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Heating with Wood

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BigBill
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Heating with Wood

Postby BigBill » Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:20 am

With the wood burning season finally upon us there are some great tips which can cut down on crosote in the chimney and get the most out of your wood. Make sure your wood is seasoned. I use temperature gages,one on the stove to make sure i'm in the proper tempature range, not too cold and not too hot. And another temperature gage on the pipe so you can regulate whats going up the chimney with the damper. You don't want to send too much of your heat up the chimney nor too little so your making creosote too.As long as you stay in the ranges recomended thats between 250 and 450 for the woodstove and 225 to 375 degrees for the pipe. Once a day you should hit 400 degrees on the pipe gage sure its clean of creosote. If you keep your temps within the safe limits you can cut down on the amount of wood your burning too.

Have a safe wood burning season and have a great holiday.

I been burning wood for almost 30 years to heat my houses now and i'm no pro and i'm open to suggestions on what works for you too we can all learn something new.

For a barn or garage woodstove a top loader like a tempwood style stove makes a great safe stove because we must worry about the gas fumes that are from the floor to 4" above it. I have also found the top loaders to be good on the amount of wood burnt too. These can be found for $50 to $125 used.
I'm technically misunderstood at times i guess its been this way my whole life so why should it change now.

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Postby Little Indy » Wed Dec 06, 2006 12:26 pm

I use a two barrel yukon stove in my barn. Sides get very hot. I have two wall stove pipe running to the chimney.
Can be gotten from Northern tool

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Postby Rudi » Wed Dec 06, 2006 12:52 pm

My family has been heating with wood for decades... I grew up with wood kitchen stoves at my grandparents and gas in town at home....

I have used for the past 20 years here in my home a Kerr DB 202A - Scotty II Wood Furnace. Wonderful unit. Safe and economical. We used to use it in a side-by-side configuration with our backup Propane Furnace which had the blowers. We got rid of the Propane and now use an Electric 30kw Forced Air unit, with blowers to distribute the hot air from our Scotty II.

Image

The Scotty II is a 75,000 BTU unit, designed for bungalow style homes, but provides sufficient heat for our 3600 sq ft 2 storey home (plus the 10 foot basement) :lol: :!:

When we first built, we used the Super Chimney 2100 Stainless Steel version, mounted as per directions on the exterior SOUTH wall of the house. The chimney is 35 feet in height. We got lots of chimney fires, no matter what we did. Flames would shoot out the cap on a regular basis.. creosote build up.. and it was caused by the different temperature gradients as the smoke rose up the chimney. For submariners.. similar to temp gradients underwater.. different levels different temperature..

We solved that problem by building a chimney surround 6 years ago. Since that time I have not had ONE single solitary chimney fire.

We have not changed our fuel types, cleaning schedules or any thing else except adding the chimney surround. This keeps the temps at a reasonable level and helps prohibit the buildup of creosote.

TIPS:

    1. Ensure that your chimney is cleaned properly, according to empirical data gathered over the years by your experience or by the recommended cleaning schedule from the manufacturer of your chimney. You may also wish to avail yourself of the services of a good Chimney Sweeping Service. And I emphasise GOOD... as there are fly by nites who tend to rip people off.. btdtbtns...

    2. Whatever types of wood you use, use a balance but the wood should be well seasoned. It must air dry at least 3-6 months either in 4 foot or stove length before being used. We use a mix of hard and soft woods. A balanced mix provides good chimney temperatures and helps prevent creosote buildup.

    3. Ensure that at least once per day during the heating season, you run a HOT fire. This WILL burn quickly any creosote buildup in the chimney, but will burn cooler than a massive chimney fire. Over heated chimneys are the major cause of house fires in wood fired homes.

    4. Always empty your ashes into a covered steel ash container. I use metal paint pails and put the lids on it. Oh yeah -- neutralize the contents of the pail before you put hot ashes in it. I clean my ashes daily, but I leave about 1 inch of ash at the bottom of the furnace to provide for proper banking and a good bed for a nighttime fire.

