit or wood stove before you buy pre-cut firewood to be sure the logs will fit. The conventional length for a bit of firewood is 16 inches.
Firewood is usually sold by the pallet, cord, face-cord or bundle.
The full cord is a stack of firewood that measures 8 feet long by 4 feet deep and 4 feet high, or 128 cubic feet. If you buy a complete cord of firewood, you'll have to slice the logs again to make them squeeze 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. Since the logs in a face cord are 16 inches long, a face cord is 1/3 of the full cord.
Most firewood bundles are .75 cubic feet. Bundles usually are sold wrapped in plastic or net bags, so they're easy to take care of, and some campgrounds sell them to visitors. Bundles are often at the larger end of the firewood budget range because they are convenient to transport 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 buy a massive amount firewood, you may well be able to possess it delivered or haul it yourself. If you'll need a rental truck, contact your neighborhood Home Depot store to ask if rentals are available.
Know that regulations for measuring cords, face cords and other levels of firewood may differ from state to convey, so ensure you understand just how much wood you are getting once you buy. Be skeptical of shopping for firewood from anyone other than the usual reputable dealer who provides you with a receipt.