10 Questions To Ask Your Firewood Supplier

The firewood industry is full of smoke (no pun intended) and mirrors. If you're looking for a new, or your first, firewood supplier, you might feel overwhelmed with options and not sure what to look for.

Here are 10 questions you can ask potential firewood suppliers to make sure you're choosing the right one for you.

A tonne, a metric tonne, a bulk bag, a builder's bag, a dumpy bag, a crate, a pallet, a full load, a driveway tip, a net, a cubic metre, loose loaded or stacked. Does your head hurt yet? 

Firewood is sold in so many different ways that it can be really difficult to compare prices across firewood suppliers, and know how much firewood you're actually buying, .

Beware buying firewood by weight. Firewood burns best when dried to below 20% moisture so make sure you're not tricked into thinking you're getting a great deal buying a load of wet wood, which is heaver than dry wood. There are also weight variations between species due to the density of the wood - for example Oak logs weigh more than the same volume of Ash logs.

At Love logs, we sell our wood in 54 litre boxes, packed tight so you're not paying for fresh air.

If you're not sure how much firewood you're actually getting, chat to your firewood supplier and see if they can put your mind at rest.

This is one area where we see lots of firewood suppliers bending the truth!

Around 50% of the wood sold in the UK is imported, mostly from Eastern Europe where it is contributing to massive deforestation.

We see one company say in their marketing that they are a ‘UK company’, but all of their products are imported from Eastern Europe.

Another of our competitors lists their products as ‘hand packed in the UK’ but the wood is brought over from Eastern Europe before it's hand packed.

Your firewood supplier should be able to tell you where your wood has come from, but if they don't specifically say it's British, then it probably isn't.

At Love Logs, all of our firewood is sustainably sourced in the UK to reduce road miles and support local economies

It's really important that all of your firewood is hardwood and dried to below 20% moisture content,

In theory, the Woodsure Ready To Burn certification should tell you that a firewood supplier consistently dries their firewood to below 20% margin, but in reality Woodsure only test a few logs per firewood supplier per year and we have seen plenty of examples of Ready To Burn accredited suppliers sending out wet wood.

Your firewood supplier should be testing each load of wood before it is sold, and they should be able to tell you what their average moisture content is.

At Love Logs, all of our firewood is dried to below 20% moisture content. Lighter species such as Ash will generally be dried to around 12-15% whereas the denser species such as Oak and Beech will be around the 18-19% mark.

When choosing firewood for your log burner or open fire, you should only use hardwood species such as Ash, Beech, Oak, Alder or fruitwoods.

Softwood is cheaper than hardwood but it's a false economy as it burns through faster and leaves more ash and residue which isn't great for your log burner.

Your firewood supplier should be able to tell you what species they sell, so steer clear of any softwood species such as Pine, Spruce or Larch.

At Love Logs, all of our standard Boxes of British Kiln-Dried Logs and Hobbit Logs are a mix of Ash and Beech as we feel they give the best balance between ease of lighting and length of burn. 

One of the challenges you face when finding a firewood supplier is making sure the logs will fit in your log burner.

There's been a massive increase in the UK in the installation of 'Hobbit Stoves' which need logs that are shorter than the standard 25cm logs that most firewood suppliers sell, so make sure you ask for shorter logs if you have a smaller stove!

Thickness of your firewood is also something to think about - too thin and it will burn too quickly, too thick and it will be difficult to light.

We started Love Logs after too many bad buying experiences where we bought large loads of logs that were either so skinny they could be kindling, or so big they wouldn't fit in the log burner!

At Love Logs, you can choose from three different lengths - 25cm, 20cm and 15cm and whilst there will always be some variation in the thickness of our logs, they are much more uniform than most firewood suppliers.

There are two ways to dry firewood to less than 20% moisture - seasoning and kiln-drying.

Kiln-drying involves drying in a kiln (obviously), whereas seasoning means leaving the wood outside for 1 - 2 years to dry naturally. 

Whilst seasoned wood is great as it doesn't use any extra energy to dry it, it does mean that once it's been sold, the firewood supplier may not have any more dry wood until the following season. We see a lot of seasoned firewood suppliers sell out in the middle of winter, so if you want to make sure you have a steady supply, chat to your firewood supplier about how long they expect their stocks of firewood to last.

At Love Logs, all of our firewood is kiln-dried to below 20% moisture so we can keep producing and selling it all winter long!

It's a sad fact that there are a lot of firewood suppliers out there who lose interest once they have your money, and it's extremely frustrating as a customer to have spent money on a load of firewood that won't burn properly.

At Love Logs, we think aftercare and customer service is so important and we're always happy to answer questions on how to use your firewood to get the best out of it.  

Issues don't happen often with our firewood, but when they do, we fix them quickly.

Each firewood supplier has different delivery costs - some local suppliers offer it for free within a few miles but charge for delivery anywhere else and some online companies can charge up to £80 for a pallet delivery!

Make sure you know the total cost of your firewood, including delivery and any other additional charges, before you commit to buying it.

At Love Logs we offer free delivery to most of mainland UK when you spend over £30.

If you're still not sure, just drop us an email and we'll happily answer any questions you have.