Woodburning

Here is a question I often am asked.

Wet Wood vs. Green Wood
Is it OK to burn either?

It is pointless to burn either wet wood or green wood. All the heat from the burn is used up boiling away the water, either with dry wood mixed with wet or just wet wood. A better plan is to stack some wet wood safely near the stove and let it dry out. This provides humidity to the room or house during the dry cold days of winter without using the heat to send the water up the chimney.

What we do here is take the wetter wood (meaning rain wet not green wood) and we put it beside the wood stove to dry out. Then, once dried (usually the day) we burn it. The heat from beside or behind the stove dries it out well enough to burn cleanly. Never burn green wood as it can be dangerous.