Wood is such a fantastic material. It grows in a huge variety of shapes, sizes and colours. It looks magnificant as a tree and has a multitude of uses. Since coming here to the Limousin, we have learned so much about the value of wood. As a building material for houses, beautiful furniture or most importantly for us, the use of wood for heating our house. When we first bought Noisetieres in 2003, it had an old insert with a false chimney breast built around it. The fire chamber itself was made of glass which didn’t radiate much heat at all. Also you didn’t benefit from the hot chimney because it was covered with so much cladding.

So, in February this year, we had a new wood burner installed – the Godin Jurassien.

It’s a complete cast iron box with a small glass viewing window. It uses a process called “double combustion” which means it reaches temperatures at which most of the substances in the smoke are burnt making it clean to use. Now winter has well and truly arrived, we have been using it in earnest every day. When the fire is going, the wood burner itself and chimney get very hot and radiate a huge amount of heat. So much so, it warms the whole house. Not only that, it’s so efficient, we are only burning about 3 logs in an evening. I have discovered that lighting a fire is a bit of an art and it helps to understand the process of how wood burns to get your wood burner working most efficiently.

The basic principle is that you need to get the flu nice and hot as this gives a good draw. Therefore, lighting the fire with fast burning small pieces of wood to get a good bed of hot coals is the best way to start. After that add slightly larger pieces and when it’s really going well, put the big ones on! We can put up to 55cm long pieces into the burn chamber of our Jurassien, which means we don’t have to worry too much about cutting the wood into really small pieces. So what type of wood is best? The choice is quite broad, but each wood has it’s own properties. Though it goes without saying that all wood used should be seasoned i.e. cut last winter or even the winter before and left to dry.

Fast burn woods useful for starting the fire are softwoods or light hardwoods such as pine, beech, or ash. When the fire is going well, it’s good to add some slow burning wood such as Oak. Oak can cost more than other wood and needs good seasoning but it is the best. However, there are lots of other woods you can use and you will find more information here.