Low-heat firewood

We’ve been burning firewood for decades, and for decades the problems associated with heat during cool (not cold) weather have dogged me. Trouble is, you get a fire hot enough to ignite normal, seasoned hardwood, and you get a fire so hot that it will have you opening windows and doors or drive you out of the house. With normal firewood, it’s all or nothing.

On the other end of the stick, if you use pine - which will ignite and burn at a lower temperature - you also get a chimney full of creosote because of the pitch in the pine wood.

After all these years I finally learned that I can maintain a lower temperature safely by using logs like the one in the picture at the top. It’s old (2 or 3 years) soft maple, though likely other old softwoods would also work. These logs ignite quickly and can hold a long, slow fire without causing a clogged, fire-prone chimney.

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