Tag Archives: Firewood

All about using trees for fuel.

Wood is Good 10 – Primitive Pleasure

Here is one of my favorite activities when the weather is cool but not too cold.  Once its hot outdoors this is not a good choice for something to do.  BUT sitting by the campfire is one of the BEST things to do when u can.  It’s relaxing, warming, even comforting.  It has been done for as long as mankind has had “control” of fire, to make it when and where he wants to.   A nice fire is like meditation – watching it will take your mind to a blank peaceful place if u let it.  This little movie is looking into my Chiminea, all you can see is the edge of the opening and the fire within. My son and i spent a few hours enjoying the fire and chatting.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  Hope u enjoy this brief clip. And hope u can enjoy your own campfire soon. (Click on picture to join me at the fire!)

IMG_0292

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Wood is Good 09 – Growing More Firewood

Below u see a stump on my property.  The power company came thru and cleared trees from under the power line last year.  The trees want to keep growing and there’s life still in the roots.

Woodstump1

Woodstump2

In order to concentrate the effort,  i select the strongest straightest shoot. The others are removed.  We will see how this works out.

Woodstump3

My theory is better one fat healthy trunk than a bunch of little ones all dividing the strength of the tree.

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Wood is Good 08 – Tiny Little Logs

Hey have you ever seen tiny wood fuel like these?
BagOWood

Just wanted to show you my other firewood. Compressed sawdust = wood fuel pellets.
Here you see the inside of the Hopper.
PelletHopper2

And here’s my other “woodstove”  – my pellet boiler.

PelletBlr

That’s a woodstove?  Well actually a wood pellet boiler.  Look here’s a look at the fire.

PelletFire

Its automatic, lights itself, maintains temperature.  Connected to my central heat and my hot water for showers etc.  Just one disadvantage – i have to put pellets into it.  And i do have to buy the pellets.  The mighty little woodstove uses mostly free firewood.  So the fuel for the pellet stove comes from the store.  But someday i will get myself a pellet mill.  For sure when i do i will share it with you.

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Wood is Good 07 – Care and Feeding of Little Box Stove

Here’s how I bring my stove from cold, back to hot.  The aftermath of the last fire:

Ashes 1Ashes 2

Waste Not Want Not.  In order not to throw out any fuel, and to reduce waste volume, I remove the ashes but keep the charcoal for the next fire.  Large charcoal is removed with the Screen Scoop, then the rest is put onto the ash can screen with the Tin Scoop.

ScoopsAsh_Can

Then with a little shake the remaining charcoal is separated.  The charcoal is laid in the bottom of the stove.

Ash_CoalsCharcoal

The Wood is placed into the stove, usually 3 pieces.

WoodLoad1WoodLoad2

Next some small fire starters are placed underneath.

MatchReadyPineCone

Secret Weapon:  Pine Cones.  I easily picked up a whole box under the pines at my church. Match light easily!

The dampers are all opened.  Cone is lit and the stove front door is closed.  The front ash tray cover is slid mostly into place.  Within about 2 minutes the fire is starting to crackle and roar.  After 5 or 10 minutes its time to close the ash tray cover, prop it up a little for more air and put all the dampers at about 45 degrees.  Then the stove and stove pipe gets hot. REALLY hot.  Usually i turn on the central fan to circulate the heat better.

The pieces shown will burn for about 2 to 4 hours.  More wood can be put into the stove on the glowing coals without repeating this whole process.  Just open the dampers, rake the coals forward, open the stove and load more wood. Close it up and leave the ash tray cover ajar as in the above description.  Once the fire roars, close/prop the ash tray cover, dampers to 45.  Easy Peasy.

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Wood is Good 06 – Small stove, big heat

Okay as promised here’s my setup for getting the most heat from my woodstove.

Extended flue with dampers. Have a look.

2Damprs

ReturnFlue

WholeFlue

The three dampers slow down the products of combustion (that’s the technical term for smoke etc.)  The flue gets very hot, probably hotter than the stove itself.  And there is more surface area than the stove.

This whole setup is like having two stoves operating at one time, sort of.  The “second stove” doesn’t use any fuel however.  It just gives off heat.

One more thing of note – in the center picture, see that blue area? that’s the inside of my return air duct. A little crude, i made it from aluminum, part of an old pool.  Anyway when i have a nice hot fire going, i can turn on the fan from my central heat / ac system and circulate the heat to the house evenly.  By the way check the last pic.  that blue tank is my water heater, and look! my oil burner. we try not to use that at all.

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Wood is Good 05 – Combustion

Ok time for a little science lesson.  Lets talk about what happens when u burn wood (or similar fuel).

Fire is a chemical reaction.  The components are the fuel, (wood = carbon compounds and volatile substances), Oxygen and Heat.  The heat is necessary to start the chain reaction, then the fire provides its own heat and is self sustaining until the fuel runs out.

