We’re all being faced with the rising cost of gas and oil prices, so you may be considering a more economical option for heating your home – firewood north wales! If you have trees in your garden or on your land, it can be convenient to create your own firewood from fallen trees instead of buying it in.
The longer and hotter burning wood come from ‘hardwood’ trees. ‘Softwood’ trees burn quicker than these, so you’ll need twice the amount of wood for the same amount of heat, but they’re great for getting a fire going.
Tips for making firewood from your trees:
- Be prepared! Safety is paramount, be sure to wear safety goggles, long and sturdy trousers, a thick pair of work gloves, and heavy steel-toe capped boots.
- Use a chopping block or tree stump to lift the wood to a good level. Keep this no higher than your knee, it will take strain off your back. Never chop directly on the ground as you’ll cause damage to your maul.
- Start by aiming your maul at the centre of the log, and split along the grain. For larger chunks, you may need to do this twice, once on each side of the log.
- Choose a large, open area for splitting wood. Do this as far away from people or anything which would become damaged from pieces of wood. You’ll also need a lot of space for swinging your maul.
- Split wood on a cold and dry morning or afternoon. This is the best time for splitting most tree species if you want your wood to season faster.
- Firewood needs to be cut up around 6 months before use if your trees are wet. To get it dry enough for Autumn and Winter, you’ll want to start splitting in the late Winter/early Spring.
- Let gravity do most of the work. You shouldn’t need to use too much force when splitting wood as you may become very tired quickly or suffer an injury. You should always use two hands when swinging the axe too.
- Don’t waste the scattered wood as these pieces are great for kindling, compost, or mulch.
- You need your firewood to be at 20% moisture to burn ideally. Most freshly cut wood can store 100% water, this is why seasoning is important.
- Arrange a woodpile that is well ventilated. You’ll want to stack the wood quickly and efficiently, with the wood raised off the ground on a pallet to stop moisture from penetrating the base.
Whilst changing your whole home’s heating fuel north wales would be a massive change, utilising the trees of your garden for firewood as extra warmth from the fire can make a huge difference to your bills.
