Firewood Information

Good quality wood will burn longer and hotter with minimum residue left in your flue or chimney. The best types to burn found in QLD are Iron Bark and aged Box Wood, timber should be dead for at least 25 years however the longer the better.

How to get the best from your heater

There are ways to get the most from your logs. Seasoning them is crucial. When a tree is first felled its timber can contain as much as 60% water, especially if it’s a conifer (broadleaf trees makes much better logs). But if they’ve been air-dried for a year then brought indoors a few weeks before being used, their calorific value (heat by weight ratio) can increase by up to 50%. Seasoning also greatly reduces the amount of smoke logs emit when lit. (Household pollution is a key drawback of open fires, and has been linked to increased occurrences of respiratory illnesses, especially in children and the elderly.)

Increasing surface area by chopping logs to a diameter of about 10-15cm can increase efficiency too. So can burning smaller, hotter fires by allowing each log to burn right down before placing on another. To increase efficiency further, coal grates should be replaced by solid metal base plates and chimneys should also be swept twice a year.