From a magazine...

Oak dries faster than what????

Don't believe everything you read.

if it's on the internet it must be true! Oak drys faster, maybe when you split it but not faster than any other wood lmao.
I burned ash this year that was stacked at the same time as some oak. Ash was 15%, oak was mid to high 30's

The more fuel you add the cooler the fire burns

All the info anyone will need on how to burn wood and heat their home.

Wow almost 100%.......wrong!

Oak does dry faster that water.......

baseroom said:

Wow almost 100%.......wrong!

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The only thing right is "splitting fosters drying".

I agree that my OWB does better when not crammed full but you also need to fill it up over a third. The rest read like a load of BS.

weatherguy said:

The more fuel you add the cooler the fire burns

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They said that filling the firebox cools the fire... maybe they meant filling it with ice cream! After all, they were right about splitting making wood dry faster! And uh.... they spelled all the words correctly. And they used a very nice font. And my, look how tidy the left margin is.

Okay, I tried.

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate here for a minute (only one though). I'm guessing those quotes were from reader's letters and not endorsed by Countryside Magazine that my wife subscribes to. If it's from an edited article, though. that mag is outahere. What is the date of that edition?

Sprinter said:

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate here for a minute (only one though). I'm guessing those quotes were from reader's letters and not endorsed by Countryside Magazine that my wife subscribes to. If it's from an edited article, though. that mag is outahere. What is the date of that edition?

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So I guess my wife let that subscription go a while back. But the library has it and i'm going there tomorrow anyway. I gotta see that one. Apparently, much of that rag is composed of readers' letters and articles without any vetting by the publisher.

weatherguy said:

The only thing right is "splitting fosters drying".

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True!

So here's the whole article. Most of the misinformation is on the last page. The first two pages aren't too bad, although some may argue with a few points, but no more than we do here anyway. I don't know how he got the oak stuff, but hopefully it was just an error. Anyway, you can draw your own conclusions from the whole article.

I do think that a lot of articles are written by guest writers and probably should be vetted better by staff. JMO.

Sorry, the pdf from the library isn't getting forwarded right. I'll try again.

Sprinter said:

Sorry, the pdf from the library isn't getting forwarded right. I'll try again.

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This a pdf. I did it with b&w and 300dpi to save space, so the pics are poor, but you get the idea. Hardly worth the time, but I had to finish what I started... Draw your own conclusions.

My wife used to subscribe to the mag, but also realized that it was hard to separate fact from less-than-fact at times. Sounds like the editorial staff could be a little more attentive.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought too.
Power back on now, blacktail?

There has been speculation on here before around big loads vs smaller one. If I am home and can throw a few splits in every couple of hours and not have to crank it up to get the secondaries going again vs load it up and have to vent the thing to get it burning right, I can see how maintaining a hot fire is more efficient long term ... if you never sleep more than 3 hours at a time...which some of us may be close to any way You can also see that 40 lbs of 10 degree wood in a 2.5 cu ft firebox might bring temps down fore a bit and impact performance for a while. Yes, once it is going, there will plenty of heat. I think it would be interesting if someone did a real world test on big loads vs smaller ones. Cat stoves may not be impacted as much. Does a giant new load in a cat stove cause anyone to lose the cat for a period of time? I think that is the real quandary here. How much fuel do you waist getting a big load cruising?

I could also see a straight grained red oak drying a little faster than a God forsaken tree like a silver maple but agree, most denser wood will take much longer to dry as long as starting moisture content is similar.

Side note...This past weekend I cut on a top of a white oak that blew out about 2.5 years ago and it is still incredibly wet. 24" rounds at about 200 years old from 30 feet up. Long lengths of white oak don't dry from the sides

Smoked said:

Does a giant new load in a cat stove cause anyone to lose the cat for a period of time? I think that is the real quandary here. How much fuel do you waist getting a big load cruising?

:

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As long as I have a decent bed of coals, the cat does not fall into the inactive range during a reload. Learning from others here, I do however run the load for a bit with the bypass open so I don't shock the cat with the moisture leaving the wood. But I'd do the same thing whether I went with a small or large reload.