Frequently Asked Questions

Kiln-dried firewood is wood that has been dried in a special type of oven called a kiln. With a kiln, you can control the environment in which the wood is seasoned (unlike when it's left outdoors to "season" naturally). A kiln can control the temperature and humidity, leaving you with firewood that has dried to the desired moisture content much more quickly than air drying.

Our kiln-dried firewood is split directly into our kiln's cages to be dried. It never touches the ground or sits in the elements for months on end. No rain, no mold, and especially no bugs!

The kiln reaches temperatures of over 250F for a period of 3 days all while the wood is being constantly monitored for its moisture content. During that time, large fans circulate the air throughout the kiln, ensuring each and every piece of firewood is being dried to our desired moisture level.

We get asked this question quite often! Many people question if kiln-dried firewood is actually better than traditionally seasoned firewood and is worth the additional cost. We've also heard that kiln drying firewood is a Connecticut fad that will just pass. But the reality is, kiln-dried firewood has been around for way longer than you probably think.

Unfortunately, drying firewood in a kiln is an expensive process. Besides the cost of the kiln itself, there are costs involved in keeping it heated to the right temperature and operating the fans that circulate air around all pieces of wood. The kiln must be placed in a secure location and monitored continuously.

When met with the financial reality of buying and operating a firewood kiln, most companies pick splitting whatever wood they can get and toss it in a pile outside to season for a year. That's certainly a lot cheaper than operating a kiln!

Here at Country Kiln Firewood, we would rather invest in quality, kiln-dried firewood over traditionally seasoned firewood because it's such a clear winner when they are compared. That's why we have a state-of-the-art kiln in which all of our firewood is dried to exactly the right level.

Kiln-dried firewood burns cleaner, hotter and more efficiently than standard firewood. That equates to using less wood to put out the same amount of heat.

Our state of the art firewood kiln removes the moisture from the wood creating a superior product. The industry standard seasoned (air-dried) wood contains over 60% moisture, so when you finally get your fire to stay lit you never receive its full heat potential. The heat the fire produces is wasted boiling the moisture from the wood. You'll need to put more wood on the fire to produce a noticeable amount of heat, thus wasting more wood than necessary.

With kiln-dried wood, the moisture in the wood measures less than 20%. There's no struggling to get your fire lit and no worrying about it going out. You also receive the full heat potential from the wood, so you use less wood to produce more heat.  

Beyond the efficiency is the cleaner fire you get with our kiln-dried firewood. Standard firewood sits in the elements, almost always in a dirt area in someone's backyard. That firewood has to sit outside for an entire year before it's even remotely ready to be sold and burned. You've seen the piles before, they're never turned or moved around, so only the outer most layer is being dried, the inside is dark, wet and a perfect habitat for mold and insects.

A major benefit of kiln-dried firewood is that the drying process kills all mold spores so you can safely store the wood indoors. No worries about bugs either as the high temperature inside the kiln kills off anything that may be hiding in the wood.

Due to the process we use to split and deliver the firewood, you receive a product that is clean enough to store indoors. No worrying about bugs, no worrying about mud. 

With "seasoned" firewood, you have no real way of knowing exactly how long that wood has actually been seasoning for - it could be a month or 5 years, it looks exactly the same either way. 

The biggest difference between the 2 types of firewood, is that our kiln dried firewood is consistent with each and every piece. You won't have to move around the logs or continually poke and prod at the fire to keep it going. 

Here at Country Kiln Firewood we believe in using only quality wood to sell to our customers. Some others may use whatever they get, maybe pine, maybe spruce, they never take the time to check.

Being part of Rayzor's Edge Tree Service puts us at an advantage over the competition; we know exactly what types of wood we're processing. We use only quality hardwoods (oak, maple, ash, etc.) and we never accept any wood that has rotted areas. All of our wood is inspected and split by our crew so nothing ever slips by our quality control. Because we process our wood by hand, you receive a product that is consistently sized. 

Knowing what species of wood is best for heat output and use in a fireplace or fire pit isn't really your job, it's ours. That's why we process our own wood. All the wood we process into firewood is cut down or sourced by our tree service company, Rayzor's Edge Tree Service. We know exactly what is being processed and delivered to your door. 

Yep, BTUs. You've heard it before when you've looked at grills, or maybe even your fireplace insert. It stands for British Thermal Units and is a traditional unit of heat. It's defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. The higher the BTUs, the more heat a fire gives out.

But did you know that different woods produce different BTUs? 

The obvious one everyone always thinks of is "oak". But does red oak or white oak produce more heat? They're a close match, but white oak boasts a slightly higher BTU rating. But maybe what you didn't know is that Sugar Maple actually has a higher BTU rating than either oak species. 

The problem with seasoned firewood is its inconsistent moisture content, you can have the hottest burning species of Oak firewood, but if it's not properly seasoned you are going to waste heat output finishing the drying process before it even starts warming your home.

Even firewood that has been seasoned for a year still has a considerable amount of moisture in it, that's why you get the popping and crackling while the fire is struggling to ignite. It's the moisture in the wood being essentially boiled out of itself. 

With our kiln-dried firewood, the drying process is complete so the heat output is being used to immediately warm your home. There's no moisture causing hissing and popping, just an incredibly warm fire that is effortless to get started.