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How to Choose the Perfect Type of Wood Fire for Your Home

If you have a fireplace in your home, you need to realize that different woods should be burned for different purposes. If you follow the tips below, you can get the right firewood delivery that will not only keep your family warm, but will also ensure your family’s safety whenever you have the fire burning. After all, choosing the right quality firewood will protect you from smoke and also reduce creosote from accumulating in your chimney, which could result in a chimney fire.

Fireplace

Keep reading to learn about how to choose the perfect type of high quality firewood from sources like www.premierfirewoodcompany.com.

Avoid Wood That Has a Lot of Moisture in It

Whether you have a wood burning fireplace insert, a wood stove, or a fireplace in your home, you need to avoid wood that has a high moisture content. In fact, the moisture content of wood is the most important thing you have to bear in mind when purchasing the right wood.

Wood that’s referred to as seasoned has been dried out, so it will end up burning more efficiently when compared with wood that’s green, which will have a lot more moisture still within it.

Typically, it takes roughly six months for moisture to leave wood after it has been cut. Failing to wait for the wood to dry will result in the burning of wet wood that requires more energy and that will cause more smoke, more creosote, and less heat.

Firewood

Choose Wood That Has the Right Density

In addition to looking at the moisture content of wood, you also need to look at the density. This will determine how long the wood will burn and the amount of heat that it will produce as it burns.

Softwoods will ignite more easily and burn cleaner, but hardwoods also have their own benefits, which include burning for twice as long while producing double the amount of heat.

Woods for Different Seasons

If you’re going to be burning a fire during the fall or the spring when temperatures are in the 40s or 50s, sticking with softwood would be a great idea, as this wood will produce a cooler and shorter fire, and it won’t produce a lot of creosote. Good examples include cedar, white spruce, yellow pine, and Douglas fir.

On the other hand, if you’re going to be burning wood in your fireplace during the cold winter months and you want the fire to keep you as warm as possible, stick with hardwood, which will help you reduce your energy bill by producing a hot blaze that will burn for a long period of time. You can even use softwood as your kindling, as hardwoods will require a greater amount of time before they ignite. Plus, a lot of hardwoods have a pleasant scent that will make your home smell lovely. A few great examples include cherry, apple, pecan, hickory, birch, maple, ironwood, oak, and mahogany.

Now that you know a bit more about the different types of woods that you should use in your fireplace, you can rest assured you’ll make the right choice at any time of the year.

 

Image credit:

Image 1 – Scuddr – https://flic.kr/p/aPHJ8

Image 2 – born1945 – https://flic.kr/p/4VUQvG

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