Firewood delivery in Southside Virginia and the Roanoke valley, from our South Boston yard

For ten years Clark's Firewood ran from a farm in Upperville, which put Northern Virginia, DC and Maryland in reach and left the southern half of the state to tree services and truckloads. This season the wood for the south stages at a yard in South Boston, in Halifax County, and the map changed.

The towns, from the yard outward

• $30, under 25 miles: South Boston, Halifax, Scottsburg, Virgilina, Nathalie.
• $40, 25 to 50 miles: Danville, Chatham, Gretna, Clarksville, Boydton, South Hill, Farmville, Keysville, Brookneal, Altavista.
• $50, 50 to 80 miles: Roanoke, Salem, Cave Spring, Vinton, Hollins, Lynchburg, Forest, Bedford, Smith Mountain Lake, Martinsville, Rocky Mount, Appomattox, Blackstone, Emporia.
• $60, 80 to 120 miles: Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Radford, Daleville, Stuart, Dinwiddie, and the Augusta County towns.

The fee is set by zip and shows at checkout. Start at firewood delivery in Southside Virginia or firewood delivery in Roanoke; every town has its own page with its zips.

Why stove country is the best case for kiln-dried wood

Northern Virginia burns wood on weekends. Southside and the valley burn it for heat, from the first frost to April, and that changes the math. A stove running every day goes through two or three times what a fireplace does, so every wet log is heat you paid for and did not get. Green wood spends its first twenty minutes boiling off water before it gives any heat at all, and the steam carries creosote up a flue that is already working hard. Kiln-dried hardwood arrives at a low moisture content, gives full heat from the first load, keeps the flue cleaner, and because the kiln kills insects and mold it can be stacked in the basement or the mudroom instead of out by the shed in the rain.

The seasoned truckload, honestly

Southside has good wood sellers, and a cord cut last winter and stacked under cover is fine firewood. The problem is the usual truckload: cut in summer, sold in October, "seasoned" because it sat outside for a few months. The core is still wet. If you buy seasoned, ask when it was split and ask the seller to split a piece so you can see the inside. If you would rather not run that check every year, that is what the kiln is for.

How much wood a winter takes

• Fireplace, weekends: one 4x8 stack, maybe two.
• Fireplace most evenings: a 4x16 stack.
• Stove, daily: two 4x16 stacks across the winter. Start with one and reorder from your receipt in January.

Delivery day

The driver loads in South Boston in the morning and runs the day's route, so Halifax County customers often see the truck the same week they order and Roanoke runs go out on scheduled days. Tell us at checkout where the truck can turn around on a long driveway and where the stack goes; the driver stacks it there or dumps it by the shed and texts a photo. You do not need to be home. The steel rack and rack combo are not offered on the southern routes this season.