Heating your house with wood is an inexpensive way to keep warm during the coolest months of the year. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources rates oak firewood as an excellent choice for heating your home. Because oak trees grow slowly, the wood is very hard and tight-grained, making it a very efficient, hot-burning firewood. To ensure a well-burning fire, you must burn only dry firewood. Firewood that is still green, or wet, can be difficult to light and can produce a slow, inefficient fire. Once you learn how to differentiate dry from green wood, selecting ready-to-burn wood is easy.
Things You'll Need
Oak firewood, cut and split
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Instructions
1
Feel the ends of the firewood. If you feel any moisture, the wood is not yet dry enough to burn.
2
Firewood that is still brown may not be dry enough to burn.
Observe the color of the firewood. Dry oak firewood is gray in color, whereas wood that is not yet dry will appear more brown.
3
Observe the bark of the firewood. Dry firewood has peeling bark, unlike wood that has not yet completely dried.
4
Firewood that has cracked on the ends is likely to be dry enough to burn.
Look for splits in the ends of the firewood. As the wood dries, it shrinks and begins to crack.
