Less Moisture = Better Fire
It is actually that easy and entirely intuitive!
We leave our firewood in the Southern Californian sun until it has reached a core moisture level of no more than 20%. This is EPA-recommended.
Very often our different types of firewood reach moisture values far below that level. We will guarantee less than 20% moisture for any shipment that leaves our company based on readings from 3 different moisture meters that we routinely use in our wood processing facility.
Nobody else in Southern California gives you this guarantee!
Firewood coming from other places in the US is mostly kiln-dried. This is a process which uses artificial heat (180-200 degrees) for prolonged periods of time (3-4 days). The process is very gas or oil intensive and therefore adds to global warming. At current gas prices a number of out-of-state firewood suppliers have been known to cut the kiln-drying process short to safe money which results in only partially dry firewood.
What happens if it rains?
At Rancho La Casa Firewood we season all our firewood naturally under Southern California's golden sun. This means that if it rains the wood inevitably gets wet on the outside. This will not affect our firewood's ability to cleanly and warmly burn, as long as you store it properly in a dry place, protected from any additional water.
Even if we have prolonged rain (wouldn't that actually be great?) like back in the winter of 2016-2017, we would make certain that you receive 1-week supply of fully dry firewood until the outside of your delivery has entirely dried up again. For that purpose only, we store some of our firewood at an indoor location.