Holly logs: Burn green or seasoned?

[Dawn Redwood]

There seems to be conflicting advice on burning holly logs; many say they burn well green, others say they must be well seasoned.

 

What is the expert view?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Woodworks]

No conflict always dry whatever the species

 

If you burn unseasoned half the energy is wasted turning water into steam and clogging up your flue.

[skyhuck]

As above, much better seasoned.

 

Some woods will burn (poorly) green, Ash, Hawthorn, etc. But they burn much better dry.

[csservices]

Split it while its green and burn it when its seasoned if you let it dry before splitting it will be a cow.

 

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[Peter]

Never burn logs green. What green really means is full of water, so much of the calorific value of the wood is used up boiling off the water. This reduces the heat output of the fire, reduces the temp of your flue gases, and if you have a modern clean burn wood burner, means the secondary gas burn won't work properly. It will also tar up the chimney very quickly, and possibly damage your chimney or flue liner.

 

In short, get your wood as dry as possible before you burn it.

[biggarlogs]

As above yes in a stove,but on an open fire mixed with coal anything goes.

[Peter]

Same rules apply, you're using the energy contained in the coal to boil off the water.

 

Saying that an open fire is already an extremely inefficient method of heating the sky, so you're probably not bothered about wasting heat.

[better dayz]

As above yes in a stove,but on an open fire mixed with coal anything goes.

 

Water burns on an open fire??

[spandit]

It burns, like ash will do, and if you are looking of a quick way to dispose of waste wood then go for it. If you are looking to actually produce meaningful heat from it, then let is season for all the reasons detailed above.

[Alycidon]

The problem burning wet wood is two fold,

 

A, When you put log onto a fire or stove the first thing teh energy in that log is used for is to evaporate the water remaining, then the remaining energy is converted into heat, so dry logs = a lot more heat.

 

B, Wood when it burns gives of gasses that contain creosote, to combust these gases a minimum temperature is needed, if all your energy is being used to evaporate water then there is not enough energy left to get the fire hot enough to combust the creosote. This of course is still present in the flue gases, it gets into the chimney where is cools further and condenses, this then deposits creosote onto the sides of the chimney which is combustible. Then another day when you get a nice hot fire burning your chimney catches light.

 

Burning wet wood is by far the biggest cause of chimney fires, anything over 25% is far to wet, soft at 20% is not to bad, hard needs to be below 16% for optimum use in a stove.

 

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