Which firewood is best for the stove, choose - oak, aspen, birch or pine

The choice of the optimal time of year to buy firewood largely depends on the conditions for drying it and the material costs that the buyer is ready for. In addition, the decision is made based on the product purchased - simply sawn or already chopped.

Thus, people with experience advise purchasing unsplitted material in the fall, since in the cold winter it is easier to split firewood. This statement is true for fibrous and gnarled species, such as aspen and oak. If you buy chopped firewood (their price, however, is higher), you will avoid a labor-intensive process and get more freedom in choosing the appropriate season.

Deck

This is the most necessary thing that can make work enjoyable and tireless. A log is a thick piece of log, adapted for chopping firewood. It must meet several requirements:

1. Large width, allowing you to place logs of various diameters on the surface. The massive deck stands securely in one place and does not have to be adjusted.
2. Optimal height. This parameter is especially important for ease of use. The height of the deck depends on the height of the worker, the length of the ax and the log. With logs measuring 30-40 cm, the base for splitting firewood should be approximately at knee level.
3. A sticky wood with knots. This deck will last a long time. Knots should not be cut off completely. They will help you conveniently transfer the log to another place.

Photo of firewood

The photo shows how firewood is harvested and stored not only in Russia. Wood-burning stoves are found in Europe, America, Canada, Sweden, Norway and Finland. Fireplaces are installed everywhere in English houses; they are heated with beech, oak, and hornbeam. Many fireplaces in England operate only on coal.

A small shed for storing firewood at the dacha.

You can make a small woodshed with your own hands in one day.

Photo of a woodshed for storing solid fuel.

They live in this house permanently. Large capacity wood burner.

The photo shows options for wood burners. This type of firewood storage can be easily made with your own hands or ordered from specialists.

Let's summarize:

In order for the stove to provide the heat for which it is designed, not to collapse and serve for many years, and for you not to spend extra money on firewood for the stove, you must correctly fulfill the following requirements:

• Properly prepare firewood
• Chop wood correctly
• Stack firewood correctly
• Drying firewood correctly
• Properly storing firewood

Tools

There are several tools you can use to chop wood. For this, three tools are usually used: kavun, ax and wedges. When preparing for work, it is advisable to have all these items nearby. Logs come in varying degrees of strength, and any of them can be useful.

Axe

Many craftsmen know how to effectively chop and chop wood with an axe. To do the job effectively, the tool must have a wide, heavy blade. A regular small ax is used when working with short logs. It is mostly used for cutting knots.

Cleaver

The tool is specially designed for chopping logs. It comes in two types:

1. A heavy sledge hammer that requires great strength from the worker. It is easy to cope with hooks of any parameters. A dull blade acts like a wedge. The only drawback for the worker is the very heavy weight.
2. The lightweight version is a cleaver with different protrusions that increase the efficiency of splitting. It is lighter and the blow is weaker. But it’s more pleasant to wave at them.

Experienced woodcutters prefer to have both tools for chopping wood.

Wedges

These items are of great help when splitting tough rocks. They are made of durable metal. Wedges come in a variety of sizes, both in width and thickness. It is better to use narrow ones at the beginning to make a crack into which a thick wedge can be driven. Woodcutters also use hardwood wedges to split firewood if there are not enough metal ones.

Winter

The winter season is considered the best for purchasing firewood, since the wood during this period is the driest. But, however, this is not true in all cases. The autumn moisture could simply freeze inside. From a financial point of view, buying wood in winter is not very profitable, since it will cost much more than at other times of the year.

Regardless of whether you decide to dry it yourself or purchase already dry firewood, choose a reliable supplier. offers a full range of services - from assistance with choosing a product that meets your wishes in terms of quality and price, to stacking firewood in the woodpile. We have our own production workshops, we prepare firewood ourselves and interact directly with the buyer without intermediaries, so the cost of our products will not be high for you.

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Safety precautions

In any business, safety must come first. Failure to do so can lead to serious problems when chopping wood. If you don’t know how to chop wood with an ax or cleaver, it’s better not to take on the task alone. Before starting work, you should take precautions including the following:

• You need to carefully choose the place where you want to chop wood. There should be a lot of free space around so that nothing interferes with the swing of the instrument. If the process takes place under a roof, it should be taller than a man with an ax at outstretched arms.
• Make the deck from sticky wood with large knots. Then it will not split if you miss the log. The deck must stand firmly on a hard, level surface.
• To protect himself, a lumberjack needs to have reliable equipment: non-slip gloves, glasses, a hat and sturdy shoes.
• To prevent the blade from dangling and jumping off the handle, before chopping wood, the tool is kept in water for some time. It should be inspected for cracks and chips.

Caution: the most important condition for safety is the absence of people in dangerous proximity. A woodcutter always needs to be on guard so that a person does not accidentally happen to be nearby while chopping wood.

Double reinforced wood splitter Vuoksa-Wood

Video description

See the video for what improper storage leads to:
For fireplaces and pyrolysis stoves, it is advisable to further dry the fuel by keeping it in a warm and dry place for several days. The “cleaning” firewood – aspen and alder, used for cleaning chimneys – should also be well dried.

