Which Type of Kiln Dried Firewood is Right For You? A Buyer’s Guide

This guide will help you decide which is the best kiln dried firewood for you in your circumstances. Everyone is different and will have different needs, preferences and practical considerations in their home or business.

We can help you figure out which firewood buying option is the right one for you and why. So read on, follow the steps and in a few moments you will hopefully have a clear sense of which firewood option suits you best.

Where Do I Start? Log Burning Basics.

What you consider to be the best wood for you might not be the perfect option for someone else. At the core of this conundrum are three competing factors which will influence your decision making process:

1. To what purpose are you burning firewood?

2. How much firewood might you need?

3. How much space do you have?

There are more firewood options than you might think! Different wood species, log sizes and ways to buy based on packaging. Let's start by figuring out the answers to these questions and we can use that to guide the decision towards which log option is right for you.

However, one thing we can be totally sure of right out of the gate is that whatever you situation, it's always best to choose kiln dried logs over wet or seasoned wood.

Choose Kiln Dried Logs For Safety and Efficient Burning

Kiln dried logs have a moisture content of 18% or less and are sold with the Woodsure Ready to Burn Certificate. This guarantees the internal moisture level of the logs you are buying is considered properly dry.

The kiln drying process removes moisture content from the log so that it burns hotter and for longer. There are two key benefits to this:

1. Dry logs are safer - burning wet logs on your wood burning stoves releases wet smoke which leaves a tar-like residue inside your chimney. Over time this builds up and can cause a chimney fire.

2. Dry logs give more heat - whatever your burning needs, they will always include a need for heat (else why bother?). Wet logs smoulder and choke, only dry logs burn hotter and more efficiently.

Whatever your wood burning purpose, always choose kiln dried firewood. Now, let's get into which kind is right for you.

Help Choosing The Right Firewood For You

Question 1: To what purpose are you burning firewood?

Common uses include: heating your home, heating water, cooking pizza, outdoor heating.

Heating Your Home

Keeping your home warm is the most common use for firewood. Hardwood logs burn hotter for longer thanks to their natural density so are a great choice for your wood burning stove or open fire place.

When you're serious about getting your house warm with logs, hardwood logs versus softwood logs the answer is unquestionably always hardwood logs. You'll get much more heat and have to re-stock the fire much less often. Hardwood logs come from slow growing deciduous trees such as Ash, Oak, Birch and Alder trees. Softwoods come from faster growing coniferous trees such as pines or a Douglas Fir. Softwoods have a much shorter burn time, hardwood logs have a longer burn.

Birch log and Ash log species work perfectly and represent great value for money. If you have a wood burner, you can get it to a very high temperature with Birch kiln dried logs which are our most affordable kiln dried logs. This is thanks to the efficient burn created by managed airflow in the wood burning stove.

If you have an open fire, we recommend choosing oak logs. Oak burns the hottest of all the kiln dried hardwood logs because it is the most dense hardwood. Open fires can't manage airflow in the same way a wood burner can and you do loose some heat output up the chimney. Oak logs also have very low smoke output which makes them perfect for an open fire reducing the risk of smoking out your living room.

So, when optimising for burning logs on an open fire you want a log with a good heat output. Oak logs have an impressive heat output and a long slow burn.

Summary: Choose kiln dried logs for a clean burn and steady heat output to keep your room warm. Kiln dried birch is a great choice if you have a log burner and is quite affordable. Kiln dried oak has a high heat output so is perfect for an open fire or a log burner (if you're happy paying a little more too).

Heating Water

Kiln dried wood is most commonly used to heat water in wood fired hot tubs and wood fired saunas. Logs that have a moderate heat output such as softwood logs or seasoned logs simply won't do. Heating water is much more demanding than heating air.

You will need not only premium kiln dried logs but are advised to choose logs that burn hotter with maximum heat output. The best firewood choice for heating water is always going to be Oak logs

In addition, oak logs burn slowly with a consistent burn that will keep your water heating to the desired temperature and mean you won't need to keep getting out of the hot tub to chuck another log on.

Outdoor Heating

Sitting round the fire pit has become a national pastime and very popular here in Cornwall on beaches and campsites in particular. Nobody wants to smell like a bonfire so choosing firewood that doesn't smoke too much is important.

The best wood for an outdoor fire pit is undoubtedly kiln dried Ash. It has minimal smoke, a high heat output, burns cleanly and for a long time. Your friends and family won't spend all evening coughing and you'll all be lovely and warm.

