Our loads are mixed British hardwood, and the exact species vary with what our suppliers have been thinning. That is not evasion — a mix genuinely burns better than any single species. Here is what each one brings, and why the combination matters more than the label.
Why a mixed load beats a single species
A fire has three stages and they want different things from the wood.
• Getting going. You want something that catches quickly and throws early heat to warm the flue — birch does this best
• The working middle. Steady, predictable heat for a couple of hours — ash, beech and sycamore
• Banking down. Dense wood that holds through the evening and leaves embers — oak
Buy a single species and you get one of those three done brilliantly and the other two done adequately. A mixed hardwood load gives you all three in the same bag, which is why it is what we sell and what most people actually want.
Ash — the one everybody asks for
And with good reason. Ash is the most forgiving firewood in Britain.
It burns steadily, gives out good heat, splits cleanly and is unusually tolerant of being slightly less dry than it should be — which is why it has the old reputation for burning green. Do not take that literally; it burns better than most species when imperfectly seasoned, not well.
For anyone new to a stove, ash is the species that makes you think you know what you are doing. It is typically the largest share of our seasoned hardwood.
Worth knowing
Ash dieback means a great deal of British ash is being felled. It is why ash is plentiful in firewood at the moment, and why we are careful that what we buy comes from managed woodland rather than roadside clearance of unknown origin.
Oak — slow, dense and long
Oak is the overnight log. Dense enough that it takes a properly established fire to get it going, and once it does it gives back a long, even heat with very little drama.
Two things to know:
• It needs a hot bed first. Put oak on a struggling fire and it will sit there. Put it on embers at nine o’clock and there will be warmth at seven
• It takes the longest to season. Two years air drying is normal for oak, against about one for ash. That is why oak commands a premium and why delays in oak supply affect what we can sell
Our chunky logs are cut with oak’s job in mind — the same 9 to 10 inch length but two to three times the diameter, so they hold through the evening.