Welcome to part 3 of our log buyers guide.

This is one of the most popular questions that we get.

I believe this is just laziness in the stove manufacturers, copying others and not thinking or testing for themselves.

So what are the issues.

Firstly, the single worst thing you can do in a stove is burn wet wood at too low a temperature. In this case it doesn’t matter if hard or soft wood. You can get horrible build-up in your stove and flue of the horrible tar like chemical creosote. I have a whole article covering the issues specifically those looking for logs for a wood burner.

The trick to avoiding this is not whether you use soft wood or hardwood, or if you use properly seasoned wood rather than kiln-dried.

The key in all cases is to burn wood at a low enough moisture content that the flames are hot enough to fully combust the gasses produced from burning logs.

This can be achieved with softwood or hardwood, and by the time we get below 23% moisture content in either hard or softwood, that is enough to burn hot enough, that the flue gases are fully combusted.

However, there is a place for hardwood and for kiln drying.

Hardwood is generally denser, so contains more energy per log. This means a log will last longer on the stove, so you don’t have to attend the fire quite as much.

If you have an open fire, then you should use hardwood unless you are happy to use a spark guard, softwood does spark due to the resin content. This is not a problem in stoves.

So why should you use kiln dried hardwood/(or softwood)?. This is a valid way to go if you have neither the time, space or inclination to dry wood yourself. It ensures the product is dry enough on delivery to burn safely.

We will talk about the recent “Smog” returning to London later, but I wanted to discuss here the issue about burning in smokeless zones.

There is no rule that requires the logs to be kiln dried. The rules relate to the actual specification of the stove (related to their ability to recycle and therefore completely combust the flue gases).

Each stove may then add an additional phrase, like logs with moisture content less than 20%

Click Here for the comprehensive list of stoves approved for smoke control areas, click on your nation for your appropriate list:

You will see on this list that there are a variety of different phrases use to try and specify the logs.

The truth is, as long as you have seasoned your firewood for an extended time in a good quality log drying setup, you will be fine. As discussed in part 2, larch, our favourite timber will dry down to 17% within 3 months due to properties specific to that tree species.

DON’T burn wet wood is the key.

Next time we will talk about how to air dry your logs properly.