Hardwoods vs softwoods. What's best in your fire?

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 14, Issue 687, 20 May 1997, Page 14

Hardwoods vs softwoods. What's best in your fire?

The right firewood can make or break the pleasant ambience an open fire creates. Wet firewood can be as bad as having nO firewood at all. In burning wet wood a large amount of energy or heat goes into evaporation of the water stored in it. The fire makes steam which disappears up the chimney, taking the heat with it. It is important to ensure firewood is dry or seasoned to obtain the maximum heat output when the wood is burnt. Seasoning occurs naturally when the wood is cut in the correct way and exposed to wind and sun. Hardwoods, such as gum and manuka, may take up to two years to dry properly. Depending on the type of timber, different methods of seasoning should be used. For example, macrocarpa is cut in rings and dried for a certain time before being split into burnable pieces. Splitting can be successfully done a short time before burning. | The best place to store firewood is where there is good I ventilation. The ideal is to buy dry, well-seasoned wood and store it in a dry, airy garage or wood shed. Other good 1 storage areas could be under the eaves of the house, under steps on in a carport. If your wood is rain-wet or "green", leave it where there is I plenty of circulating air so it can dry out and if it is stored in £ a garage, leave a window or door open so air can circulate. Different types of wood provide varying degrees of heat F output. Soft woods such as pine and macrocarpa, are the cheapest butyou need a greater volumeto provide the same heat as hardwoods. Macrocarpa may also spark, making it 1 a better choice for closed-front burners.

Homeowners should choose one of the hardwoods for a high heat, clean burning fuel which will go the distance. Generally known as red or blue gum, there are six or seven allied species with some similar to pine. The manukas are also long-burning woods with equally high heat output to gums. Hardwoods appear to be more expensive, but when the hours of premium heat they produce relative to the volume of firewood that has to be stored and handled is taken into account they present really good value. Most fires will burn the hardwoods once they are properly alight with paper, kindling and some softwood. It is a good idea to have a mixture of hard and soft woods, ensuring the optimum performance of your fire. Softwoods are great to get the fire going, but hardwoods burn longer. If a log of pine will burn for about 45 minutes, the same-sized log of hardwood will burn for well over four hours. This is an important considerationforcity dwellers with limited storage space and difficult access. Anotherdifficulty some homeowners discoverwhen buying firewood is the quantity. Some cases of customers being "ripped off" by unscrupulous merchants have been well publicised. Firewood can be ordered by the cord or cubic metre. One cord of firewood is enough to fill a 3.6 cubic metre bin. The firewood is "thrown in" and it is wise to check there are no big gaps. Loads should be "smoothed off" to ensure a full measure is delivered.