How long to season firewood

[keliz5000]

How long should you season sweet chesnut firewood, 1, 2, or 3 years? What is best? And what about oak, they say to season it for 1 year, but does it get better if you season it for 2 or more? I've been looking for a website that might have all this information, but I can't find anything.

[Millymollymandy]

2 years is best and 3 is even better. One year is not a lot but I suppose it depends on how it is stacked and aired and the size of the chopped logs, and how hot and dry a summer you had.

[Annpan]

Someone on here recommended 1 month per inch (diameter) of firewood, I'd go for twice that long, and only count summer months.

I am currently burning oak which has been drying for 4 years(ish) and it is fantastic.

If you have the time and the space I would agree with MMM 2 or 3 years is great.

[richyboy]

I'm sure this has been posted before, but:
The Firewood Poem
Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year,
Chestnut's only good they say,
If for logs 'tis laid away.
Make a fire of Elder tree,
Death within your house will be;
But ash new or ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold

Birch and fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last,
it is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E'en the very flames are cold
But ash green or ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke,
Apple wood will scent your room
Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom
Oaken logs, if dry and old
keep away the winter's cold
But ash wet or ash dry
a king shall warm his slippers by.

There is another poem as well, but it is twice the length and the english is even more difficult to understand. I think the jist is that you should leave it as long as physically possible and don't forget that split logs will dry much faster than those still in the round.

[wulf]

It sounds, from the poem, like ash is the wonder wood - wet or dry, old or new. Does that folklore bear out with people's experiences?

Wulf

[Shirley]

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/woodburning_chart.html

It seems that ash is very good, but it's not the only one, and sweet chestnut spits a lot and the above site only recommends it for a wood burning stove.

[Millymollymandy]

Yes I absolutely don't recommend it for an open fire as my cat got set on fire! No actually it wasn't as bad as that but still worrying - a burning cinder spitted out at him and I eventually found him up on the 2nd floor with a singed bit on his tail looking a bit confused and some burn marks on my rug. Now I have a wood burner and no more potentially dangerous accidents - and we can burn all sorts of different woods in it - no probs with spitting or acrid smoke or whatever.

Some woods that people say are not very good seem to burn fine to us. I wouldn't pay for it but if you are cutting down some of your own trees I wouldn't worry if it was poplar or elm because we've burnt both and they burn very well.

[gdb]

I'd give Sweet Chestnut and Oak 3 years for the best results.

If you burn them before, you're kind of losing out.

Oh, yes, Ash. Best firewood of the lot. If you have land and a stove, or open fire, plant and coppice Ash. Better than all the rest.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I confess I only season for a year, but I use an outbuilding with an excellent East / West through draft that reaches temperatures in excess of 30° during the summer and that works!

Otherwise I buy from a supplier who guarantees two years seasoning.

[Thomzo]

Yes I absolutely don't recommend it for an open fire as my cat got set on fire!

My old cat insisted on curling up right next to the fire. One day a large ember spat out onto her and started burning her fur. She just carried on sleeping. She only woke up when I dashed over and tried to move it off her. The smell of burnt fur was horrendous. I have no idea what wood it was but possibly skip wood; old pallets or fence post.

I'd agree with the general sentiment to season as long as possible. Even leylandii will dry enough to burn, if you leave it long enough. I am currently burning 6 year old leylandii and it seems to be OKish.

Zoe

[MikeM]

Some woods that people say are not very good seem to burn fine to us. I wouldn't pay for it but if you are cutting down some of your own trees I wouldn't worry if it was poplar or elm because we've burnt both and they burn very well.

same here. We burn elm and, it being all dead and all, it burns fine. but the poem says it doesn't.

[Annpan]

Maybe the poem is more true of open fires?
I burn all kinds of everything in our fire and because you can control the air intake you can make anything last and give decent heat....

[red]

I burn all sorts too.. but thats teh advantage of a woodburner.. doors...
we burn pallet wood, etc

[starchild]

We've had the cat on fire twice infront of the woodburner too - funny how they just lie their oblivious to what is going on and then get huffy with you when you wake them to put them out !

I'm so annoyed. Last weekend we ended up with two spark holes in our sofa due to chestnut wood spitting. I'm gutted, but there we are - we live and learn. We bought it in, and I'm guessing it was only a year or so old

An expensive mistake so it would seem...........

I can vouch, from experience for ash being wonderful regardless of how seasoned or not it is. We always try and get a small amount of ash in as our Christmas treat :)

[Flo]

As a child we used all open fires and that poem speaks our experience exactly. I'd follow it again if I had an open fire (hmm and the council is going to take out the gas radiator and let me use the chimney - not as there's a flat with a gas fire using chimney upstairs).