Is my firewood dry enough to light?
Ready to burn?
So you’ve got a pile of wood that you’re not quite sure about… is it still wet or dry enough to burn? We’ve got you covered with these handy firewood tips.
Dry Firewood
Dry firewood will be much lighter in weight, and sometimes bleached in colour when compared to wood that is freshly cut, for a quick test throw a small piece of firewood into a hot fire. Dry wood will catch on fire within 1 minute.
Aside from the moisture meter; one trick we use at barry’s yard is hitting two pieces of the dried wood together and listening for the sound it makes. While wet wood makes an unmistakable thud as it comes together, dry wood will sound hollow and lighter. Sometimes to untrained ears, this can be hard to differentiate, but it’s worth giving it a go!
Wet firewood
The tell-tail signs of wet wood are damp and heavy wood. Light rain wet wood can dry out on its own when stored away from the elements again. However very damp wood means more smoke and little heat produced in comparison to properly dry wood, making the whole process less efficient and reducing the wood’s sustainability level.
Hot Tips
At Barry’s Firewood, we offer Dry and Wet “next season” firewood; you can save yourself money by buying wet wood and storing it away for the next season.
When ordering firewood off any good merchant, they should be able to tell you how long the wood has been seasoned and its moisture meter reading.
