Was there a trade and a market for it so I would buy it sort of like how someone would buy heating fuel now? Or would I take some time off to go to the woods and make my own?
Also where would the nearest woods be to large cities and would they be protected from chopping?
Also how was it transported? Wood seems like a bulky heavy commodity.
Could I expand this question to include other possible sources of fuel such as peat or coal?
Is fire wood the prevalent heating fuel of the day?
Here's a couple of thoughts. First, if you were the average person, you might not be cooking much food in your home. If you were wealthy, your relationship to food and wood would have been very different. A lot of people would take food to the local bakery and pay a penny or two to have their pots put into the baker's oven after he was done baking for the day. But most people's diets were extremely limited. Meat was a luxury for most; cheese and beans were protein sources for the average person. And the idea that people were supposed to be warm in their houses is a modern idea. Fires were for when you were awake. You couldn't leave a fire going at night while you were asleep. So, fires weren't always going all the time. So, you would need far less than you might assume a family would need. One way you can determine what Europeans thought of wood consumption in the 15th and 16th century is to see how they reacted to the abundance of wood in the Americas. For instance instead of using coal in blacksmith shops, they began producing charcoal. So, yes, you would buy wood that was transported into the city, but unless you were well-to-do, you got by with a very small amount of wood, but depending upon your country by the 1600s, you would probably have used coal.