Seasoned hardwood firewood, delivered locally

Why seasoning matters more than species

Everybody asks which wood burns best. The honest answer is that dryness beats species by a wide margin. Well-seasoned mixed hardwood will out-perform premium ironbark that was split three months ago, every time.

Freshly cut eucalypt can be close to half water by weight. Every kilogram of that water has to be boiled off inside your firebox before the timber produces useful heat, and the energy to do it comes out of the fire. The result is a smoky, sullen burn that never reaches temperature, a house that stays cold, and a flue steadily lining itself with creosote. Creosote is what flue fires are made of.

Properly seasoned hardwood — split, stacked, under cover, with air moving through it for a year — lights readily, burns hot and clean, and gives you a long coal bed overnight.

What is actually in a load

Firewood here is a by-product of tree removal work across the Illawarra. Hardwood rounds that would otherwise go to green waste get cut, split and stacked to dry. That means the mix reflects what comes out of local yards: eucalypt species dominate, with the occasional turn of denser timber from an older removal.

It also means supply is seasonal. There is only as much as the season's removals produced, and it only becomes useful firewood after it has had a year to dry. Ordering in autumn for the same winter is normal. Ordering in July when the cold has already arrived means taking what is left.

Camphor laurel, which makes up a great many Illawarra removals, is not good firewood. It is low density, burns fast, and the smoke is unpleasant. It gets chipped rather than split.

Storing it so it stays good

Get it off the ground — pallets, timber bearers, anything that stops soil moisture wicking back up into the stack. Keep the top covered and the sides open, because a fully wrapped stack traps moisture instead of shedding it. A spot that catches afternoon sun and prevailing wind dries far faster than a shaded side passage.

On the Illawarra coastal strip, humidity and onshore weather slow drying noticeably compared with inland. Allow more time than the rule of thumb suggests, and split it before stacking rather than after — split faces dry several times faster than round bark.

Keep the stack away from the house, not against it. A woodpile against a wall is an invitation to termites and everything else looking for somewhere dark and damp, which is the same reason old stumps are worth getting rid of.

Ordering

Ring (02) 4210 5885 with your heater type, how much of the winter you heat with it, and where the delivery has to go. Steep driveways and stair access are common through the escarpment suburbs and are worth mentioning before the truck arrives, not after.

If you are having tree work done anyway, say so — hardwood from your own removal can be left cut and stacked on site instead of carted away, which costs less than buying it back later. The full list of tree work is on the services page.