Firewood

Seasoned Eastern Shore hardwood. Delivered to your property.

Proper firewood is hardwood that has been split and dried long enough to burn hot and clean. Green wood burns poorly, builds creosote in flues, and is a frustration. We source and deliver properly seasoned Eastern Shore hardwood, full cords and half cords, ready to burn.

What actually burns well here

The Shore’s uplands are mixed hardwood, and that mix is what ends up in a cord. White oak and red oak carry the most heat and hold a fire through the night. Hickory is denser again. Black locust burns hot and leaves little ash behind, and it grows along old fence lines and field edges all over this region. Red maple, black cherry and ash all burn well and take a match more easily than oak does.

Sweetgum and tulip poplar are the two that turn up by accident. Both grow fast and both are everywhere here. Sweetgum is stringy enough to fight a splitter all afternoon, and neither one gives much heat back for the room it takes up in a stack.

Resin is a separate question from heat. Loblolly is the pine of this region and there is a great deal of it, but resin is what lines a flue with creosote over a season, which is why what goes to a fireplace or a wood stove should be hardwood.

Ash, and why there is so much of it right now

Emerald ash borer is established across Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, and an untreated ash in this area will eventually be killed by it. We wrote about how to tell what is eating a tree if you want to know what to look for. One result of it shows up in the woodpile: there is a steady supply of standing dead ash coming out of woodlots, farm edges and back yards across the Shore.

Ash is good firewood. It carries real heat, it splits clean along the grain, and a tree that died standing is already part of the way dry, so it is ready to burn sooner than an oak cut green.

Seasoning here is about air more than sun

Split wood dries from the end grain and from the split faces. On the Shore the humidity stays up through the summer and most ground sits close to sea level, so what pulls the moisture out of a stack is air moving through it. A single row lifted off the ground, ends open, covered on the top only, will be ready before a big square pile sitting in full sun.

Oak takes the longest and often wants a second summer. Ash, maple and cherry are usually there inside a year. A seasoned round tells you plainly: the end grain has checked, with cracks running out from the centre, and two pieces knocked together ring instead of thudding.

Fire pits

A fire pit is the other place this wood ends up, and it is the one that gets used from the first cool evening in September through to spring. We build them as part of a patio, on the same prepared base as the paving, with the seat wall going in at the same time.