I’m a bit out of touch here. Last time I needed logs for our stove (last house) I used to get raw trunk rounds delivered and chop them up myself and then leave them to air dry. Due to various circumstances that won’t be possible this year, so I’m going to have to purchase pre-done logs. So what’s an okay price?
That looks to be the going rate for a cubic metre.
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Our local options for hardwood are ‘Kiln dried’ £135, in dumpy bag; or ‘Air dried’ £79, dropped loose…
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It’s in the right ballpark, relative to what I’m paying.
Willy.
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I pay £110 a ton, which may be around 1m3, but I get mine delivered by a front loader’s bucket load tipped over the wall. So for kiln dried that’s a good price, considering all the ash that’s around.
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Pretty sure all logs purchased now have to be certified below a certain moisture content level regardless of how achieved. £110 for a metre cube bag seems to be going rate.
I think that’s true unless you buy bulk.
There is now legislation that requires firewood to be below a certain moisture content when burnt. Unfortunately most log sellers have interpreted this as a requirement that they sell logs that are dried, and they do not provide for anyone who is going to air dry them. This almost invariably means that the logs have been kiln dried, a ludicrous energy guzzling proces that gets logs so dry that they are, in many cases, going to get wetter before you burn them when stored over a typical UK winter. These logs are increasingly sourced from overseas, particularly from Eastern Europe at the moment where vast swathes of untouched forest, mostly birch, are being decimated. For anyone who has mains gas I would say that using it to heat your home is the lesser of two evils.
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Too true though, tbh, the logs I purchase (one way or the other) are always locally sourced. When it comes to gas vs logs… if I had gas then that would be my preferred choice. Logs, certainly if you purchase them pre-dried, are not a cheap fuel. They were a couple of decades ago but prices, particularly over the last 10 years, have shot up as it became fashionable to install a stove for decoration.
£105 delivered, for a cubic meter air dried locally sourced. Up from £100 last year so won’t grumble.
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Years ago my old mum told me of her memory as a child when someone banged on their front door and said to my grandma “Best beech logs ma’am?” My rather deaf grandma replied “Are they oak?” “Yes ma’am, best oak logs!”
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yes indeed, I have an aversion to kiln dried too, their carbon footprint is a bit suspect when you include the gas fired drying kilns and the transport. I generally buy bulk thinnings from local forests
The logs I buy are dried in a kiln fired with sawdust. bark and other scrap wood.
Willy.
We had (closed down a couple of years ago) a log man who supplied kiln dried or green. So the story goes, about 10+ years ago I was buying tipper deliveries of green logs from him and I said, one day, ‘don’t you do kiln dried? Nope…’ I replied ‘you’d make a fortune if you did’. The next year he was supplying kiln dried! In his case he used to use the log/tree of cuts as fuel in the drying oven.
Agreed, not a fan of kiln dried. It’s too dry.
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I’m not sure logs can be too dry, I think most imported kiln dried stuff is around 8% moisture content initially but will eventually absorb moisture when stored over a long period and will end up about 16 or 18% depending on ambient humidity, the drier the wood the cleaner and hotter it will burn, you just need to be able to control it properly
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Yes, but it’s a ridiculous waste of energy to dry logs to below ambient humidity levels, to which they will inevitably return in storage.
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Agreed… okay, kiln dry if you want, BUT don’t take them so dry they go up like a magnesium flair!
We have space in the Inglenook fireplace either side of the log burner to store a few evenings worth of logs. We buy air dried below 20% moisture and use the wood in rotation, logs that have been drying by the burner longest get used first.
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Crumbs that seems cheap.
I’m looking at around £140-£170 locally with one supplier’s prices having gone up nearly £40 since last year.
Gone up to 60 euro a cubic metre (50cm) here tipped on the drive.2 yr air dry. Extra 5 euro a cut, per cubic metre, to smaller sizes.