Because the vast majority of the radiated heat generated by burning kiln dried wood outdoors is lost to the atmosphere, it would be wasteful to choose a more expensive wood such as Oak.

Even though Oak has the best heat output of all the hardwood logs, the difference is unlikely to be felt outdoors where the heat is mostly lost. Ash still has a good heat output and will be plenty enough to create a warming atmosphere around your fire pit.

Cooking Pizza with Kiln Dried Hardwood Logs

Pizza ovens call for a specific kind of wood. Always choose hardwoods because you want maximum heat. Always choose kiln dried logs with low moisture to reduce acrid smoke and creosote buildup in your oven.

Birch logs are likely to create a little more soot and ash, Alder will impart a slightly sweet Smokey flavour. Oak actually burns slightly too hot for pizza and can be tricky to get going in a small space.

The best option for cooking pizza is Ash. Nice slow burn, lots of heat output, minimal smoke and no discernible impact on flavour.

See our cooking wood boot bags for logs cut to the perfect size for your pizza oven.

Summary

Hopefully this analysis of the main uses for kiln dried firewood has given you a clearer idea of which species would be best for you, your home and what you're trying to achieve.

Now we know what type of kiln dried logs we want to buy, let's address how many we want and where we're going to store them. This will then help us decide whether to buy a net, barrow bag or loose load of logs.

Question 2: How much firewood might you need?

So you want to burn wood at home but you aren't sure how much you might want to burn?

Knowing how much wood you're going to burn will help us make a simple comparison between the different ways you can buy kiln dried logs from Logan's Logs. We sell all our wood species (kiln dried Ash, Birch and Oak logs in all size variants giving you maximum choice).

In summary, if you burn fewer logs, a net or small boot bag of logs might be ideal for you. If you burn more logs, the loose load or large crate will represent better value and save you time and effort ordering from us as well as delivery costs.

Summary: Burn less? Buy smaller like nets and boot bags. Burn more? Buy larger quantities like barrow bags, loose loads or large crates.

How to work out how many logs you need

Working out how much firewood you need does not need to be an exact science. What matters is thinking realistically about how often you light the fire, how much heat you expect, and what you are using the firewood for.

Below we break this down by the four most common uses for kiln dried firewood and give rough, practical guides in cubic metres (m³). These are not rigid rules, but they will help you avoid under-ordering or constantly running out.

Heating your home with firewood uses far more logs than any other purpose, so this is where it is most useful to think things through carefully.

Heating Your Home

Heating your home with firewood uses far more logs than any other purpose, so this is where it is most useful to think things through carefully.

Key questions to ask yourself:

Key questions to ask yourself:

• How big is the room you are heating?

• Do you light the fire occasionally or every day?

• Do you rely on the fire as a main heat source or as a top-up?

• How long is the fire lit for each time (all day or just evenings)?

Rough guide for home heating

Room size	How often you light	Typical usage	Estimated logs needed
Small room (up to 20m²)	2–3 evenings per week	Evening top-up heat	~1.0–1.5m³ per season
Medium room (20–35m²)	Most evenings	Regular heating	~2.0–3.0m³ per season
Large room / open plan	Daily	Main heat source	~3.0–4.5m³ per season
Whole house / multiple fires	Daily, all day	Primary heating	5.0m³+ per season

As a rule of thumb:

• Evening-only use consumes far less wood than all-day burning

• Larger rooms need larger logs and more frequent refuelling

• Open fires use more wood than wood burners due to heat loss up the chimney

If you rely on firewood as a serious heat source, buying in bulk bags, loose loads or crates will always be better value and far more convenient than nets.

Heating Water (Hot Tubs and Saunas)

Heating water is demanding and surprisingly log-hungry.

Ask yourself:

• How often do you use the hot tub or sauna?

• How long does it take to heat from cold?

• Do you reheat from warm or start from scratch each time?

Rough guide for heating water

Usage frequency	Typical scenario	Estimated logs needed
Occasional use	Weekends only	~1.0–2.0m³ per year
Regular use	2–3 times per week	~2.0–3.5m³ per year
Frequent use	Most days	4.0m³+ per year

Water takes much more energy to heat than air, so always allow more logs than you think. Oak is ideal here due to its long, steady burn.

Cooking Pizza

Pizza ovens use a smaller volume of logs, but they still benefit from good planning.