    5. Never ever use an accelerant to start the fire. Build and bank properly.

    6. Most of this will apply to wood stoves, pellet or pot belly styles in the house or in the shop. Care, attention to what you are burning, attention to heat build up are the main things you need to keep in mind.
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Postby Bruce Sanford » Wed Dec 06, 2006 3:10 pm

I also heated with wood for 30 years. I found with the chimney on the outside of the house used to build up creasote so bad.I had to clean it several times during the heating season.We switched to oil a few years ago.The old joints could not take the wood splitting any more.But I did enjoy the heat. 8) :) Bruce
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Postby BigBill » Wed Dec 06, 2006 5:11 pm

I noticed that wood seasoned for a year is just about perfect. If its seasoned more than a year like 2 or more years it becomes too dry and burns quicker. I know some of the guys up north burn wood thats seasoned just 4 months and it works for them. To me as soon as the wood cracks from drying to me its good to go. With wood like this thats newer with cracks thats not a year old i may mix it up with wood thats seasoned a year once the older wood is hot and the gages are up to temps then the newer wood will dry more with the heat too. At this time with seasoned wood with the fire up to temps i have put in pine too split very thin too with no creosote problems too it all burns up in the stove.

I had about 7 cords of willow once and thats the worst smelling wood to burn there is, it smells like the swamp is burning so i only burned it after 11pm at night when no one was outside to smell it. Little by little i did burn it all up. I did let it sit for years to season. Even the pieces of split wood sent up shoots trying to still grow out of the bark that willow just wouldn't die.
I'm technically misunderstood at times i guess its been this way my whole life so why should it change now.

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Postby WKPoor » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:04 pm

I too have a gage on the pipe and stove and try to maintain pipe temps between 300-400 degrees. I also let it climp between 500-700 grees once or twice a day to burn out some ceosoded. Right now I don't worry much about saving wood as I have all I could ever burn.

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Postby John *.?-!.* cub owner » Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:15 pm

I think how long the wood needs to be seasoned depends a lot on the stove and how hot you run it. My house is small and fairly tight, and I only heat the basement with wood, unless the power is out, then I call on my stove to heat the whole thing. My stove is a air tight Warm Morning wood stove with a thermostat draft. For ot to work well, wood has to be seasoned a minimum of 1 year, and up to 4 or 5 years also works quite well, and will hold overnight.
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Postby beaconlight » Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:49 pm

I don't use wood on Staten island any longer because of home owners insurance premiums. I do use it in Franklin though. At first i used a barrel stove to heat the basement while we framed the house. Afriend gave me a thermo control stove that has piping to heat rads. At 10 below zero I can get the house up above comfortable. That was with just insulation in roof and none in the walls. Last winter with half of the walls insulated and the balance of the roof insulated and the upstairs bed room doors closed it got to 85 degrees with 5 degrees outside. The heat is still temporary. There are 3 10 foot sections of convectors on the inside kitchen wall and 2 banks of 3 radiators in parrallell in the hallway to the 1st floor bed room. I burn a lot of wood to do this and have 12 cords made last year for this year. I am doing stand improvement on 20 acres so I wont run out of wood soon. Beverly having her hip replace this Nov 1st is putting a crimp on my plan to work to complete the house but hey first things first. If she could stand me for over 50 years she deservs some help recuperating. Besides she helped me frame the house. Oh well 2 years of aging won't hurt the wood and it won't rot bad because most oif it is covered.
I used doubled 6 mil plastic. I took a 6 foot wide 14 foot long pieces which I placed between a 1x4 and a 2x4 screwed together. One 2x4 hangs to the rear of the stack and the other to the front. Each stack is on 4x4 or 4x6 set on cement blocks for good air circulation. One winter I was short wood and spent most of my time looking for dead but not punky wood which i stacked near the stove to dry it. Spent most of my time looking for wood and little working on the house..

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Postby Cecil » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:58 pm

Boy I remember those Franklin winters. Especially hanging off a 35 ft pole with the temp well below 0. :(

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Postby WKPoor » Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:35 pm

I have a friend who burns all winter long to heat his whole house and only cuts it as he uses it. No season time at all. He just burns it hot and sweeps when needed. This yr I've not had any put up ahead and am having to do much the same. My wood is only getting about 2wks before I gotta burn it. Most is wood thats been down for a yr but not split.
Last yr we found some standing dead that was the best I've ever burned. Bark was off but wood was still solid. Man that stuff burned hot.


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