Lee and Peter Sailing Trip was for Four not Two Years. Now an Italian adventure

After installing the fire in December, our geometra (architect, work manager) kindly turned up with a small sampling of logs and kindling from his own stock, enough for 4 or 5 days. That got us started and able to fire up the fire. We needed more logs. We were late in the year and many suppliers no longer had stock. So we were searching. This has opened up a new world for us, logs and fires, lots of YouTube videos!

We found local hardware stores selling small packs of kiln-dried wood, very good quality but expensive. Packs of compressed sawdust logs from Germany, good quality but again expensive. Peter roamed our property looking for downed trees and came back with meager pickings. Eventually, we found a log supplier about 10 Km away, hurrah. Approximately Euro 300 for 3000Kg, not a bad price delivered.

Lee asked if the logs were ready to use. The guy at the wood looked at us like we were ignorant peasants, of course not the logs need at least 3 months to season. The general advice is 9 months to a year, he was a salesman making his logs look good. As we did not have any seasoned logs he offered us some bags of logs from his own stock, a little expensive but good dry logs.

Delivery day arrived! 3000Kg seemed an awful lot of logs. Thoughts going through our minds, where will they all go. The truck came and dumped them at the top of the drive. Peter decided to stack them around the end of the drive a sort of natural wall. He comes from Devon where there are lots of stone drywalls so he has the ambition to build a wooden drywall!

It actually only took a couple of hours to stack them. Yet another new world, how to stack and season your firewood. Another area of human conflict and strong opinions, just like mask / no mask or MS Windows / Apple. Some say the stack should be covered to keep the rain off. Other people say if covered the outside dries too quickly and the fibers compress and seals water inside and slows the seasoning drying. They say it is better for the rain to open the fibers and allow internal moisture to escape. We guess it depends on the amount of rain, endless rain uncovered is probably not good. As we have a good wind draft and not too much rain we opted for uncovered. That we don’t have a practical covered area had nothing to do with that decision🙄 We shall see in October when heating season starts again.

We are now the proud owners of new tools, an axe, and a moisture meter. Fire logs should be below 20% moisture on the inside. We are now adept at splitting a log and jabbing in the spikes of the moisture meter. Life is full of new experiences and the tool cabinet gets fuller😎

Stay well all.