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Properly seasoned wood goes a long way in keeping smoke down, windy/dry/sunny locations the best to store it. The covered/un-covered debate still rages among wood folk I suppose. I have a stack in an open air shelter with a clear corrugated plexiglass roof to let sun in and rain/snow off, another piled uncovered open air on the deck ramp.
Can't say one pile dries better than the other. I don't use a moisture meter, just wait until the wood sounds like bowling pins when hitting two pieces together...
The forestry department had this experiment done:covered vs uncovered firewood.
The same conclusion - it didn’t matter.
I like your idea of cover - keeps the natural debris out - neater; I am sure it keeps the top drier too.
The old timers have another discussion on stacking. The bark on top or at the bottom?
In your case you could stack the wood bark side down - helps drying, but it wouldn’t collect moisture like in a cup as your wood is covered.
I have a woodstock absolute steel stove. Its is a hybrid stove that has secondary burn technology as well as a catalyst. The thing is so clean I have minimal smoke coming out of the chimney even without the CAT engaged. The secondary burn is a nice to have for looks and if you want to heat up the room fast by pushing heath out through the glass with flames. But unless it is -10F + I run it in CAT mode with the air around a 1. Sometimes there are flames and sometimes not but it burns slow and keeps the soap stone warm for a long time. I can usually go 10-12 hours. 9am/9pm loads.
It does want dry wood and a good draft. I am getting on the three year plan to burn 100% with wood but now I am using kiln dired wood for when is it less than 20 degrees, and my mini split for greater than 20. Once I get the green wood dried three years, IMO there is nothing cheaper (I pay $225/cord) to heat your home except for coal.
There was an episode of MythBusters where they address the mythology of magical creosote fires.
They setup a woodstove with a stove pipe, and mounted sprinkler heads inside the stove pipe to spray fuel oil in it. With a fire going and fuel oil spraying inside the stove pipe, they were not able to force the fire to magically transport itself outside of the stove pipe. It got seriously hot, but at no point did any magic happen. The fire stayed inside the stove and stove pipe.
A lot of people seem to believe in the magic of creosote fires, that the fire can magically transport itself to other locations.
Part of the issue with chimney fires is just putting them out. In the old days, you could just shut down the air intakes on the stove and the fire would die out due to lack of oxygen (a chimney fire causes a stove to draft excessively adding a ton of air to the fire, that's why they can resemble a jet engine). The issue with the newer, EPA compliant stoves is that the air intake can never be shut down very far, in the interest of a clean burn. One thing we were taught in a fire department I was in-take a roll of toilet paper, toss in in the toilet for a few seconds letting it soak up some water, then toss that in the stove/fireplace and close the door. The water will flash to steam, cooling and putting out the fire. Can't say I've actually tried it.
Concerning burning with wood, modern, EPA-compliant stoves (the only kind that can be sold new) are of two styles, both of which reduce smoke to a minimal level. Some use a catalytic converter to "reduce" the soot and pollutants. This style can typically be "damped down" further than non-catalytic stoves. The only issue is the cats need to be replaced and they are somewhat expensive. Non-cat stoves use secondary burn tubes and extra insulation in the top of the stove to keep the firebox hot and introduce more air at the top of the stove, "burning" smoke and particulates. These stoves require a different operation than older, non-EPA stoves. They should have the fire box pretty well loaded with wood and the air damped significantly. This traps heat in the firebox, which is critical to getting the secondary combustion to "light off" properly-you'll see flames from the gasses burning on the top of the firebox when it's working properly (this also helps with airwash across the glass door, keeping it clean. With pre-EPA stoves, users were told to run lots of air and a small hot fire to burn cleanly. Pretty much the opposite of what you want with a modern stove-too much air just wastes fuel, takes your heat up the chimney and cools the firebox, keeping it from getting hot enough to get secondary combustion functioning. A modern stove, operated properly, will emit virtually no visible smoke or smell (assuming decently dried wood), other than at startup. EPA requires less than 2 grams per hour of emissions (for reference, there are 454 grams per pound, or .07 ounces per hour).
