Holly logs: Burn green or seasoned?

[Stubby]

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.

 

A

 

This is a concise and accurate description of why any old wives tales of " it burns fine green " are a load of old bollox .