Where to buy wood fuel


There are lists of many of the wood fuel suppliers in Wales on this web-site - but what should you look for ?

In other European countries, firewood is a more established and regulated market allowing customers more confidence in the quality of the fuel. The key properties are tree variety, chopped size and moisture content.

Firewood should be sold by volume rather than by weight because between 35% and 60% of the weight of freshly felled wood is water. Poplar is one of the wettest woods when freshly felled and ash (at 35%) one of driest. Trying to burn wet wood will produce steam, less heat (as so much of it is being used to dry the wood), problems with the chimney and pollution.

What to ask

Ideally, a supplier should provide:

• a base price in £ per oven dry tonne (odt)
• moisture content in %
• supply price in £ per cubic metre (solid, loose or stacked - see conversion factors).
In practice this is unusual, especially for small-scale suppliers. However, the customer should always ask:

• the type of wood being sold
• if the wood is from a sustainable source
• if it has been seasoned and for how long
• whether the price quoted includes delivery
• the length and general size
• whether it is priced by volume or by weight
Some suppliers can specify what species of wood they are selling although often, especially in the case of wood sold by tree surgeons, it will be a mixed load containing soft and hardwoods.

Finding a Wood Fuel Supplier
A searchable directory of wood fuel suppliers is available on this website, with an indication of the source of the wood and information about how it is supplied. If there is no one on this list that is local, then other places to look are Yellow Pages under 'Firewood' or 'Treework' (tree surgeons). Alternatively, you can look in a local paper for small ads for loads of logs.

Wood varieties
The variation in energy content by weight between different woods is very small. However, as hardwoods tend to be denser than softwoods, they typically contain more energy by volume. Softwoods tend to be easy to light and burn quickly (making them very good kindling) and may season faster. Some species like spruce and horse chestnut spit badly making them a hazard in an open fire. Ideally, logs purchased should be no more than 10cm thick. Any larger pieces should be split again to ensure that they burn properly.

Well-seasoned ash, oak, beech, birch, sycamore, hornbeam, hawthorn, crab apple and wild cherry are all good woods to burn.

<<< Previous: The cleanest fuel   Next: >>> How to burn wood
In this section
-->
Woodfuel Wales, Unit 6 Dyfi Eco Park, Machynlleth, Powys SY20 8AX (+44) (0)845 456 0342