As others said, a wood stove is essentially CO2 neutral-dead timber is going to emit CO2 (or methane) either through decay or, much more likely, in a wildfire. You could argue it's CO2 negative, since it displaces other heat sources, which are emitters. A cord of wood burned in an uncontrolled wildfire emits far more particulates (aka smoke) than a wood stove ever will. I lived in Idaho for nearly the last 30 years-summers on a bad year were terrible, with the air thick with wildfire smoke, mostly as a result of poor (non-existent) forest management. Forest Circus was taken over by environmental activists, to whom responsible forest management was to keep humans out and let it all burn. Winters, with lots of wood stoves fired up, smoke was not noticable.
We used a Quadrafire insert stove in our first house. Worked well, but like most steel or iron stoves, once the wood burned down the metal cooled pretty quickly. I put a Hearthstone Mansfield soapstone stove in our next place-that thing was great. The soapstone acted like a big heat sink; it put out heat long after the fire burned down, and didn't get as hot as quickly, so it didn't "cook you out" after loading the firebox.
If anyone wants to learn more about wood stoves, proper installation, proper operation or fuel, check out this site: https://www.hearth.com/talk/. Overwhelming amount of information and some good, helpful people.
Last edited by Toyman at Jewel Lake; 04-14-2022 at 07:30 PM..
The forestry department had this experiment done:covered vs uncovered firewood. The same conclusion - it didn’t matter.
I like your idea of cover - keeps the natural debris out - neater; I am sure it keeps the top drier too.
The old timers have another discussion on stacking. The bark on top or at the bottom?
In your case you could stack the wood bark side down - helps drying, but it wouldn’t collect moisture like in a cup as your wood is covered.
That is far from my personal experience. Uncovered wood soaks up water like a sponge, most of your heat is wasted just drying the wood. First winter heating with wood I had it poorly covered with tarps-and we got a serious amount of snow that year-had to dig down to get to the top of the wood pile! Anyway, it was damp and burned terribly. Next summer I build a big woodshed with more than enough space to hold the winter's wood supply, fully enclosed with some sliding barn doors. Heating was much simpler! Even more recently I've kept my wood under my carport, which worked just fine. But-one year I was late splitting and stacking. Wood was very dry over the summer, but after sitting in the rain in October/November, it was pretty soaked by the time I got it split and stacked, never really did dry out well that year. Lesson learned.
^^^ Right...Flash point of creosote is ~75*C and it burns at 100*C...Flash point of wood is ~300*C...so, unless the wood is in intimate contact with the chimney pipe and not well ventilated to dissipate or insulated to contain heat, a chimney fire should not cause a house fire except as you've mentioned.
I think you're missing a decimal place there. 100*C is 212F (boiling point of water-by definition for 100C). A creosote fire is far hotter, probably in the range of 1000-1500C, perhaps more. The big issue with a chimney fire, they create their own draft, sucking a massive amount of air through the damper, and burn far hotter than it would if just set on a flat surface and lit. They can look like a jet engine when lit off.
... Concerning burning with wood, modern, EPA-compliant stoves (the only kind that can be sold new)
Hold on. If you design and market new stoves, then yes, those new designs must be EPA compliant.
But there are manufacturers who still manufacture old designs, there are newly manufactured stoves that are built from old designs, and those are still legal for market and to be installed.
Quote:
... are of two styles, both of which reduce smoke to a minimal level. Some use a catalytic converter to "reduce" the soot and pollutants. This style can typically be "damped down" further than non-catalytic stoves. The only issue is the cats need to be replaced and they are somewhat expensive. Non-cat stoves use secondary burn tubes and extra insulation in the top of the stove to keep the firebox hot and introduce more air at the top of the stove, "burning" smoke and particulates. These stoves require a different operation than older, non-EPA stoves. They should have the fire box pretty well loaded with wood and the air damped significantly. This traps heat in the firebox, which is critical to getting the secondary combustion to "light off" properly-you'll see flames from the gasses burning on the top of the firebox when it's working properly (this also helps with airwash across the glass door, keeping it clean. With pre-EPA stoves, users were told to run lots of air and a small hot fire to burn cleanly. Pretty much the opposite of what you want with a modern stove-too much air just wastes fuel, takes your heat up the chimney and cools the firebox, keeping it from getting hot enough to get secondary combustion functioning. A modern stove, operated properly, will emit virtually no visible smoke or smell (assuming decently dried wood), other than at startup. EPA requires less than 2 grams per hour of emissions (for reference, there are 454 grams per pound, or .07 ounces per hour).
