The Consumer magazine says that the cheapest and most environmentally sound home-heating option is to use firewood in a modern woodburner.

Contrary to popular belief, if burned properly firewood is an environmentally friendly choice for heating your home.

This is because wood is both a renewable resource and carbon neutral. Compared to fossil fuels like oil, gas or coal, wood hardly emits any net carbon dioxide into the environment.

According to Consumer magazine, wood is one of the few sustainable carbon-neutral home heating options along with wind and hydro. But to get the most heat (and the least emissions), it must be burned hot and in a suitable wood burner. The firewood must be dry and the pieces not too big (less than 11cm in diameter).

We at Andrews Firewood cut our wood larger than that recomended by the Consumer because we realise that there is a trade off between maximising heat output, minimising emmmisions, and of course the cost of heating your home. The smaller your wood is cut the faster it burns and therefore the more wood you go through. Larger pieces of wood burn slower and as long as the wood is dry it still burns relatively cleanly, although we acknowledge that the wood may not burn at a rate which fully maximises heat output and minimises emissions. 

Modern wood burners are cleaner burning and more efficient than open fires. An average woodburner is about 70 per cent efficient, which means it transfers around 70 per cent of the heat to the surrounding area. With an open fire you would be fortunate to get 20 per cent efficency.