How do you get used to burning wood?

Yes buying wood is good as long as the price is right around here it runs 150 to 175 cord . I have chainsaws ,dump truck ,trailer, tractor with loader .4 or 5 acres of woods and some free time . So it makes sense to cut wood I would buy as much as could afford if it was 80 dollars a cord. A person must have knowledge of felling , bucking , and skidding logs also you need to know how sharpen and maintain a chainsaw. If you don't have these skill sets work with someone or don't take on tree that you are not comfortable with .One wrong cut can cost a lot more than you would save by cutting wood.Sorry for being long winded cutting and burning is a subject I think about a lot .

Please tell everyone that you are not serious about this. You're not right?



Owl

I would say there is a huge difference green wood and seasoned wood .You have to cook all of the water out of the wood before you start getting any heat.

Our primary source of heat is from a Fujitsu air source heat pump that we installed last fall. This 18000 btu unit did a great job last winter (and that winter was a good test for it). The only time if faltered was not from extreme cold, but from extreme humidity. It would shut down to defrost the coils about every 30 minutes (15 minutes to defrost, run 30 mins, shut down for 15). At that point the house started to get cold. We had an oil furnace for a back up. With heating oil expensive here and the fact we needed a new tank we decided to get rid of oil heat and invested in a woodstove. We had our original chimney rebuilt from the roof up and had a stainless liner installed. We bought 7 cord of hardwood (seasoned 2 years) from a neighbor who was selling his house. This should last me quite a while as the woodstove is only for backup (and for a cozy Saturday night). We have about 5 acres of woods which has an abundance of fallen trees. I came across a recently felled maple. Too me that's like finding a $10 bill on the ground! Maybe better! Free heat! I don't count my sweat equity because I love cutting and splitting wood.

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Located in beautiful Prince Edward Island

Unseasoned wood is a big contributor to creosote build up. Creosote fires may not do noticeable damage to a stove. It does how ever do damage, even if it's unnoticeable metal fatigue do to the heat from such a fire. It also does damage to the chimney which with out a carmera to examine the interior of the stack will not be seen.

Here is a bit about such fires.

http://www.csia.org/homeowner-resour...ney_fires.aspx

http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index..._and_solutions

https://chimneysweeponline.com/hoburnout.htm


Seasoned v. unseasoned wood. It is worth your time to season your wood.

http://www.mastersweep.com/wood.htm

http://www.customfireplacesandmore.c.../dry-wood.html

https://chimneysweeponline.com/howetwd2.htm

https://chimneysweeponline.com/howetwd.htm
http://www.csia.org/homeowner-resour..._firewood.aspx


Others.

http://ccetompkins.org/energy/heatin...d-stove-safety

http://www.nationwide.com/wood-stove-safety.jsp

http://dps.alaska.gov/fire/teb/docs/woodstovesafety.pdf



Please do what you think is good for YOU. Don't lead others down your road to a gamble at best. To become complacent with creosote fires is a horrible bad, serious and possibly fatal mistake.



Owl

I don't have any of those tools mentioned above....my wood runs me anywhere from 225.00 a cord to 275.00 depending on the time of year and what kind of mood the fellow is in...so for me.....it is not cheap at all...our oil furnace works nice but I am trying to be more like a homesteader and you guys burn wood...I lived in my current house for 8 years before I lit the wood stove...I was single and spent most of my time in my garage working on my old trucks and my race cars too...My new wife got me burning the wood...I am personally very very skiddish of the whole burning wood thing...scares me to death most of the time...keep waiting for the house burn down everytime she lights it up....

I have been told it is a whole way of live (constantly gathering, chopping, stacking and burning)....I might be more of a "city-it" than I originally thought...

You guys are great on here...I learn more every time I log on...

MikeC

mikec - I read this thread the other day, and I keep thinking about it. First off, I think it's going to be very difficult to get over the fear of fire after what you've been through. Secondly, there is no right or wrong way or any one way to be a homesteader. It's great to have a woodstove for back-up heat if the power goes out, but if it gives you that much worry don't use it. Maybe if you don't buy the wood your wife won't use it! I suspect you have other things to do with your time and money.

Dh and I grew up with woodstoves, have had many homes in Maine in the past that were just heated with wood, now we have a pellet stove as they are common out here in the west. I would think there could be a big learning curve if you haven't spent your life around them. Oh, and our houses and clothes were never smokey as others say.

Wow. I understand your logic that some people have the right equipment for the job however your choice boggles my mind. Mind you, I do appreciate people like you...

The boggle part is because I get enough wood just from dead wood for our house. We heat entirely with wood but since our home is small and efficient it only takes 0.75 cord of wood a year to heat it. The time spent dealing with someone else to buy in wood would be more than it takes us to cut haul, block, split and stack our own. Plus it's good exercise.

Besides that, our forests produce hundreds of cords of wood a year for other people. I sell firewood - wholesale mostly. I just keep the dead wood for myself. Nice stuff goes to paying customers.

Very true. Thank you for supporting local forestry. Very sincerely.

If you're having any creosote fires then you should consider:

1) changing the type of wood you burn;
2) seasoning the wood longer;
3) burning hotter fires; or
4) all of the above.

I would also recommend having a lot of thermal mass around the wood stove. Stone or other masonry can make it so that hot fast burns get soaked up by the thermal mass making your home more efficient and you don't have to tend the fire as often.

