Many remember from childhood the fairy tales when the men went to the forest and dragged a sleigh full of brushwood! So these are all European fairy tales, but Russian winters are much more severe and it is good not to heat the house with brushwood!
Unfortunately, not everyone has gas supplied to their homes; many owners are forced to heat their roofs with stoves, solid fuel and electric boilers. As for wood heating, from time immemorial our old people in the winter stocked up with coniferous and birch firewood, sometimes even oak. Now, practically no one does this, and many get by with one species, and most often with a birch.
And the Finns to this day specially purchase different types of firewood, separately stacking them in woodsheds by species, separating soft varieties from hard ones:
But why? And this turns out to be very effective, but first things first ...
So, wood is usually divided into soft, hard and medium hardness.
Hardwood
Hornbeam, oak, beech, ash, and among the fruits are often used: walnut, apple and pear.
Yes, such wood ignites badly, but when it does, it will give maximum heat transfer.
Once, I was lucky to bring several bundles of hornbeam from Adygea, these are incredibly powerful firewood! Hornbeam is superior to peat briquettes and is second only to coal. It burns out evenly, during combustion it always gives a stable temperature and there is no "subsidence". This is the best firewood that I have ever met!
Oak - it flares up hard, but it burns for a long time, the coals will give off heat for a long time.
Compared to soft wood, hard woods take little to keep warm. Ash and beech can boast that they burn well even raw, but ash is much easier to crack.
But, all these hard rocks are used extremely rarely, not everyone can afford such firewood! And you can't collect a lot of fruit wood and it is better to leave them in the smokehouse, so most often we buy medium-hard wood.
Medium hard wood
These firewood does not boast of such heat transfer as in hornbeam and oak, but their cost will be less. This group includes: cedar, fir, elm, birch and cherry.
It is better not to consider the elm at all - it burns badly, there is a lot of smoke, you will be tormented by pricking, and fir and cedar are available only if you have to issue a Far Eastern hectare, they are available only there.
Birch firewood is considered the most popular firewood in central Russia. Birch logs prick well, they burn for a relatively long time, the coals smolder for a long time with a stable heat, they do not spark much, it is pleasant to heat fireplaces. But, there is a big drawback - birch emits a lot of resins, and therefore forms a lot of soot, clogging the chimney (chimney).
Softwood
Soft wood burns very quickly and also burns out quickly. This category includes: spruce, pine, aspen, alder, linden. Conifers can spark a lot, so it is better not to leave an open fireplace unattended, and the needles also give a lot of soot. All soft woods both split easily and burn quickly, but aspen is prized most of all for its ability to clear soot from the chimney. At the end of the furnace, three or four aspen logs will clean the newly formed soot on the walls of the chimney from other firewood. The aspen flame burns out the deposits.
It is not recommended to use firewood with a large number of knots, it is in the knots that there is a large accumulation of resins, which, when burned out, smoke heavily and clog the chimney. It is better to fold such logs for the barbecue.
Outcome
The first place is divided by firewood from wood hornbeam and oak, they are stored for a long time, they give off heat for a long time, but expensive! Although, if we take into account the calorific value, the difference in money is leveled out due to the greater heat transfer, a cube of oak firewood can replace about 1.5 cubic meters of birch firewood. The second place by right in terms of heat transfer is Birch. This is one of the most affordable types of firewood for home and sauna, as they say - price-quality (average price with good heat transfer). As for soft wood, it is better to give preference to aspen.
Therefore, in the woodshed you need to have several types of firewood, as our old people used to do. The optimal ratio is as follows: 15-20% aspen (10% more needles are possible), 20-25% hornbeam (oak), and the rest is birch! You can quickly melt the stove with needles, birch in the daytime will give the main heat to the house, hornbeam and oak will provide warmth at night without the frequent throwing of logs, and at the end of the firebox you can clean the aspen chimney!