There are basically two kinds of firewood when it comes to burning firewood in your woodstove or fireplace. They are hardwood and softwood. If you are not sure whether you want to burn hardwood or softwood, consider the following.

If you are a first time firewood burner, or if you only want to burn approximately a dozen fires a year in your fireplace, you should consider burning dry softwood, like fir. Your will be happy burning fir, because the fresh aroma of fir creates a lovely holiday ambiance. Fir seasons very quickly and when it is dry it is truly a delightful, trouble free wood. It smells great and it's easy to split for kindling. It can create a friendly and luxurious fire for your fireplace. But, soft firewood doesn't last as long as hardwood. If you are using a woodstove you will have to feed it more frequently to keep it going with fir. Cord for cord, seasoned hardwood is a better deal.

Hardwood such as live oak, eucalyptus, birch, ash, walnut and black oak are the best hardwoods. You may pay $300 for a cord of hardwood rather than only $200 for a cord of softwood like fir. Hardwood is denser than softwood and it weighs much more than softwood so you actually get more for your money with hardwood. Because hardwoods are denser, they provide more available fuel (BTU) in the same space.

Hardwoods burn longer and if properly seasoned, they do burn very hot. The fuel available in hardwood enables woodstoves or woodstove inserts to sustain high temperatures for significantly long periods. If the woodstove is shut down tight, hardwoods can keep a hot live coal bed many hours if not days.

When buying firewood, remember that first and foremost it must be properly seasoned. The best way to get seasoned wood is to buy this year’s cut wood for next year. Wood sellers will often tell you that even though this wood was split this year, it will be just fine. Except in the cases of some softwood such as fir or pine, that is not true. Look for gray, or darkened, brittle wood that has a lot of cracks in the inner rings. Seasoned wood looks gray, or dark and dingy because it has been exposed to the sun for drying. If you split a piece of seasoned wood the inside will be very white. Unseasoned wood has a fresh clean look of new lumber. Unseasoned wood has that same fresh look on the inside when it's split. Though seasoned wood is darker on the outside and bone white on the inside.

Bio Fuel Fireplaces

Buying a Woodstove

Brick Fireplace Design

Building a Faux Marble Fireplace