Pet Peave: Stinky Smoke

I think the burn bans are often due to topography and air inversions. But yeah, guys like that draw negative attention to us. Heck, I even get a little annoyed when my neighbor gets a small amount of smoke. If I was running his stove, there would be none for most of the burn.

begreen said:

OWBs got folks calling for tighter regulation in areas without topographical air inversions. It's no fun living downwind from a smoke dragon.

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Yeah, plenty of those guys around here too, tossing in green logs.

I live in western NC where we have a lot of "old school" burners like you're talking about. Cut the wood right before they need to start burning. I was shocked today when our local TV news did a story that featured a chimney sweep who talked about the importance of getting your chimney swept before you start burning if you aren't sure of the condition of your flue and stove/insert/fireplace. He talked about the training the sweeps have to go through before they can be certified and then, what most shocked me, was he showed a moisture meter and talked about how it is important to burn dry, well seasoned wood! So, maybe there is some hope after all that people will become educated about burning and learn to do a better job of it.

Burn bans primarily happen in the West where there are deep valleys surrounded by tall mountains creating a phenomenon known as a "lake of air", that is an area where pollution tends to accumulate, not disperse (Think Los Angeles for the most obvious example). A burn ban is an order not to burn on a day that pollution is expected to accumulate due to weather. This is rarely a problem in rural parts of the east as our mountains do not constrain circulation of the atmoshere, being much smaller. Smoky burners like this might lead to local ordinances like the one in a neighboring town to here which banned OWB's in most of the town because some guy was using one to heat a sauna or hot tub and smoking out his neighbors. Somehow this guy needs to be persuaded to burn drier wood, lengthen his chimney, or upgrade to a better stove. Perhaps the town could run a public information meeting on better burning practices?

Nick Mystic said:

I live in western NC where we have a lot of "old school" burners like you're talking about. Cut the wood right before they need to start burning.

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Lot's of this in central NC. Even when we ran a 70's insert we burned pretty dry wood (although I admit to not having a moisture meter). Even then, my worst was <30%.

Last winter was much colder than normal, and I saw several people splitting wood in February and taking it right in off the splitter that day.

Nah, they ban burning on a county wide basis from shore to mountain top based on measured pollution levels in one or two places in the city. It's really a crooked deal here in the northwest.

Are you suggesting that three days isn't enough time? I know of a guy around here that cuts and splits a couple weeks worth at a time for his dragon. Thank goodness he's well away from me. I can't understand why some folks just keep trying to burn water. It doesn't work.

I am happy to see the replies on this thread. I would still put southern WV up against anybody for burning green wood but I'm glad to hear it's not just here.

The things I have seen would take up the rest of this page and then some. Things like, burning green wood cause it lasts longer. EPA stoves don't burn worth a sh$@t so find an old stove or a coal stove to burn wood in if you must get a new one. Single wall stove pipe ran out windows. Dropping lead weights down the chimney to get a draft until it warms up enough to shut the stove down to clean it. etc.

Since I've upgraded to a modern furnace, the smell of dense smoke makes me sick. The only exception was yesterday when my neighbor was burning green hickory a quarter mile away. It smelled good, but when I went down there to help him split, it wasnt so nice. There's a few around here that burn wisely, but a majority are those who believe in green wood, and their chimneys show it.

begreen said:

It's the old grasshopper vs the ant story. We see a lot of grasshoppers every fall here.

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At least no grasshoppers have been begging me for dry wood. So far. Maybe I should move my wood stacks a little farther from the road...

With my old stove I often felt self conscious at startup, when a horizontal column of smoke would cross the road and cars would swoosh through it and the smoke would swirl behind them, even though the smoke would terminate in a hay field and never come close to my neighbors.
I'll never have anything bad to say about someone using a pre-epa stove properly, but when someone burns irresponsibly and inconsiderately, it's a black mark on all of us and not very neighborly to say the least.

DTrain said:

Ughh.... my neighbor has billowing white/grey sometimes yellowy smoke thru almost his whole burn. Then he starts his up and it just stinks. He uses downed wood from his wetland, and scrounges during the spring and summer.

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Rotting wood stinks = burning rotting wood stinks worse.
I would expect he's using spunky wood. Once it starts to rot it has all kinds of mold and micro organisms in it and that is what makes the stink. The mold is actually dangerous to have in your house.

BrotherBart said:

This morning I saw the guy down the hill splitting his wood for this season and the people on the place next to us were cutting a couple of trees down for the same thing.

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We were heading out to go hunting (my son and I) on Saturday evening. Saw a guy sitting next to his water stove (OWB) running his splitter. Looked to have about a weeks worth of wood split and stacked, and a large amount of pretty green looking rounds piled up next to the splitter. On the way home, he had probably a cord and a half of wood next to the water stove and the smoke rolling out of it was horrendous.

Sad....

BrotherBart said:

What POs me is I am the only full time wood heater and they will all think it is me.

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We have several full-time burners in our neighborhood. Someone asked my wife just this weekend when we were going to start burning, cause they hadn't seen any smoke from our chimney.

Thanks to the Ideal Steel, it will be apparent who is smoking up the area come Wednesday and Thursday