HEARTH WARMERS : How to Keep Those Home Fires Burning

Deanne Wendleman loves the look and smell of a roaring fire, and she was excited last winter when a friend who lives in the mountains offered her as much pine firewood as she could carry in the trunk of her car.

But when she got to her home in Laguna Hills, she realized that the wood had been cut for his four-foot-wide firebox, and only one or two pieces would fit into her small living room fireplace. “I know it’s stupid, but it never occurred to me to make sure I got smaller pieces. I thought firewood was firewood.”

Unfortunately, many local consumers feel the same way. Unless you were raised in a place where winter is winter and you counted on a fire for warmth, getting a roaring fire going probably means just lighting both ends of a packaged log and making sure the flue is open.

But those factory-made logs, usually molded from sawdust, wax and chemicals, just don’t have the same crackle, scent and drama of real firewood. Burning real wood takes a little knowledge, skill and luck. And to start, you need to learn about the kinds of firewood available.

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Firewood is divided into three varieties: hard, medium and soft. The softer the wood, the softer the fibers it is made of and the easier it is to light. Softer woods, such as members of the conifer family and fruitwoods, also contain resins that make the distinctive crackling noise when burned.

“Softwoods like cedar and pine usually have an aroma, which makes them popular,” says Don Sayles of Woodshed Firewood in Orange. “But they burn very quickly, and they tend to leave the most deposits in your chimney.”

Hardwoods such as eucalyptus and oak are more difficult to start, but when they catch on they’ll burn longer than softwoods. Medium woods, such as the pinon pine, usually have the best of both worlds: They’re easy to start, and they burn longer than softwoods. “A lot of people like to have a mix of woods so they can get the fire going and keep it going,” Sayles says.

“You’ve got to look at your needs,” says Frank Jank of the Hearthstone in Corona del Mar. “Then you’ve got to select your wood based on your fireplace and how you want the fire to look. Most people like to see the tops of the flames, so a fire that’s too big with large pieces of softwood won’t work. It can take some practice. Who wants a big fire where the flame goes halfway up your chimney?”

How do you know whether the wood you’re getting is soft or hard? That you’re getting orange and not eucalyptus? In most cases, there’s no easy way to distinguish between species unless you’re an arborist or you’ve burned a lot of firewood.

“There’s no ‘truth in labeling’ laws when it comes to firewood,” Jank says.

Which is why those in the business urge consumers to deal with someone who’s been around for a while and who’ll still be there if there is a problem with the wood.

“At this time of year, everyone’s in the business,” Sayles says. “All (they) need is a few cords of wood and a phone.”

Wood that’s been “seasoned,” or aged to dry it out, is preferred to new firewood, which takes longer to catch and is smoky when burned. Some woods, such as pine, can be aged after a few dry months. Others, such as eucalyptus, can take much longer.

“We’ll soon be cutting and splitting our eucalyptus for next season,” Sayles says. “It can take almost a year before it’s ready.”

Finding good, seasoned wood can be difficult, especially during the colder months.

“We’ve had an exceptionally cold November, and we’ve sold a lot of our seasoned wood,” Sayles said. “When stocks run low, many people will try to pass off unseasoned wood as seasoned, which you should watch out for.”

The obvious way to tell if wood has been seasoned is to look for moist sap running from the bark.

“If it has that, you probably don’t want it,” Sayles says. “You can also take two pieces and strike them together. Seasoned wood will have that ‘clunk’ sound like two baseball bats being struck together. Unseasoned wood makes a dull thud.”

Weight is also used to determine how long wood has been aged.

“If a guy hands you a 10-pound log and says it’s good, you’re probably holding seven pounds of water and three pounds of wood,” Jank says. “The lighter the log, the easier it is to burn.”

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The question of how much firewood you need isn’t always easy to figure out. If you only get the home fires burning a few times during the winter, you could get by with a handful of pieces at a time. If you plan to light up every night, you’re probably better off buying a cord (120 cubic feet) or half a cord at once. A cord of quality firewood generally sells for between $150 and $375. Many supermarkets and hardware stores sell firewood in one-cubic-foot packages for about $4, or $480 per cord.

Getting the right size wood is important unless you’re good at guesstimating. No one likes to be in the back yard on a cold night chopping off an extra three inches from an unyielding piece of oak.

“Measure your fireplace before you buy,” Jank says. “And don’t measure just the opening. Many fireplaces are made so they taper in, so you’ll need smaller pieces.”

If you decide to take the plunge and buy a cord to feed your fireplace through March, where do you store all that wood?

“It’s usually a good idea to have a rack ready that keeps the wood off the ground,” says Joanne TerBush of A & L Firewood in Costa Mesa. “That allows you to clean underneath the stack and helps keep it away from rodents and insects.”

Obviously, you’ll want to keep your firewood dry; many people their pile in plastic to protect it from the rain.

“That’s fine if you can keep it covered, as long as it’s already dry,” Sayles says. “However, if your wood does get wet, the plastic probably isn’t a good idea, since it will keep the moisture in.”

For most people, starting a fire is simply a matter of putting a few logs on a grate, lighting the gas starter and watching the flames do their magic. For those without the benefit of a gas outlet, there are wax starters that can get a fire flaming in a hurry.

“You should probably start off with softwood, then, once that catches, you can go to the hardwoods,” TerBush says. “Most dealers also sell kindling, which helps get fires going.”

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While the physical warmth created by the average roaring fire may not be that significant, and other forms of heating your home are much more effective, the atmospheric warmth of a fire is hard to measure.

But, for all its beauty, there is a downside to the traditional wood fire: It creates air pollution.

“Unfortunately, fireplaces contribute to particulate pollution, which probably causes more damage than we had thought,” says Tim RuthStiver, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

“In Colorado, the pollution from wood-burning stoves and fireplaces is so bad that there are restrictions on what (you can burn) and when you can use your fireplace,” RuthStiver says.

But because of Southern California’s mild climate during winter, most fireplaces here don’t get used as often as the fireplaces in colder areas.

If you want to be environmentally sensitive and still have a beckoning hearth, consider gas logs.

“They burn clean, and there isn’t smoke or ashes to clean out,” RuthStiver says.

“But they don’t have the noise,” Wendleman says. “That crackling of a fire is like a Christmas carol to me.”