burning hardwood scraps? I mean molding size. Masonary heater

Thinking of going and buying this from someone.


I am wondering if I cut it up if it would be great fuel for my masonary heater. They say I need a short HOT fire. Those would certainly do that!

^ Thanks for that! Alot of that says they burn hot hot hot, too hot for most stoves. Perfect for my stove.

I am verifying what they are from. I am thinking about giving them a try. 50/50 mix of them and my normal wood. I think they would help get the temps up to 1000 in my heater.

I am arranging for pick up of 1-2 bundles right now! This should be fun. They are an hour away. Once I get them here I will take a few pictures and report back with some testing.

Holy crap. This day did not turn out as planed.

They said a bundle was 1,000 ish pounds. They put one bundle on and went for the next. The next bundle was bigger and they could not get it on the trailer all the way. They got it on as best they could and I put 4 straps on it. It was hanging over big time. Not cool. The tire on that side was looking flat! but it wasn't! I wasn't pleased. I was over an hour away from home. I drove 6 miles down the road at 30 mph and stopped in a gas station parking lot. That tire with most the weight on it was hot and melting snow.

I got out some cutters I had and cut the band.. boom, most that load fell back on me and onto the parking lot (as expected). No way could I restack it to fit. I took a picture I will post tommorrow. I told the gas station I would be back. I drove over an hour home and unloaded it in my yard. I went back with my girlfriend so she could help me some. We loaded it all onto the trailer piece by piece and straped it down, drove home and unloaded that.

Whole process - 9.5 hours. What a joke. And its 20 outside.

On a good note, it is dry dry hardwood. Some are 3-4 inches wide, some is a sliver wide. It is all 10-14 feet long. I see oak and some really dark wood. I don't know what it is. The company makes hardwood floors. They kiln dry all their wood then trim the boards down to a certain width. What I bought is the scrap pieces. I seen they have some bigger chunks there, maybe 8"x8"x.5" all seasoned hardwood. They said they would fill my pickup with that for 25 bucks. I passed but might try it someday.

I just chopped up some pieces and did a 50/50 in my masonary heater. My GOD what heat! The sticks burned HOT HOT HOT and gone in about 15-20 mins then my 2 split logs burnt. My masonary heater is super hot. Amazing.

I will get a temperature gauge next week to see just what is going on but so far.. wow. Perfect for this heater.

I emailed the guy again about chemicals and kiln drying. There is no chemicals in the kiln drying process they utilize he stated. I also asked what kind of wood do I have here.. he said oak ,maple,hickory,walnut,cherry,and ash.

I did alot of research on the MHA-NET site and they say do not burn an entire fire of kindling, too hot. But 3 lbs or so in it is fine. I am not even doing that. I did less than a 50/50 mix and wow what a difference. Such a quick fire and I have heat radiating into the house for 12 hrs. Its almost 75 in here 10 hrs later and 27 outside. Nice.

"it’s not a good idea to burn wood with less than approx. 20% moisture in the wood"-ATVDAVE

I think you worded that wrong? Everyone knows to burn with less than 20% moisture, preferably less than 15%. This wood I measured has less than 2%.

Dave, no war started . We are all heat nuts. Hey its christmas here in the east, look at that. Merry Christmas!

Marty S said:

Hold off. Wait a minute. Not so fast there, bunky.

Sure burning those little trim pieces will give you a fast hot fire; HOWEVER, it will not last very long. Even most neophyte fire makers realize burning a small diameter split or bunch of sticks will be consumed by the fire faster than larger diameter splits.

Especially with a masonry heater, if it is really a masonry heater (heavy heavy heavy thermal mass heater weighing tons), a quick hot fire will not heat the mass of masonry. To heat the mass of masonry in a masonry heater, one needs a HOT fire which lasts 1 - 2 hours, not 15 minutes.

So, if you plan to do some serious heating with those puny sticks, they won't last long and you'll be a slave to the process of feeding the heater.

In short, don't insult that masonry heater with those little twigs. Get some 3" - 5" dry splits, about 50 lbs worth loaded in the firebox, and now you're ready to have a FIRE.

Aye,
Marty

Click to expand...

I mix it 50/50. The small bits are gone in 20 mins but the splits last an hour. I am burning 1/2 the wood with these now but still getting the mass to be the same heat (too hot to touch for longer than 2 seconds) as I did loading it with just 5" splits (20 lb load). Now I do maybe 10 lbs of splits and 2 lbs of kindling (if that)

Yes, mine is a true masonary heater.. thousands of pounds of brick mass. The whole goal is to get the brick hot with an efficient burn. On the MHANET site, it says a 20 lb load and mixing with kindling is good.

I will take some pictures when I get home of what I am up to. I am out of town at the moment for the holidays. I will be back saturday. My girl is there doing the fires at the current time. I laid her out piles of wood.

I got a new camera for christmas too so check back here sat/sun. Should generate some conversation.