There is often discusion here about what wood is best to burn, I just posted this on a forum about burning wood in stoves but it applies equally well to burning firewood in the woods. I have heated with wood for 20 years, if I was asked advice from someone new to woodburning I would say this.
1 The biggest single factor in how well wood burns is not species but moisture content. Ash has a very low moisture content of 47% when green compared to birch 76% and beech 88%, chestnut sweet 124%, elm 144%, but wych elm 75%, oak 89%, poplar 150%, sycamore is good at 69%, willow 90-100%. All winter felled, 150% means 150 parts by weight of water to 100 parts by weight of wood.
So you see that elm can still have more water in it after a year of seasoning than green ash.
2 Generally no one sells dry wood, those logs advertised as "seasoned hardwood" are not. A small scale firewood merchant selling a few hundred tons a year would need several dutch barns stacked with drying wood to be able to supply seasoned wood. What most do is split, leave it lying in a pile for a few weeks so the surface moisture is gone then deliver.
3 If you put a part seasoned log on the fire it will spend the first 50% of its energy evaporating the water before it can burn the rest. That means you are using twice as much wood to get the same temperature out of your stove.
4 we have forgotten how to burn wood in the UK remember holidays in France, Sweden or Switzerland seeing the lovely big neat piles of wood outside the houses with a roof over and the air getting round to take the moisture away? To properly heat a small home with wood your pile needs to be a years supply something like the size of a double garage.
5 last thing is the one most folks worry about first, species. Ash is great and particularly if I was buying wood from a merchant and burning it without seasoning a year I would pay a hefty premium for it. A glance through the moisture contents above will show other good woods. Sycamore birch and beach would be my next 3 faves. Obviously there are differences in the calorific value of thoroughly dry wood, generally light woods like willow and alder will have a lower calorific value than heavy dense woods but give me bone dry willow over green ash any day.
1 The biggest single factor in how well wood burns is not species but moisture content. Ash has a very low moisture content of 47% when green compared to birch 76% and beech 88%, chestnut sweet 124%, elm 144%, but wych elm 75%, oak 89%, poplar 150%, sycamore is good at 69%, willow 90-100%. All winter felled, 150% means 150 parts by weight of water to 100 parts by weight of wood.
So you see that elm can still have more water in it after a year of seasoning than green ash.
2 Generally no one sells dry wood, those logs advertised as "seasoned hardwood" are not. A small scale firewood merchant selling a few hundred tons a year would need several dutch barns stacked with drying wood to be able to supply seasoned wood. What most do is split, leave it lying in a pile for a few weeks so the surface moisture is gone then deliver.
3 If you put a part seasoned log on the fire it will spend the first 50% of its energy evaporating the water before it can burn the rest. That means you are using twice as much wood to get the same temperature out of your stove.
4 we have forgotten how to burn wood in the UK remember holidays in France, Sweden or Switzerland seeing the lovely big neat piles of wood outside the houses with a roof over and the air getting round to take the moisture away? To properly heat a small home with wood your pile needs to be a years supply something like the size of a double garage.
5 last thing is the one most folks worry about first, species. Ash is great and particularly if I was buying wood from a merchant and burning it without seasoning a year I would pay a hefty premium for it. A glance through the moisture contents above will show other good woods. Sycamore birch and beach would be my next 3 faves. Obviously there are differences in the calorific value of thoroughly dry wood, generally light woods like willow and alder will have a lower calorific value than heavy dense woods but give me bone dry willow over green ash any day.
I figured the presence of sunlight would perhaps make things work even faster. Plus I acquired some big poly carbonoate sheet's off an old conservatoroy and thought why not use them instead of buy more stuff in. Actually I do have a shed very similar to yours only it has joists and a slat floor, and is no where near as big as yours, it only holds 1 cord. Thats why last year I was messing about with drystone wall type stacks and the german holzhausen (which I posted I think??) to cope with the amount I cut and split
