What actually separates them
Hardwood comes from broadleaved trees — ash, oak, beech, birch, sycamore. Softwood comes from conifers — pine, spruce, larch, fir. The names are botanical, not a description of hardness: balsa is technically a hardwood and yew is a softwood harder than most of them.
For burning, the distinction that matters is density, and the two categories do line up with it reasonably well. Broadleaved timber is generally denser, and denser timber holds more energy in the same space.
It comes down to weight
This is the whole argument, and it is simpler than people make it. A kilo of dry softwood and a kilo of dry hardwood contain almost exactly the same energy — roughly 4.1 kilowatt hours either way. Softwood is not worse fuel by weight.
But you do not buy firewood by weight. You buy it by volume, and you burn it by the fireboxful. A firebox of oak holds substantially more kilos than the same firebox of spruce, so it holds substantially more energy.
| Hardwood | Softwood | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy per kilo | About the same | About the same |
| Energy per cubic metre | Higher | Lower |
| Burn time per log | Long | Short |
| Lights from cold | Slower | Faster |
| Spitting | Very little | Significant |
| Seasons in | 9–24 months | 6–12 months |
The spitting problem
Softwoods carry resin in pockets through the grain. When a pocket heats up, the resin flashes to gas and pops the surrounding wood outwards, throwing an ember with it. Larch and pine are the worst; spruce is not far behind.
Behind a closed stove door, that is a noise. On an open fire or a fire pit with people sitting two feet away, it is holes in clothing, scorch marks on decking and a genuine hazard. It is the main reason we do not stock softwood logs at all.
The creosote myth
You will read everywhere that softwood coats your chimney in creosote and hardwood does not. That is not quite true, and the way it is usually stated is misleading.
Creosote comes from unburnt smoke condensing in a cool flue. The dominant cause is moisture and a cool, air-starved fire — not species. Wet oak burnt slowly will tar a chimney far faster than dry pine burnt hot.
Where the reputation comes from is that softwood is usually sold and burnt wetter, because it seasons quickly and people assume it is ready sooner than it is. The species is not the villain; the moisture is. See why won’t my fire burn properly for what that looks like in practice.
Dry softwood burnt on a hot fire is not a creosote problem. Wet wood of any species burnt on a cool, damped-down fire is. Sweep once a year regardless and the question mostly goes away.
Where softwood wins
It is not rubbish, and pretending otherwise is the kind of thing firewood sellers say because they have hardwood to sell. Softwood is genuinely better for:
- Kindling. It lights faster than anything, which is exactly what kindling is for. Our kindling is softwood for precisely this reason.
- Getting a cold stove going before the hardwood goes on.
- Shoulder-season fires in October and April, when you want an hour of warmth and not a five-hour burn.
- Quick outdoor fires where fast heat matters more than duration — though not where people are sitting close, because of the spitting.
- Seasoning fast. Six to twelve months against two years for oak, which matters if you are drying your own.
What we sell, and why
Every log we sell is hardwood. That is partly a choice and partly simple geography: our firewood comes off tree surgery work across Dorset, and what Dorset tree work produces is ash, oak, beech, sycamore and birch.
The one place softwood appears in our range is kindling, where it is the right material for the job. Everything else — seasoned mixed, seasoned hardwood, seasoned ash, kiln dried and unseasoned — is broadleaved timber.
Softwood kindling to light it, hardwood logs to burn it. That is what almost every experienced fire owner ends up doing, and it is why we sell exactly those two things.
Both delivered together, free across 23 Dorset postcodes, paid for on the day.