Water is not part of the reaction.  It is a hindrance.  Before wet wood can burn, the fire must first dry out the wood enough, to raise the temperature enough, for the wood to burn.  In other words, alot of the heat is lost driving the water out of the wet wood.  That’s heat you will never benefit from, never warm your house.  Its wasted energy, it only vaporizes the water, doesn’t raise the heat level.  So DRY your wood and KEEP IT DRY! (more here, and here)

Now the first thing that happens when wood starts to burn is called out-gassing.  The heat of the fire drives the volatile substances out of the wood.  These compounds are combustible and they ignite and are the source of most (or all?) of the flames you see if you watch the fire.  Here’s where the non-airtight stove is a good thing.  The fire can get the oxygen it needs.

Location, Location, Location.  We’re not talking Real Estate here, like a corner lot for your business.  We’re talking about stove location.  If you are serious about heating your home with a woodstove, the stove belongs in the basement.  Couple of reasons – first of all, heat rises, so it is automatically delivered to your home which is above.  But also very important – when the stove gets all the oxygen it needs, as the wood is out-gassing, that sucker gets VERY VERY HOT.  Notice in the previous post where my stove is, it sits on the basement floor (concrete) next to the furnace (metal).  Non combustible  items.  While you can make a safe place for your stove up in the living area, here are a few more reasons to put it in the basement:  Bark, Sawdust, Ashes.  The vicinity of your stove is difficult to keep clean.  If it’s in your living room that means daily clean up.  Basement?  once a month or so, no sweat.  Also don’t forget possible damage to your floors by hot coals.

So next time we talk about good wood heat, i will show you another trick i use to get that VERY VERY HOT stove to give up the heat to my home.

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Wood is Good 04 – stove

Here’s my mighty little woodstove. This heats my house when it’s above, say, 5 deg f. Now, a little about my house. It is around 3000 square feet, basement and upstairs combined. But it is a super insulated building. We’ll go into the construction at another time.

I will say this though, above about 40 deg f, we don’t need very much added heat. If I try to use the stove when it’s 40 or above, the house over heats.

Woodstove1

I love this little cast iron unit. It does a great job and its easy to use. The front opens of course but the top also swings open as well. This makes it cake to fill. As u look at it u may b thinking it looks old, etc. Well it is not new I bought it used. Not sure how old it is really. The design is certainly old. Just a cast iron box. NOT airtight. U may think this is bad, but it’s ideal.

Next post I’ll tell you that all about it.

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Wood is Good 03 – Wood Shed

Last post on wood we talked about DRY firewood.  Here’s my secret weapon in the war on wet firewood.  These pictures show two sheds.  The first is a small one, only about 4 ft tall.  Short, maybe 5 ft deep.  I show it to you just to emphasize what i said before about keeping wood covered.  That shed will be gone sometime this spring.  Never meant to be a woodshed.  but as long as i had it there i put some wood in it.  Smaller diameter stuff, most about the length of the shed.  That was last year sometime.  Then say 4-6 weeks ago i took out the wood, cut, split and brought it into the house.  Now i did store it near the stove.  Things do dry out easily there.  But the point i want to make is this – it lit easily, it burned fine, no sizzling to indicate it was wet etc.  Good dry firewood.

Now the bigger one, that is my main shed.  If you burn wood for heat, i recommend one like this.  note first the orientation.  This is a solar shed.  it faces almost due south.  So here in the northern hemisphere the sun shines into the shed all winter, and most of the spring and fall.  The roof keeps off rain & snow, the sun warms it and helps things dry.  The size is large enough to pile wood on either side with room to operate in between.  (around 8 ft deep x 12 ft wide, little over 9 ft tall in front).  The left side is from last year, maybe cut/split around 18 months ago.  The right side is what i started cutting this year before the snow stopped me.

This thing is a solar wood factory.  doesn’t cost me a nickel to operate.  Some day i may convert it into a full blown solar kiln.  Pretty sure if i make some kind of clear front cover the temp would soar well over 100.  Well anyway build yourself one. You’ll be glad u did. even if its smaller, make your woodshed open sided and face the sun.

SmallShedSolarShed

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Wood is good 02 – Dry Wood

So here’s the most basic principle about using firewood for heat – r u ready? DRY WOOD. Yeah about right now ur saying to yourself “is this guy for real?” Well just hold on a minute. Its true this is rather obvious but – you’d never know it by the way lots of people store their fuel. Firewood should be cut & split the year before u use it. This is a minimum. At LEAST a year. But as i drive around it is common to see firewood piled with no cover. Guess what, this aint a desert climate. Rain happens. Snow too and both will dampen that uncovered wood. If u leave it on the ground it soaks up moisture from that as well. Hey, there’s no reason for that. Grab any of the trillion or so waste pallets lying around and keep ur wood off the ground. And put something over it even if its just a tarp. Lets remember to use some common sense.

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Wood is Good 01

Lets talk about wood. Specifically firewood. About heating with firewood. First of all, this is a good thing. Its good for you. Great exercise, helps keep u connected to reality, (usually) saves money. Its good for the environment. When u burn wood, u r not adding to your ‘carbon footprint’ becuz when a tree grows it pulls carbon out of thin air (co2 actually) to use and convert into what it needs. A tree is really a pollution removal factory (no wonder they r called plants! Like i work at a yogurt plant u kno?) Hey sorry but remember i’m trying to entertain u remember?

So anyway heating with firewood is awesome! We will develop why, and how best to do it in some future installments.

Till later – Have a great day!

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