Best wood for open fire

fireisdangerous

fireisdangerous

fireisdangerous

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Moving into out new house in March and it currently has two open fireplaces. The current owners use coal in these fire's but we want to use wood.

Is there specific treated wood you have to use or can you just use any dry bit of wood.

Thanks Tony
 
Green (new) wood won't burn hot enough and will cause flue deposits (tar)

You'll need a supply of seasoned wood, google for 'wood fuel' for your area.
It's upwards of £40 a bag, which is roughly a cubic meter (in practice a bit less).

If you have a supply of dry wood that's been under cover for a few years, then that's fine
http://www.flamingfires.co.uk/which-wood-burns-best.htm


edit:
check if you are in a smokeless area, they might have been burning smokeless coal.
 
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I'm paying £65 a ton for hard wood seasoned split logs in Bath, but I also get lots of ash (type of tree) as it drys quick and my friends a tree surgeon so get lefty for free.
 
For me it depends will the fires be a regular thing as a main source of heat? We have occasional open fires and burn a right mixture of coal good seasoned logs DIY off cuts and last week the Christmas tree all of which has caused us no problems what so ever.

I'm a big fan of a handful of coal in an open fire wood looks nice but unless you have a stove it won't give anything like the heat if coal.
 
Thanks for all your replies much appriciated.

The open fire will not be the mail heat source just a feature for the room, My reason for wanting wood rather than coal is that I thought coal would leave our home smelling like a bbq rather than that nice smell of wood.

We will eventually replace the open fire with a wood burner as its a bit more child/cat proof.

Current owners use it as a ash tray it seems! classy!




We also have another fireplace in the dinning room, which looks like it has never been used. Think we will leave it as just a feature for the time being.

 
Coal is generally fine and heats the room much better in our house compared to only using wood.

We generally buy 5 sacks of soft wood for £15 from a local farm shop. Could be cheaper to buy in bulk but in a terraced house where storage is minimal and the fire doesnt get used very often it works best for us.
 
We use a mix of wood and coal in our burner. All the wood we use tends to be DIY Cut offs or year dried logs.

Missus' dad works at a school with a lot of trees on site that need cropping quite often. So we get the majority from there.
 
Indie said:
We use a mix of wood and coal in our burner. All the wood we use tends to be DIY Cut offs or year dried logs.
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I always thought mixing coal and wood in a burn could cause problems - something about the acid created by the coal mixing with the moisture in the wood. I might be wrong.
 
Shaz]sigh[;25825863 said:
I always thought mixing coal and wood in a burn could cause problems - something about the acid created by the coal mixing with the moisture in the wood. I might be wrong.
Click to expand...

I've no idea, We've done it in ours for just over a year. Missus' parents have done the same since... eternity, no problems as of yet!

We do burn a specific type of coal though... not sure what mind, I'll have to check!
 
we always mix coal and wood/logs. Bit of wood to get her started and then dump a load of coal on and it stays toasty for hours!

Used to get wood from an old furniture repair factory but they started using cheap wood so its no good, buy bags of seasoned dried logs from a garden place now.
 
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