Compare EPA cert to Non EPA cert

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RIJEEP

RIJEEP

Member
Oct 18, 2009
61
Lil' Rhody
Hi Guys,

Im on my 5th year burning in a Secondary Combustion EPA cert. stove. During that time I've been reading quite a bit here and have important milestones such as Dry Wood, Low Creosote accumulation, among other important lessons learned.

We have a close friend who "grew up with a wood stove" and is currently running a late 1970's stove with a "slammer" install at their residence. When they come to our house I get questions about how and why I load my stove etc. The focus is on the amount of wood I load into the stove. I've done my best to explain my understanding of my stove's operation. They insist I'm wasting wood by not letting 1 or 2 splits smolder for example.

~It was all good till I came home the other day and my stove was smoldering away with blackened glass cause they loaded it for us while babysitting.~

Lately with these mild temps I have 3 fires a day. AM, Late Afternoon, PM. And it works great for me.

Maybe what I don't fully understand is HOW the older stoves operate? I ran one years ago and remember smoldering pieces of wood to avoid over fires.

As always - looking for insight and Thanks.
 
I sometimes think that having the neo-ceram "glass" to offer us a view of the fire does two things -- it gives us a view of the fire and lets us know if we're not burning properly (unseasoned wood, poor air control, etc.) since if we're doing things right we're rewarded with a great view of the fire and if we do things wrong we're left with a very visible mess -- it may not be a scarlet letter, but it does tell everyone in the know that you're not doing something right.
 
"Maybe what I don’t fully understand is HOW the older stoves operate?"
What exactly do you mean by that, my old stove ran very easily with dry wood.
 
If I am getting the question right, I don't really think it is a difference on how the stove works as much as a difference in the mind set. New stoves can be run, just like the old stoves, but its the fact that we "Know better" than to do it. Your friends are a prime example - they loaded your stove, smoldered it like they "always" do and you came home to a mess on the glass that probably didn't even raise an eyebrow to your friends.
 
Jags - yes, that was the idea of the question. Unless, if fact the stoves in fact did like to smolder or run cooler or hotter etc.

Oldspark - sorry, it wasn't moisture related. Rather more of a methodology question.

Our friends had the stovetop temp real low, like 200F. But they were happy with the low consistent burn that needs splits thrown on it, who am I to intervene? So I thought "well that works too (minus the black glass) ...but I do it so differently". So I wondered WHY. And being relatively new to the sport + up all night at work + strong coffee in the morning = my post.

Final Answer - It all works but burning hotter yields a cleaner burn? stove doesn't matter.
 
A little bit of learnin will do a lot for your burnin.
 
Of course for me the real issue wouldn't be the mess on the door . . . but rather over time with continued smoldering fires I would be more concerned about the mess that isn't so visible -- the creosote building up in the chimney.
 
The question really comes down to this: Does smoldering allow more BTUs to be captured and passed into the house vs. up the chimney or wasted via soot/creosote.

Ironically, the answer is probably the reverse: Modern stoves (specifically catalytics) can do the MOST with smoldering (assuming cat temps are sufficient to burn the smoke thoroughly). Modern non-cat stoves can do alot just from the exhaust gases of the wood through secondary burning (again, presumes adequate temps).

But old stoves and smoldering? That smoke isn't doing anything for them except causing more soot/creosote formation and less heat output.
 
Its not that smoldering lets you capture more btu's but more like gets you a longer burn time. Usually the good old days the stove was usually over sized so you was smoldering extra wood at lower temps and wasting good smoke that could be burned for extra heat.

Tell your buddy these non-cat epa stoves are actually designed to be more of a wood smoke gas burner than a wood burner. The reason they are hard to get going if you dont know what your doing is that the air supply is very very limited because it takes very little air once the stove temps get hot enough as in very hot inside the insulated fire box.

Newbies to this type stove get on here all the time wondering why they cant get the stove to operate properly. Its hard to learn that its all about heat building inside the stove to very high temps and if your wood has moisture in it the moisture is cooling the temps that you need so badly. If your draw is very strong its going to cause issues. The old train of thought is it needs more air to burn better but burning lots of flames with the door open rushing cool air in flushing hot air up out the flue is not building heat.

Once you get the heat built up in the stove and you see secondaries you have effectively turned your stove into a gas burner stove. With the temps built up very hot and just a itty bitty little amount of dog house air in the bottom the stove can maintain those temps mostly and I say mostly as you got to have a little bit of the wood burning down at the bottom but the burning of the smoke gas will help maintain those secondary burn flames. The stove with all those bricks has some thermal mass and does store some of that heat. So as when you turn the air down to very low levels its easier to maintain the heat in the stove due to the secondaries burning the smoke gases.

Now this is not a perfect system and the sweet spot is what your trying to learn but you have to keep in mind several factors and that takes time to master and get a feel for it all. Once you get a feel for how dry the wood is and how big of pieces your loading and what configuration did you load the wood and what was the temp of the stove at loading and how thick of a coal bed did you have , this all plays into the art of burning a non-cat epa stove. May the Force be With You.....
 
oldspark said:
A little bit of learnin will do a lot for your burnin.
Click to expand...
Roger that.

Thanks Huntin Dog.

You've got great insight. I was having a hard time describing the idea of why I operate my stove the way I do to my buddies. For the record, I get killer secondary burn and little creosote buildup!
 
