It’s finally that time of year and whilst everyone is feeling an impending sense of doom with the constant reports of ever-increasing energy prices and the energy suppliers capping a typical household bill to £2,500.00 for the next two years. As a well-prepared citizen you feel comfortably confident that your decision to install a woodburning stove will literally be paying dividends in keeping those energy bills down to a minimum.
You’ve done all the correct preparation and maintenance on your stove and have had your chimney swept, to reduce the build-up of creosote which is the main cause of chimney fires (see our stove safety blog). A good test to carry out on your stove is to get a sheet of A4 paper and put it half way into the door, if the door rope is not worn and providing an air tight seal you should not be able to pull the sheet of paper out of the door easily.
Many stoves have a rope seal around the glass and this also should be checked and inspected for signs of fraying or general wear and tear, we always recommend keeping a spare set of door and glass stove ropes which will avoid you using the stove when it does not have an airtight seal which can leak dangerous Carbon Monoxide gases into your home. On that point it is recommended to have a working Carbon Monoxide detector in any room with a woodburning appliance, remember Carbon Monoxide is colourless and odourless, so you won’t see or smell it hence the importance of that detector.
So, you may be thinking what has this got to do with storing firewood, well hold your horses we are getting there, it is pointless sourcing and storing premium quality well-seasoned firewood if your appliance is not ‘ready to burn’. Firewood in quantities under 2 cubic meters should be supplied ‘ready to burn’ in accordance with the new government guidelines as advised by Woodsure the UK’s only woodfuel quality assurance scheme.
The best location to store your firewood is in a purpose made log store which will keep your logs off the ground and under cover so they are protected from the inclement British weather as it is known to occasionally rain here! Do not place green (wet) unseasoned logs adjacent to an exterior wall of your home as you may find you have some unwelcome visitors, logs can be like a magnet for spiders, termites and all sorts of creepy crawlies. Storing green wood in the home is also not a great idea as one of the biggest factors to dry firewood is air circulation and there is not likely to be much of this in your home in the winter.
The most important considerations when storing firewood is ensure that your firewood is neatly stacked off the ground with good air circulation and protected to keep it dry. Wood dried to a moisture level of 20% or lower will burn more efficiently than green wood and is much more environmentally sensitive and will ensure your wood produces the maximum heat output as it is not using energy to dry the moisture out of the wood.