WEDDERBURN CASTLE ESTATE

FIREWOOD FOR SALE

Free delivery within 10 miles of Duns TD11 3LT

Tel. 01361 882 190 Email. enquiries@wedderburncastle.com

All prices include VAT at the reduced rate of 5% for biomass	Seasoned hardwood guaranteed 20% or lower moisture content*	Field-stacked hardwood, partly seasoned or fresh cut	Seasoned softwood, guaranteed 20% or lower moisture content*
Pickup truck load (c.1.6m3**)	£150	£120	£100
Tipping trailer load (c.2.4m3)	£210	£170	£150

* At time of delivery- if wood is rained on or stored in a damp shed, it will absorb water.

** Thrown cubic metre, with random voids between logs.

All firewood offered is sustainably grown in Berwickshire. We have planted thousands of new trees to enhance the landscape and to replace mature trees that were planted two or three hundred years ago.
Logs are bench-sawn to approximately 9 inches length and split if over 5 inches round. This is a good size for popular wood burners and most open fires.
To burn optimally in a modern, controllable box stove, firewood must be dry (below 20% moisture content). It takes two years for fresh split wood to dry naturally, and we have a limited stock for sale. If you stack field or fresh-cut split wood in a well vented shed it will be properly seasoned in 1 to 2 years.
If you burn damp logs they will simply give less heat and more tar (sometimes known as creosote) in your flue system. Some of our customers with either open fires or older, poorly sealed box stoves prefer damp wood because it burns more slowly and therefore lasts longer.
Dry logs give much more heat than damp logs when burned. Burning dry logs minimises harmful deposits of soot and tar building up in your chimney.
We also sell dry or field-stacked softwood logs (typically Larch, Norway Spruce etc) These are great value if using a box stove to contain the sparks. Softwood is not recommended for open fires, but if you guard them carefully it should not be a problem.
We are happy to cut larger logs to order.
Delivery will be to the nearest vehicle-accessible point to your log store. Manual unloading and stacking is available at £20/hr inc. VAT by arrangement.
Delivery beyond 10 miles is only available by pickup truck (1.6m3) at £1.50 inc.VAT at 20% per mile one way.

FAQs

WHAT LOAD SIZE DO I NEED?

Standard sizes for log delivery vary widely and include 'dumpy bag' or 'bulk bag' (typically 0.73m3, the kind of thing you see sand delivered to a building site in), potato box (typically 1m3) and 'one ton'. The two load sizes we deliver are pickup (equivalent to a least 2 standard bulk bags) and tipping trailer (equivalent to at least 3 bulk bags).

WHY DOES MOISTURE CONTENT (mc) MATTER SO MUCH?

The moisture content of wood is boring to talk about but makes a big difference to how well it burns. If you live in a dry centrally heated house your floor boards will be about 6-8%mc and would burn very fast. By contrast, a living tree in your garden will have about 60% mc and would be hard to light, but would burn slowly if you put it on a hot fire. If you buy freshly cut logs they will give you less than half the heat of an equivalent load of dry logs; it is like paying for a tank of petrol but only getting half the tank, so best avoided.

WHAT IS THE BEST KIND OF WOOD FOR A NEW BOX STOVE?

If you are the lucky owner of a flash new steel or cast iron box stove (e.g. a Morso, Stovax, Esse, Arrow or similar) it should be completely air-tight, except of course for the air control that you operate. This allows you to decide how much air feeds the combustion of your logs and you get all the benefit of using dry hardwood. Modern box stoves are often small, so hardwoods pack the most energy into the smallest, most dense log. This gives you the longest possible burn-time and the minimum of harmful deposits in your flue. For a cheaper alternative to hardwood, there is nothing wrong with softwood- it contains about 75% of the energy of the best hardwoods and sparks don't matter if they are inside the stove.

WHAT IS THE BEST KIND OF WOOD FOR AN OPEN FIRE?

Dry hardwood is technically the best from the point of view that soot deposits are minimised, but several of our customers request field-stacked hardwood for open fires (old, poorly sealed box stoves can be included here) because with a moisture content typically in the 35% range it burns at a more moderate pace in the presence of free air. Damp hardwood (or soft wood of any moisture content) may also pop and crackle more, potentially sending sparks into your room, so always guard your open fire carefully.

WHY CAN'T I HAVE A TON OF LOGS?

Logs are properly sold by volume. You want logs to generate heat, and the wetter the logs, the less recoverable energy they contain and the heavier they are. Unless you are presented with a weigh bridge ticket and a moisture content reading, be circumspect about logs sold 'by the ton'. We recommend choosing your logs by volume, moisture content and type (hardwood or softwood).

WHAT KINDS OF WOOD ARE AVAILABLE?

Our native hardwoods typically include ash, beech and oak, and occasionally more exotic species might turn up. A trendy academic might try to tell you that beech is not native to Berwickshire, but take this with a pinch of salt. Non-native hardwoods include sycamore or possibly lime which burns very well too. Softwoods are never mixed with our hardwoods and include Norway and Sitka spruce, but principally larch.

CAN I GET A DISCOUT?

Regrettably no, our logs are among the most environmentally sound and lowest priced on the local market (they are dry, but not kiln dried or transported from overseas) and in Duns kiln-dried logs are advertised at up to £169.00/m3 (crated). Our logs represent genuinely great value.