It is advisable to harvest oak in advance and put it into use after a year or two - this is the time it takes for the wood to dry. Birch, on the contrary, is used in the year of purchase. Linden is stored for no longer than 2-3 years if you want to enjoy its amazing aroma in the bathhouse.

Process and technique of work

Before you start chopping or chopping logs, you need to start preparing them. The problem is not complicated. It’s easier to buy firewood than to waste time and effort on preparation. This does not apply to villagers who do this all the time.

To avoid painfully hard work, you need to learn how to chop wood. For a novice lumberjack, it is better to start with smaller woodcuts. When self-confidence comes, you can move on to bigger ones. Over time, chopping wood will become just a pleasant exercise. It is worth paying attention to the length dimensions of the workpieces. They should be shorter than the furnace firebox. You need to choose a place where it is convenient to chop wood.

Having installed the hook on the deck, you need to pay attention to the presence of cracks on one of the cuts. The blow with a calun is applied to the widest crack. If the first attempt does not split the log, you need to repeat it. If the cleaver gets stuck, move the handle down and up to remove it. A tool that has crashed heavily into a tree will have to be pulled out using wedges. A good specialist can split logs in one go. This is an example of how to chop wood.

If there are no cracks at the ends, the blow is delivered directly to the center. A blunt cleaver will bounce off hard rock or too dry wood that has been lying around for several years. In such cases, a sharp ax will help. In cases where it is impossible to split logs in half, the problem is solved by breaking off small pieces, starting from the edge. The work is quite dangerous. You need to be careful so that the rebounding kavun does not hit your leg.

You should not throw yourself on a pile of freshly harvested logs, trying to quickly split them and remove them. Few rocks can be easily split when raw. It is better to let the wood dry. After this, it is easier to deal with him with a cleaver or an ax. By the way, it is easier to cut down a tree when it is raw.

You need to know how to split knotty wood. To split them, you need to determine the direction of the crack from the impact. It should run away from the knot.

Experienced craftsmen, when a cleaver gets stuck, use the method of hitting the deck with the butt of the cleaver. For novice woodcutters who are just learning the craft, such tricks are dangerous. The workpiece may come off and hit you on the head. It's better to learn how to work with wedges first. They are driven into a crack by an ax or cleaver. Sometimes a stuck tool can only be removed with a saw.

Video description

How to clean a chimney by burning aspen or sedge firewood, watch the video:

Linden

Like birch, linden firewood is stored no longer than two to three years, after which it loses quality. However, they are highly valued as fuel for sauna stoves, as they are capable of burning very intensely and heating it in a short time.

When burned, linden produces aromatic smoke and releases phytoncides with medicinal properties that promote wound healing and alleviate the symptoms of pulmonary diseases.

Linden is an excellent fuel for a bath Source element-house.ru

Linden firewood is not suitable for constant heating of a house in winter due to its ability to burn out too quickly.

Splitting methods

Several methods are used for quick and convenient splitting. They will help you chop wood without any extra effort, reduce the number of unnecessary movements and save the woodcutter’s energy. How easy it is to chop wood, let's look at the 2 most popular methods:

1. The simplest way to split firewood while holding the split parts is a regular car tire. It is stuffed onto a deck. The logs are placed inside the tire, as many as will fit. When they are all split into the required sizes, they are removed from the tire. This method allows you to quickly manage splitting a large number of logs.
2. One simple way is to split it with a wood splitter. This tool can be purchased at the store. Making your own wood splitter will cost much less. You only have to buy a cone. The principle of operation is that a threaded cone is screwed into a log that is installed on the frame and splits it. Rotation is carried out due to the operation of the engine. A wood splitter can get the job done quickly and easily.

There are many installations for performing this work, but they are very expensive.

Firewood from coniferous trees

Coniferous wood contains a large amount of resin, which promotes rapid and intense combustion with a large release of smoke and soot. Regular use of pine firewood contributes to the formation of thick layers of soot on the walls of the chimney.

Coniferous firewood logs

That is why coniferous wood is practically not in demand for heating houses; it is used to kindle stoves in bathhouses. The melted hearth of pine needles fills the steam room with a classic spruce aroma, which calms the nerves and has a beneficial effect on the respiratory system. The forest pine aroma appears thanks to the essential oils present in the pine needles. When burned, spruce and pine firewood produces a characteristic crackling noise that many people enjoy.

Note that burning coniferous wood is difficult to extinguish, and the embers flying out of it make this wood the most fire hazardous. Therefore, it is best to heat a closed stove or fireplace with pine or spruce firewood.

After analyzing all existing types of wood, you can easily find the best firewood for heating stoves in your home and bathhouse. Use different tree species, find the optimal solution for a specific situation. Enjoy the pleasant aroma, warmth and comfort that burning wood firewood gives you.

What is the difference between a log carrier and a timber carrier?

The log carrier... It differs from conventional timber carriers in its greater cross-country ability. Structurally, it is a road train consisting of a tractor unit and a semi-trailer. There are two types of log carriers: wheeled and tracked.

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What is a fuel briquette?

What types of fuel briquettes are there? You can read on a separate page about fuel briquettes and eurowood, what they are like, and what they are made from.

If you are interested in laying stoves, fireplaces, barbecues, summer kitchens, go to the contacts page and call the stove maker

We went to Finland in 2008, where we took a photo right in the Finnish forest. Attaching photo