A kitchen can't run out mid-service. Set your spec, volume and delivery schedule once — suppliers who cover your ZIP quote the standing account.
Wet wood burns cold and smoky — the oven fights to hold temperature and the smoke carries into the food. Kiln-dried gives you the same moisture level every load; air-seasoned varies with how it was stacked and for how long.
Oak and hard maple for long steady heat, ash to light easily and burn clean, cherry or apple for aroma. No pine, spruce or fir — resin soots the dome and taints the food. Never treated or reclaimed lumber.
Splits have to fit the mouth and stack cleanly beside it — commonly 12–16", but your oven decides. Tell the supplier the length once and it becomes part of the standing order.
Most kitchens start by shopping per-cord price and end up managing a supply problem. A standing weekly or biweekly drop keeps moisture stable, keeps the stack small enough to store properly, and means nobody is calling around on a Friday afternoon. Price follows volume and consistency — it isn't the thing to solve first.
Volume, cadence, species, split length, and how a truck reaches your door.
Your requirements go to firewood suppliers whose delivery area includes your ZIP.
Spec and schedule are settled once, then it repeats. Payment runs on timber.bid.
One screen. You'll get a conversation about spec and schedule rather than an instant per-cord number — that's what a standing account actually needs.
Under about 20% is the usual target, and many kitchens want closer to 15%. Wet wood spends its energy boiling off water instead of making heat, so the oven struggles to hold temperature, and it produces heavy white smoke that puts acrid flavours into the food. That is why most wood-fired kitchens specify kiln-dried rather than air-seasoned — kiln-drying gives a consistent, verifiable moisture level load after load, where seasoning varies with how and how long it was stacked.
Dense hardwoods: oak and hard maple are the workhorses because they give long, steady, predictable heat. Ash lights easily and burns clean. Fruitwoods like cherry and apple burn a little cooler and are used for aroma. Avoid softwoods entirely — pine, spruce and fir are resinous, they soot the oven dome and can carry that resin into the food. Never burn painted, stained, treated or reclaimed construction lumber in a cooking oven.
It depends enormously on service volume, oven size and whether the oven runs seven days. Rather than quote a figure that will be wrong for your kitchen, the practical approach is to track one busy week and work from that. Tell us your rough weekly burn on the form and suppliers will size the account to it.
Splits need to fit your oven mouth and stack cleanly beside it — 12 to 16 inches is common, but the oven decides. Delivery cadence matters more than most kitchens expect: a weekly or biweekly drop keeps the wood at a stable moisture level and avoids a large stack sitting long enough to reabsorb humidity. Access is worth stating up front — many restaurant deliveries are alley or dock drops in a narrow window before service.
A household orders once or twice a season and cares mostly about price. A kitchen cannot run out mid-service, so the account is really about reliability, consistent spec and a schedule you can plan around. That is why this page asks for volume, cadence and spec rather than putting you through a one-off quote form.
Bundles, pallets and the firewood-movement rules that apply to parks.
Campground firewood