by Monte
Share
by Monte
Share
How much firewood should I buy, and when should I buy it? How can I predict how much firewood I will need for the fireplace for the entire season? These are questions that may lead busy homeowners to postpone ordering their firewood. Here are some answers from fireplace experts.
How much firewood?
While there’s no surefire way to figure out how much firewood you will need for a year, and in colder winters you will certainly use more than usual, here are some guidelines for estimating. In 1998, Vermont
- homeowners who heat primarily with wood burned almost 5 cords;
- those who burned wood as a supplement to other home heating systems used just over 2 cords; and
- those who burned firewood only for pleasure used less than half a cord.
What’s a cord of firewood?
Glad you asked. A cord of firewood is 128 cubic feet of closely stacked wood, including the air space between fire logs. The terms “face cord,” “rack,” “truck load,” and “pile” have no agreed meaning or legal meaning. In fact, Oregon consumer laws ban the use of these terms in commerce! So, a stack of firewood
- 4 feet wide, 4 feet tall, and 8 feet long is a cord,
- as is a stack 2 feet wide, 4 feet high, and 16 feet long.
When buying wood, try to negotiate with the seller in terms of real cords or percentages of real cords. You can also use the examples above to estimate amounts, or you can just look at the amount he is offering and decide if it’s worth the price to you.
When to buy or gather firewood?
Firewood needs at least 6 months to season, so early spring is a great time to buy or gather your wood. Any insects living under the bark are dormant and likely to die before fall. Prices are generally down and supplies are good. Try to buy only what you will use in a year. You can carry over some wood into a second year, but it may give off more smoke than recently seasoned wood and it is more likely to harbor insects.
You will find that land owners whose property has been logged will welcome you if you ask permission to salvage firewood. Loggers leave behind about 50% of each tree, cluttering the landscape but providing you with free firewood. With a chain saw, safety goggles, and a firewood splitter, you can tailor your firewood to the dimensions of your fireplace while you save money.
So, if you just use your fireplace for romance and relaxation, buy a half cord of firewood each spring and let it season until fall. If you supplement a heating system with a woodstove or fireplace insert, buy two cords. If you heat exclusively with firewood, you’ll need about 4 to 5 cords, depending on the severity of your winters.
Traditionally, knowledge based on teachings and experiences about selecting and burning firewood was passed along verbally. Often such information was put into a rhyming format to make it easier to remember. Thus were born firewood poems and firewood songs to address the question, “Which Firewood Burns Best?” As with most things passed from generation to generation, […]
Have firewood in your life? If you have a wood stove or a wood-burning fireplace, fire pit or fire bowl, you have probably heard some common sayings, sometimes found in rhymes and songs, about firewood. Some call them firewood Old Wives Tales or Old Husband Tales. How can you tell which one is a firewood fact or myth? Which […]
Usually when we think of a fireplace, we think of sharing it with friends and family. There is one type of fireplace, however, that is designed to enjoyed alone, in privacy: the bathroom fireplace. A bathroom fireplace is a personal and elegant indulgence. It is the ultimate for creating a spa-like retreat from the cares of the […]
If you burn wood in your fire pit, you have the makings of DIY fire pit log stump stool – the firewood logs themselves. From the most basic to the most clever, fire pit log stump stools capture the essence and simplicity of gathering around a fire. Here are directions for making a variety of DIY fire pit log […]
