The questions we are asked are many and varied but here are the hardy perennials!
1. How long will a pallet of kiln dried wood last?
This is one of the most frequent and also almost impossible to answer! The factors influencing this are:
- Open fire or stove
- Kilowatt output of your stove
- Efficiency of your stove
- Space heater or back boiler
- Volume of the area to be heated?
- How well insulated is the room / house?
- How cold it is
- Is the fire lit everyday and for how long?
- Do you use other fuels such as coal or turf also?
HOWEVER! Our average customer gets through 2 – 4 cubic meters of stacked wood per year. There are also a few who manage on 1 cubic meter. We are not sure how this is done!
2. What is the difference between kiln dried and other firewood?
This one can be answered more precisely. Kiln Dried Firewood has had the optimum amount moisture removed from it in a kiln to leave it perfectly ready for burning giving high heat output, clean burning and leaving very little ashes to dispose of. Other firewood can be anything from soggy conifer softwood to properly seasoned hardwood. The former is widely available, cheap and useless while the latter is very hard to find, expensive but perfectly good.
Our Kiln Dried hardwood will be consistently in the region of 20% moisture content. Fresh cut soft wood can be over 60% moisture while properly seasoned soft or hardwood is usually between 24 – 28% moisture. Most if not all stove manufacturers recommend 20% moisture content wood.
3. What is moisture content?
Moisture content is the key to quality firewood; the less the better. Moisture content (MC) is a percentage of the mass of water over the mass of wood fibre in a piece of timber. For example, if a piece of timber had a moisture content of 100%, it would contain equal weights of wood and water. At 20% MC a 1kg log would consist of 834 grams of wood fibre and 166 grams of moisture.
The more moisture in your wood the slower it burns, the more smoke and pollutants it gives off and the quicker it soots up your stove’s glass and chimney. Burnt together with fossil fuels like coal, damp wood creates acids that quickly corrode your stove and any metal within your chimney.
All stove manufacturers recommend you burn wood with a moisture content of 20% or less. Dry wood substantially increases the life of a stove, it runs cleaner and hotter and greatly reduces the cost to heat a given room area or water in a back boiler.
4. How much is it for a tonne of your wood? What is in a cubic meter?
We do not sell our wood by weight but rather by volume. The weight of wood depends on how much water is in it. A tonne of fresh wet wood will take up less space than a tonne of dry wood. So if someone tells you they are bringing you a tonne of wood or a 3 tonne trailer load or a tonne bag etc. you need to be asking exactly what you are getting? A tonne of wet or damp wood will not be as much wood as a tonne of dry wood, that trailer may be rated to carry 3 tonne but there may be only one tonne of wood on it and a tonne bag may be rated to carry a tonne but these bags can only hold around 200 to 230kgs (82cmx82cmx82cm standard builder’s bag) or 500kgs for a jumbo of kiln dried hardwood.
When we say volume we mean by the cubic meter of stacked wood. One cubic meter of stacked woods equates to around 1.3m3 of loose filled wood in a bag or trailer. Armed with this information you can make price comparisons between woodfuel.ie and other suppliers. However if you do want to know the weight of kiln dried wood we can tell you that a cubic meter of stacked hardwood such as ash or oak weighs just under half a tonne at 20% moisture content. By comparison a cubic meter of stacked softwood such as spruce or pine at 20% MC weighs around 300kg.
A cubic meter is a box with sides 100cm x 100cm x 100cm or in old money around 4 foot wide
x 3 foot deep x 4foot high
5. How much wood is in the crate? How much would it be for a car trailer load?
We understand that if you are new to buying wood in crates that you are trying to grasp what it is you are buying. That’s fair enough too! Many people ask about car trailer loads. Well if you take an 8 foot x 4 foot car trailer with 1 foot sides then a 1m3 stacked pallet if tipped loose into the trailer will fill it level. One of the 2 cubic meter crates of stacked wood fills a ford transit tipper truck when tipped in loose. The big advantage of buying our crated timber is that you know exactly what volume you are getting each time you order. That way you can plan your requirement as after using your first crate you will have a good idea of how long it will last you and how much you need to budget annually.
6. What about storage of the logs?
The logs must be kept dry. An odd shower is not going to affect them in the slightest as the wood is dense enough not to absorb. However persistent wetting and exposure to all weathers will cause the logs to deteriorate and ultimately decay. The ideal situation is that our palletised crate is wheeled directly into your garage, shed or carport etc. For this to happen you need level hard paved driveway right into your storage area and sufficient access for our delivery truck to drop the pallet from a tail lift onto a point on your property that will allow the pallet to be wheeled on and into the storage.
If the above situation is not possible the alternatives are to leave the wood in the crate having placed it where you want subject to access etc and then cover the crate with a tarpaulin to keep it weather proof or unpack the crate and barrow the logs to your storage area. Our crates are wrapped in plastic but this is just for transport purposes and is not for long term storage outside. We can also build and supply very high quality durable log stores for customers within about an hour of our yard in Trim, so Dublin, Meath, Kildare, Westmeath, Louth, North Wicklow and North Offaly would be covered for this service.
7. When will I get the delivery?
Usually 2 to 3 working days. However some outlying areas of Donegal, Kerry, Galway and Mayo may take a day or so longer as the couriers only do runs there every 48 hours.
8. What size are the logs?
Our standard size is 25cm / 10 inch which seems to suit the vast majority of customers.
However we also keep some stocks of 20cm / 8 inch for very small stoves and 30cm/12 inch, 40cm / 16 inch, 45cm / 18 inch for use in bigger stoves.
Please check with us at time of order if we have your preferred size in stock.
The diameters range from 6cm to 20cm – 2 inch to 8 inch
9. How can I buy the logs?
You can purchase via the shop page of this website or you can give us to pay by debit/credit card or to arrange a cheque payment or drop us an email
Collections from our yard near Trim, Co Meath can also be made. You must let us know of your intention to collect so we can arrange a time that will allow you to be loaded and turned around without delay.