Completely and totally wrong. Properly seasoned wood will give you far more energy and is far safer to burn. I think I see the problem in the creosote issue above.

All it takes is a bit of planning. Buy wood in the winter when nobody else is buying and you'll even get it at a lower price. Let it season even longer for even more benefit.

Er... Sort of. Code doesn't go anywhere far enough. Build far, far, far beyond code.

Mostly we agree but the drying of the wood, simply by letting it sit, makes a huge difference and should prevent your bi-annual creosote fires thus making your life safer.

-Walter

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

The instant steam is made, a wormhole is created that carries that heat clear to another universe. It is no longer in your stove. It is gone right?



When fuel combines with O2 it burns and releases it's Btu. Some of that Btu will be in the form of radiant heat, some will be in smoke and some in steam. 100% of the heat is still in the stove for you to manipulate as you desire.

Dry wood burns faster, wet wood burns slower. Both chemical reactions will release the same amount of heat. One may have less steam in it, while the other may have more steam in it. But there is no magic wormhole.

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http://www.mofga.org/

http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

My stove won't burn wood that is unseasoned .It might burn green pine.Is that what you are burning ?

So you're trying to use your wood stove as a steam heater/boiler? No wonder you run a couple creosote fires a season.

How much heat does your worm hole need to turn the water into steam. Much of that heat is lost to the evaporation process. More heat is lost in the smoldering smoke that goes up the pipe. Leaving behind condensate/creosote, thus your thus your "extra" fires. There may be heat there to manipulate, however there would be more to use if the evap process was greatly reduced by seasoned/dry fuel. With minimal creosote build up and greatly reduced chance of creosote fires.

Experiment. Build two as identical fires as possible. Build a good coal bed as even between the two as possible. Then add 4 splits of wood to each coal bed, as close to the same size as possible. One set of splits dry and seasoned, the other set of splits green, wet and unseasoned. Which one will put off more heat and less smoke, which one will be a smoldering steamy mess with much less heat and choking smoke?

Your magic steam worm hole theory doesn't wash in this circumstance, other than to create a very present and dangerous hazard to you and possibly your neighbors if they are close enough.

To much has gone into proving this. No way is green wet wood better in any way than dry seasoned wood.

Continue at your and your families peril. But. Please do make sure you have good working alarms sprinkled around your home. There will be a time when a creosote fire will be a horribly bad thing, that you will be able to do nothing about, but watch. Also please don't lead people down the path you have chosen to take from what ever reasoning's you have, it will only endanger anyone not knowing any better.



Owl

Underwriter Labs have spent years trying to duplicate a 'Creosote fire'.

That have gotten woodstoves so hot that they have warped steel. But unless they first violate our current fire codes, they can not reproduce the conditions to make a house burn down.

Keep combustibles away from the hot parts of your system.

Be safe. This is not rocket science.

Do not place combustibles touching your stove.

It has been common practice among many carpenters to hang wood framing directly onto stone chimneys. Of course those houses burn down. This is not rocket science. Put combustibles where they get hot and what else is supposed to happen?

If you keep all combustibles 3 foot away from the hot components of your system you should be fine.

No need to exceed code. Three foot is plenty.

I have seen stove-pipes ran where wood farming is the supports, directly touching the stove-pipe. Three foot of clearance? NO! They built it in a manner that it must burn down. Violate fire code and your house burns down. Arson investigator will tell you why, but people like to blame creosote instead.

If you have a chimney look at it, does it comply with fire code? Is there any wood within 3 foot of it?

Some people try to cheat by using concrete backer board. 18 inches to concrete with an air space behind the concrete board.

But others I have seen do 6 inches to concrete board and then that is directly touching wood framing. Obviously that might eventually burn down.

__________________
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http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

We burn mixed hard/soft woods.

__________________
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http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

There is a "magic wormhole" in a phase change of water from liquid to gas...it's called latent heat. 1 BTU is the amount of energy required to raise 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit. To take water from a 212 degree liquid to steam requires an additional 970 BTUs per pound. Yes, the energy is still there, but it isn't sensible heat so it doesn't do you any good.

There's about 8600 BTUs in a pound of wood. For every pound of water in the wood, you lose 970 BTUs. So if you burn wood with 20% moisture, you lose about 3% of the heating potential of that wood. 20% is fairly dry, though. 15% is better.

Every btu of that heat can still be extracted and used for home heating.

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http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

The problem with doing that is when you extract those BTUs the water re-condenses and then you have creosote and other issues. In reality (even with very dry wood) if you extracted every BTU you would have water trickling down your chimney back into the stove and smoke wouldn't go up the chimney.

I have no idea what 'problem' you think this is.

What 'other issues' you are thinking of.

I have done this for years.

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http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

I added to my post about the other issues. You may have been burning green wood for years, but you're not extracting every BTU. It's impossible. Your fire would be put out by the water re-condensing.

Most of the time, our stove-pipe is cool enough that I can lay my hand on it.

We capture most of the heat into water. The heat is stored in our thermal-bank. Where it is redistributed through-out our house via radiant flooring.

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http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx

All I'm saying is that burning green wood is less thermodynamically (is that a word?) efficient. It's quite possible that it's more cost efficient because the wood is so much cheaper than seasoned wood. Even at 70% moisture, you only lose around a quarter of the heating value, so if the wood costs half as much you still come out ahead, assuming you don't burn your house down with a chimney fire, which sounds like you have under control. If it works for you, that's great.