How to dry and season firewood

Seasoning your firewood in one of our Log stores

Having your own open fire is a real treat, by preparing your own firewood you could save money and have a sense of accomplishment. The process of seasoning, or drying, your firewood can take a long time but is vital. Fresh timbers can contain between 30 to 60 % water and wont burn well in your fireplace. If you did try to burn wet logs you will generate more particulates and greenhouse gases or even creosote (or tar). All of this will clog up your chimney and could lead to unwanted fires.

The dryer the timbers then the cleaner and more efficient they will burn on your fire. If there is still too much moisture then more energy will be used to boil off this water, rather than heat your home. You really need to consider proper firewood storage to ensure the logs are adequately dried out.

The basic steps to drying your firewood using a log store:

  1. Always use the summer sun and warm days to begin the drying process
  2. By chopping or splitting your logs into smaller pieces, you will increases surface area and improve drying
  3. Once chopped, you can place the firewood into a log store, allow plenty of space between the logs
  4. Using a log store keeps your logs off of the ground and allows full air circulation to aid drying
  5. It's best to place the store away from walls and in a sunny part of the garden
  6. During Autumn and Winter you will need to loosely cover the logs, this is to protect from rain / snow whilst allowing air movement

This process can take up to 8 months, depending on weather conditions. The longer you season your logs, the better they will be. You will know if your logs are ready for the fire if they have developed cracks at the end.

Several of our log stores come with a started pack which includes a bag of kindling and five bags of logs.