The best firewood for your indoor wood burner is usually a hard wood species. Some of the best firewood selections include oak, ash and walnut. If you are looking for the best firewood, stay with hard wood species. Soft wood species such as maple are also fine to burn. The reason that soft wood species are not as good as hard wood is because they tend to burn faster. If you are looking for a slow burning wood that will give you the most bang for your buck, then stick to hard woods. If you are using an indoor wood burner, you will want to stay away from pine. The sap in pine will help gunk up your chimney quicker. If your chimney begins to fill up with creosote, it can cause a fire. Pines are soft wood and will not provide a long burn anyways, so the cons out weigh the pros.
The best firewood for fire pits.
If you have an outdoor fire pit, some of the best wood to burn will be pine. If you like the natural smell of pine, then use the wood in your outdoor fire pit. Pine is a relatively easy wood to start on fire compared to oak. Pine is usually more abundant and cheaper than hard wood species. Most consumers don’t usually consider pine for fires, but if you are burning outside then it is a fine choice. If you are only burning for a few hours then you can probably get by with pine. If you are looking to keep your fire going for a considerable amount of time then you might have to throw on a few hard wood logs.
When you are looking to purchase firewood, the best firewood choice that you can make is to buy local. If you buy your wood local, you know where it comes from. Buying local also reduces the transfer of insects from State to State. Some States laws monitoring the transfer of fire wood in or out of their State.