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As the temperature drops and the holidays approach, you may be thinking about getting the old fireplace going. But before you do that, you of course need to get some wood. So here are a few tips:

Check out the wood before purchasing it. The wetter the wood, the more smoke and carbon dioxide it will emit. You’ll also pay up to 25% more when you take into account water weight. The easiest way to gauge if wood is reasonably dry is through sound. Rap on a sample piece with your knuckles. Dry wood should make a hollower sound whereas green wood will make more of a dull thumping sound.

Instead of buying or collecting wood, consider wood pellets. These are generally made from compacted sawdust and are a byproduct of milling operations. Given their density and low moisture content, they have excellent combustion efficiency, burning very cleanly.

If you feel like being a mountain man (or a mountain woman), you can collect your own wood. But here are a few things to keep in mind:

Only collect on your own property unless you check with your local government about where you can collect without getting in trouble.

Beware of chopping down or cutting up dead or fallen trees as they often become habitats for local creatures who help to balance the ecosystem of your area. In addition, some of those creatures help to decompose the wood which contributes to more fertile soil. It’s very important not to disrupt their work!

A word on so-called Chimney-Sweeping Logs: Don’t use them! They are marketed to clean creosote out of your chimney, but they only work on creosote that has become glazed to the walls of your chimney, the most rare form of creosote residue to occur in chimneys. And even if this occurs and the logs break down the creosote, the residue still collects somewhere in your fireplace or chimney until you take the time to physically remove it.

Creosote and tar do build up in your fireplace and do need to be removed, but only trust a licensed professional to mechanically removed this buildup.

It’s not worth the money to get a fake log that is full of potentially harmful chemicals. A better investment might be a professionally-installed steel lining, which is much harder for creosote to build up on and therefore much less of a fire hazard.

Bottom line: chimney-sweeping logs do not in fact sweep your chimney. Don’t believe the hype!