How do I find sustainably harvested firewood?
Leicester is rural, large-lot Buncombe County — Sandy Mush, Turkey Creek — where many homes run propane and wood heat is genuinely popular. Your own acreage and your neighbors' are the greenest firewood source there is: downed and dead hardwood, land-clearing, storm-fall. Buy or cut it local, season it hard through summer, and burn it in an efficient stove that works when the grid doesn't.
Out here, the woods are the woodpile
On Leicester's large rural properties up Sandy Mush and Newfound Road, wood heat is a way of life and the supply is often right on the land — dead-standing trees, storm-fall, timber off cleared ground. That's sustainable firewood by definition: a byproduct put to use rather than forest felled for fuel. If you're buying rather than cutting, source from a neighbor or a Buncombe County producer so you're not hauling pests in from elsewhere, and favor dense hardwood for long, hot burns.
Cold hollows mean a long season
Cold air drains into Leicester's rural valleys and runs them 5 to 8 degrees colder than Asheville on clear winter nights, so the heating season is long and your wood needs to be truly dry. Buy or cut green well ahead, split it, stack it off the ground with the top covered, and cure it below 20% moisture through summer. Wet wood robs a stove of heat and cakes the chimney with creosote.
Heat that doesn't need the grid
Some remote Leicester properties have limited electrical capacity, and that's the strongest case for wood there is — an EPA wood stove or insert makes heat you own outright, no power required. Central heat and even pellet stoves need electricity; wood is total grid independence. We're 15 minutes west of Emma Road. Call (828) 545-0525.
Fireplace help in Leicester
We install and service fireplaces throughout Leicester and the rest of Buncombe County — just 15 minutes west from our Asheville-area showroom.