Buying firewood can be confusing. There are so many places offering firewood, particularly online and on places like Facebook or its Marketplace. It also seems that everyone has different ways of selling it too! By the meter, trailer load, stillage or weight like tonnes and half tonnes.
Buying firewood by weight is simply the best most reliable and fair method, and we want to explain why.
If you take one cubic meter of wood, straight from a big tree you can’t really argue that it’s not a cubic meter. No airspace, really simple to measure. But what happens when we cut it up and split it? That one cubic meter of wood suddenly ‘grows out’ by at least 50%, ending up as 1.5m3 of firewood. And that’s assuming its nicely stacked with minimal gaps.
Let’s go a step further, lets assume we pick it up with a loader or tractor bucket, and drop it in a heap. Or just throw it in the back of a trailer or ute by hand. It can now ‘grow out’ to as much as 2m3 or even 2.5m3 in that case. A pile loosely dumped on a driveway is always going to look bigger than something neatly stacked.
Simply put, that 1m3 of firewood originally now is being sold as 2.5m3 of firewood with little added but some air space between the pieces and some horrible stacking. Good business for the seller, horrible buying for you. It’s just not fair value.
That’s why buying by weight is important. There are rules in relation to firewood sales, with sellers required to sell firewood by volume with ‘minimal reasonable space’ in between the pieces or a visual container/amount (like a bag). Obviously it starts to get a bit loose, literally, once you start buying firwood from Facebook Marketplace and other dubious sellers looking to make that extra dollar from you.
What can’t be argued about firewood is weight. If you buy 1 tonne of firewood, it should be weighed with certified scales to 1 tonne. No more, no less, just one tonne of firewood. As a general rule, 1 tonne of firewood is around 2 cubic meters of firewood, presuming it’s neatly stacked with minimal airspace. But not always! Density of the wood (lower trunks versus upper branches) and of course how long the wood has been felled, cut and split comes into play.
That’s where moisture content comes in. Do you know how much water you are buying with your firewood?
That firewood from the last storms sure is cheap online, but if it’s green it can be up 50% moisture content, or half of it’s water! You wont be able to really burn it until you get it down to at least half that, and that’s why firewood needs to be aged, split and stacked and allowed to get down below 25% moisture content.
Good reliable burning firwood, with good efficiency should be below 20% moisture content, and anything less is much higher quality the further you go down in moisture content. You will notice the efficiency, less smoke, hotter fire and a better burn.
Back to the weight. If half of your firewood is water, buying by the tonne isn’t great. So when buying the ideal situation is to buy dry firewood with a low moisture content, by weight.
Ask your supplier how they weigh their firewood, and what the moisture content is. If they can’t answer that, shop around and find a better firewood supplier. We’ve heard so many stories of what seems to be a great deal turning out to simply be a waste of money.