Southern New Hampshire Firewood

This company has a fixed delivery charge of $55 for up to four cords of wood. The wife and I arranged to share a delivery of firewood with our next-door neighbor: he needed two cords and we wanted one.  (We would have taken two cords, but we were reluctant to go long on a first-time delivery from a new firewood supplier, given a bad, first-time experience with another firewood company earlier this summer.)  The neighbor was looking for seasoned wood, and we were shopping for green wood, but all they had left was 'semi-seasoned'.  So that's what we ordered.

Let me start with the good: the wife and I ended up with a full cord of very nice, quality firewood.  It contained a lot of high-energy maple and oak varieties.  I suspect we'll have no problems burning this wood next winter (2015-16).

Middle-ground: It took me about 6 hours with a chainsaw and maul to get this cord of wood into the proper size for stacking, seasoning, and burning.  About 15% of the wood needed to be re-cut. We have a fireplace insert that takes pieces only up to 16" long. We expect to re-cut delivered firewood due to our particular requirements, so the re-cutting was par for us.  However, at least 30% of the cord needed to be re-split.  Many delivered pieces ended up being re-split into four to six pieces.  One memorable piece started out as a 12-inch-diameter, 35-pound 'stump', which was separated into eight ordinary pieces of wood.  (The neighbor rented a hydraulic splitter for a day to contend with his larger pieces.)  The amount of re-splitting was not expected.

Now for the bad: The assertion from this company that their "(s)emi-seasoned" wood was "split 4-5 months (most popular, should burn in Nov/Dec)" was either not credible, or borderline deceptive.  (Kindest interpretation: The wood was 'split' 4 to 5 months ago, but it hadn't been stored or stacked for proper seasoning in the meantime.) Given the original sizes and composition of the delivered pieces, this wood would have had to have been stacked and seasoned for two years before it all was ready to burn. A lot of the wood oozed fluid as it was being re-split.  Anyone who has split freshly hewn wood knows the smell of green wood (you know: the smell that makes you check the bottoms of your boots...) and that smell was present while this wood was being re-split.  Since we'll be seasoning this wood for a full year before we burn it, it's not a big issue for us.  (It is disappointing to pay a 'semi-seasoned' price, though, for an essentially 'green' cord.)  Beware if you expect to burn their 'semi-seasoned' wood only 2 to 3 months after delivery.

One last thing: this company has a wonderful truck that's partitioned to deliver up to 4 separate cords--of potentially different wood conditions (green/semi/seasoned). Each partition is larger than 128 cubic feet--which is the volume of a cord of wood.  But since the truck appears to be mechanically loaded, what you end up with in each partition is a full cord of wood (maybe even a little bit more than a cord)... and debris.  Lots of debris.  Yes, there's a good amount of kindling that can be recovered from the debris, but most of what remains resembles bark mulch.  We had to haul away 6 wheelbarrows full of debris after all of the wood was picked out.  (Normally, we have to contend with 1-2 wheelbarrows of refuse per cord.)  Be ready to deal with it if you have to dispose of the debris.