Consider:

• How often you fire the oven

• Whether you cook for one household or groups

• How long the oven stays hot each session

Rough guide for pizza ovens

Frequency	Typical use	Estimated logs needed
Occasional	Monthly pizza nights	~0.5–1.0m³ per year
Regular	Weekly use	~1.0–1.5m³ per year
Frequent	Events or entertaining	2.0m³+ per year

Ash is ideal here due to its controllable heat and low smoke output.

Outdoor Heating (Fire Pits and Chimineas)

Outdoor fires feel dramatic but are inefficient. Much of the heat is lost to the air, so usage adds up quickly.

Think about:

• How often you light the fire pit

• How many people you gather around it

• How long you keep it burning

Rough guide for outdoor heating

Frequency	Typical use	Estimated logs needed
Occasional	Summer evenings	~0.5–1.0m³ per year
Regular	Weekly gatherings	~1.5–2.5m³ per year
Frequent	Campsites / hospitality	3.0m³+ per year

Ash works very well outdoors without wasting money on higher-priced hardwoods where the extra heat would mostly be lost.

In summary, these tables are written to help guide you to figure out how much kiln dried firewood you need each season. Once you know how much you need, it will become more obvious whether you want to buy nets and bags (for smaller quantities) or loose loads and large crates (for larger quantities).

We always offer savings the more wood you buy so if you know you're going to use the wood, we recommend buying more wood up front to get a better deal.

This also means you are likely to save on fewer delivery charges and if you spend over £300 you get free delivery anyway.

How much space do you have?

Finally regardless of how much wood you need, you may be limited by the space you have available to store your logs. If you have a large log store with proper storage available, you can order however much wood you like! If you are more limited let's think more carefully.

Nets and Bags

Nets and bags of kiln dried logs are small and easy to handle. If you have very little storage space, the nets are perfect. They will stack neatly away into a small space and as you remove logs from the net to burn, the net keeps the remaining logs neat and tidy.

If it is a long way from the road to your home, store or fireplace, the nets are also convenient because they are easy to handle and light to carry.

Birch Handybags

Birch handybags are quite unique because they are a much larger net (55 litres versus 22 litres), but they are not as big as a boot or barrow bag.

Boot bags and Barrow Bags

Not quite bulk but much larger than a net. Great if you have a garage you want to store them in down one wall. The main benefit of the barrow bag is it allows for convenient log storage vertically reducing the floorspace logs take up.

Unlike a loose load or large crate, the barrow bags have a small footprint but high storage capacity thanks to their height.

Loose Loads and Large Crates

The loose load and large crate come in units of 1 cubic metre. This is the largest single unit of wood that we sell and will take the most space to store.

Loose loads need proper stacking by hand in your log store, garage or out building. As such, they will take much more floor space than the barrow bags or nets which lend themselves to being stacked taller.

The crates take up 1.15m square of floorspace each although if careful, you can stack crates on top of one another. A forklift is required to move a full crate of logs safely.

Typical Scenario for Wood Buying

Hopefully this guide helps make it much easier to decide which is the best kiln dried firewood choice for you. Using the considerations provided in this article, let's run through a typical wood buying scenario.

We'll imagine the following conditions:

• Purpose: Heating a Home

• Quantity needed: 2 - 3 cubic metres for the winter (one room, lighting the log burner every day)

• Space available to store: Garage and log store

The home owner is likely to burn 2 - 3 cubic metres of wood over winter on their modern, efficient log burner. They light it every day to heat an open-plan living and dining room.

They have a garage where they can store logs long-term and a small log store nearer to the house where they can keep a few logs within easy reach.

Since they have a decent wood burner, kiln dried Birch or Ash hardwood logs would be ideal. You can buy them in Barrow Bags 6 at a time. Ideally keep four in the garage (a total of 2m square footprint) and 2 barrow bags worth in the log store nearer the house.

Six barrow bags of Kiln Dried Birch costs just over £300 and we offer free delivery over £300 so I would order six at the start of the season and when you're down to your last barrow bag, order another six to see you through to Spring. This avoids delivery charges and means you don't need to store 12 barrow bags at once which might risk some of the wood that is stored longest becoming damp.

Getting More Help To Choose The Right Wood For You

If you would like more help choosing from our range of kiln dried firewood options and you have more questions, please contact our friendly and helpful team. We are more than happy to talk through buying options with you over the phone or email.

Contact us by calling 0800 8021 223 or emailing sales@loganslogs.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you and wish you a warm and comfortable winter.