It may be less an old-stove-new-stove thing than the way one burns wood in whatever stove. I have three stoves for heat, none are cat' stoves. One is a mid-70s, one is late 80s, one is a year old and airtight. None of them smoke, or only for a very short while when starting up a new fire. I could probably get them to smoke, if I shut the air way, way down in the damper and let the fire smolder. But I don't.
 
joefrompa said:
The question really comes down to this: Does smoldering allow more BTUs to be captured and passed into the house vs. up the chimney or wasted via soot/creosote.

Ironically, the answer is probably the reverse: Modern stoves (specifically catalytics) can do the MOST with smoldering (assuming cat temps are sufficient to burn the smoke thoroughly). Modern non-cat stoves can do alot just from the exhaust gases of the wood through secondary burning (again, presumes adequate temps).

But old stoves and smoldering? That smoke isn't doing anything for them except causing more soot/creosote formation and less heat output.
Click to expand...

+2

Old smokers waste heat and pollute: they put out about 24 Grams/hour of unburned PARTICULATE MATTER and smoke + lost heat (since smoke has BTU value). They cause chimney fires WAY more than newer stoves.
Newer EPA Phase II stoves (cats, non-cats) are engineered to burn cleaner; put out about 7 Grams/hour particulate matter and less smoke.

That said, a nit wit can still burn dirty in a Phase II stove by dialing down air attempting to lengthen the burn which causes smoldering or by trying to burn unseasoned wood. It happens. These 'guys' are the ones who give wood burners a bad name.

The bottom line is the operator, not the stove, determines the quality of the fire. The cleanest hardwood burning metal stove fires come from a newer stove burning dry wood by a competent operator. Period.

Aye,
Marty
 
24gms/hr would be the particulate output for the best of the old dragons fired up with dry wood by someone that knew how to burn cleanly. I can live with that. More typical would be the unbaffled smoke-dragon, loaded up, choked down and putting out 240gm/hr or more.
 
Smouldering a wood stove isn't very efficient in term of capturing the BTUs that are in the wood you load into the stove, or in terms of keeping the flue or glass clean or in terms of controlling smoke output, but smouldering might be efficient in terms of getting a consistent amount of heat from the stove or in terms of how often the stove needs to be tended. If you and your buddy each had identical homes and each had a supply of wood containing just enough BTUs to heat the house for the winter, then you'd worry about capturing as many of the BTUs as possible and you'd want to burn efficiently (in terms of BTU capture). That probably isn't the case. His burning style (which is pretty common, I think) works for him and in that sense it is efficient.

From my point of view I feel I have no business telling anyone they should have clean glass or a clean flue if they choose not to. On the other hand I do have a problem with somebody smoking up the air by constantly smouldering their fire. We all share the same air.
 
The smoldrering thing has never been good, not in a camp fire or an old stove or a new one, not sure why any one would burn that way in any thing period. I had an old stove with out a glass door and I burnt by flue temps, worked like a charm, even the wife had no trouble with it, never a problem with creosote.
 
Wood Duck said:
SNIP His (dirty) burning style (which is pretty common, I think) works for him and in that sense it is efficient.

From my point of view I feel I have no business telling anyone they should have clean glass or a clean flue if they choose not to. SNIP
Click to expand...

The first sentence indicates "His style" is part of the problem, not the solution.
The last one is too. Like it or not, if we don't 'police our own', someone else will.
Actually, Big Brother has plans on the board to do just that.

Aye,
Marty
Grandpa used to say,
"You can run but you can't hide
(from the Smoke Police)."
 
Marty S said:
Wood Duck said:
SNIP His (dirty) burning style (which is pretty common, I think) works for him and in that sense it is efficient.

From my point of view I feel I have no business telling anyone they should have clean glass or a clean flue if they choose not to. SNIP
Click to expand...

The first sentence indicates "His style" is part of the problem, not the solution.

Exactly. His style is a part of the problem, and I think a bigger part than the stove is. If you're going to change someones burning habits you need to understand why he burns the way he burns. It is easy to assume anyone who doesn't burn the way you do is simply uninformed and will immediately change his habits once you explain your better way of doing things, but there may be reasons behind his style of burning, and understanding those reasons is vital to explaining the advantages of burning cleaner.

The last one is too. Like it or not, if we don't 'police our own', someone else will.

I think you snipped a little too soon. My next sentence says that I do think it is my business when somebody puts out lots of smoke. My point is that the smoke is the part of the deal that affects other people, so that is what I would talk to him about. I don't think it makes sense to argue that another woodburner should have clean glass or a clean flue for my benefit. Smoke in the air, dirty glass ,and dangerous flue conditions are all part of the same problem, but the smoke is the part that affects others and the problem that Big Brother would regulate.

Actually, Big Brother has plans on the board to do just that.

Aye,
Marty
Grandpa used to say,
"You can run but you can't hide
(from the Smoke Police)."
Click to expand...
 
I'm glad you agree.
Help spread the word.
The word is
* burn dry wood
* burn hot clean fires
* burn in newer stoves
* be aware your burning
affects others
* 'you' determine how long
this industry lasts

Aye,
Marty
 
Hi guys, this got confusing toward the end, so to be clear:

I (RIJEEP) do this:

* burn dry wood
* burn hot clean fires
* burn in newer stoves
* be aware your burning
affects others

My Friend does not.

The question raised was intened for me to learn more about older stoves because I never ran them, but I realized we are not all that different after all....

Thanks Fellas - Im glad some good info came up in this thread.
 
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