I
ISeeDeadBTUs
Guest
I feel your pain sometimes when I read you . . .
[quote author="Deere10" date="1262920530"]May try to answer two threads in one post if possibe. As for wood being burned mostly Cherry,Hickory,and some hit n miss with Maple. All seem like very good wood, ran into some punky stuff at begining of burn season.Have noticed the past couple days if I clean out any ash n coals build up in the bottom 3 inches or so does seem to burn longer dont know if thats all in my head or not yet.
[/quote]
1) Do NOT remove ashes when its cold outside(<30deg). I made this same mistake year 1 also :smirk:
Try to avoid putting a new load of wood on any wood left over from the last load. Do not put new load in until coals are down to the point where you can see the air tubes. A trick I learned from a cagey old wood burner on this forum is to use a few small pine splits to burn the coals down. Also, wet/crappy wood will produce more ash. And the wet stuff tends to produce black ash in clumps. With a load burned down you may find some of these hidden in the ashes. These clumps are good to remove as they no longer have any heat in them and they are just taking up space.
2) Modulate your aquastat with outside temps. If you have no dump zone and are concerned about boiling over, do this experiment when you will be home to watch the life of the load.
The overnight lows are supposed to be around 0 the next few nights. MY stat will be as high as 195. Now having said that, I will admit my GW is probably undersized. I know many people claim 'efficiency is best at 170deg' and maybe they are right. But I can tell you that when my GW runs hot -say, set at 190- she seems to run in a zone. She's so hot that when the damper opens she produces heat very quickly while never dropping below 180.
Jimbo
[quote author="Deere10" date="1262920530"]May try to answer two threads in one post if possibe. As for wood being burned mostly Cherry,Hickory,and some hit n miss with Maple. All seem like very good wood, ran into some punky stuff at begining of burn season.Have noticed the past couple days if I clean out any ash n coals build up in the bottom 3 inches or so does seem to burn longer dont know if thats all in my head or not yet.
[/quote]
1) Do NOT remove ashes when its cold outside(<30deg). I made this same mistake year 1 also :smirk:
Try to avoid putting a new load of wood on any wood left over from the last load. Do not put new load in until coals are down to the point where you can see the air tubes. A trick I learned from a cagey old wood burner on this forum is to use a few small pine splits to burn the coals down. Also, wet/crappy wood will produce more ash. And the wet stuff tends to produce black ash in clumps. With a load burned down you may find some of these hidden in the ashes. These clumps are good to remove as they no longer have any heat in them and they are just taking up space.
2) Modulate your aquastat with outside temps. If you have no dump zone and are concerned about boiling over, do this experiment when you will be home to watch the life of the load.
The overnight lows are supposed to be around 0 the next few nights. MY stat will be as high as 195. Now having said that, I will admit my GW is probably undersized. I know many people claim 'efficiency is best at 170deg' and maybe they are right. But I can tell you that when my GW runs hot -say, set at 190- she seems to run in a zone. She's so hot that when the damper opens she produces heat very quickly while never dropping below 180.
Jimbo