I think right now the EPA allows 4.5 grams per hour. Next month May 2022 the laws changes to 2 grams.
I think you're missing a decimal place there. 100*C is 212F (boiling point of water-by definition for 100C). A creosote fire is far hotter, probably in the range of 1000-1500C, perhaps more. The big issue with a chimney fire, they create their own draft, sucking a massive amount of air through the damper, and burn far hotter than it would if just set on a flat surface and lit. They can look like a jet engine when lit off.
Look it up. You'd have trouble boiiling water over an open flame fueled only by creosote...Don't confuse total heat emitted over time in an enclosed space with the temp of the gases emitted from a fuel undergoing rapid oxidation.
A "flame" is seen when the hot gases cool as they rise away from the fuel and emit visible light as they cool. Note that burning methanol (Indy car fuel) gets really hot but can't be seen because it's emitting energy in the non-visible wavelengths.
Re: dried wood vs wet wood-- the heart wood of a tree is mostly tubules filled with water. A freshly cut log may weigh 25% more than a seasond (dried) log. https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/w...ood-d_821.html The difference is the weight of the water....If you stack dried wood in the open and rain gets it wet, that's just a few ounces of water per log and the difference in heating potential is minimal....
Water has a very high heat capacity-- You have to pour in a lot of heat to make it go from liquid water at 212*F to water vapor at 212*F. That energy that goes into the phase change is energy that's not heating your house...ergo-- wet wood is ineffient as fuel compared to dry wood.
Re-- chimney fires jumpinmg to the roof... A material "burns" (self-sustaining, rapid oxidation) not because it has "touched" fire and the fire "spreads" but because it has been heated up to its flash point.--Kinda like an electric current can't jump a space unless the voltage is really high.
It rains half the fall here so uncovered wood would be useless for heating afterwards. That is firsthand experience.
I keep a chimfex chimney fire extinguisher handy by the stove. I had a chimney fire once and it was scary. The stovepipe was glowing. It would have taken little for the stovepipe to fail or for the heat to set the place on fire.
It rains half the fall here so uncovered wood would be useless for heating afterwards. That is firsthand experience.
During our first winter here in Maine, our firewood had been coated in rain water that froze. Every day I was going out with a sledge hammer to break pieces of wood loose from the wood pile. Then once they were inside, we were stacking them around our woodstove to melt the ice off them in preparation to burn.
One of the best things I ever did was to built a greenhouse roof over our woodpile. Now our wood is never exposed to rain or snow. Just sunlight and the wind.
Quote:
... I keep a chimfex chimney fire extinguisher handy by the stove. I had a chimney fire once and it was scary. The stovepipe was glowing. It would have taken little for the stovepipe to fail or for the heat to set the place on fire.
We have seen creosote fires a few times. A roar like a jet engine and the stovepipe glows bright. Part of the annual ritual here is to clean and inspect the stove pipe, to make sure it is still sturdy.
When it is glowing hot like that, it would be a real mistake to have any other wood up close enough to get hot.
During our first winter here in Maine, our firewood had been coated in rain water that froze. Every day I was going out with a sledge hammer to break pieces of wood loose from the wood pile. Then once they were inside, we were stacking them around our woodstove to melt the ice off them in preparation to burn.
One of the best things I ever did was to built a greenhouse roof over our woodpile. Now our wood is never exposed to rain or snow. Just sunlight and the wind.
We have seen creosote fires a few times. A roar like a jet engine and the stovepipe glows bright. Part of the annual ritual here is to clean and inspect the stove pipe, to make sure it is still sturdy.
When it is glowing hot like that, it would be a real mistake to have any other wood up close enough to get hot.
Yes I cleaned the chimney 3 times this season. That experience made me paranoid. My problem is leaving the stove on low all day when I am gone, and at night while sleeping. I try to run it hot in the morning and evening but I still get more creosote than I like to see.
Minimum standards around chimneys are not really good enough during a chimney fire. The masonry chimney in the addition I am building will have 8 inch walls around the flues rather than the minimum 4 inches. I think I might use fire retardant on the framing through the chimney chase too. Maybe cement board line the chase too. And more than just 2 inches clearance.
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