Are OWBs really dirty?

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Flatbedford

Minister of Fire
Mar 17, 2009
5,252
Las Vegas, NV
I am a wood stove burner and I have a question for you all. I keep reading that OWB are so dirty. First, are they really? Second, if they are, why? I don't know anybody who has one and I don't think I have ever even seen one. I am just curious.
 
Probably depends on how you burn them. There is a house in my town (600 people) with an OWB. It is not uncommon for the entire valley to be under a thick pall of white woodsmoke. It is easy with OWBs to pile in a huge load of wood and let it smoulder at low temperature with horrifying amounts of smoke output. On the other hand, I know people who do better than that.

Gassifiers, on the other hand, are a little easier to burn at high efficiency and high temerature, destroying the bulk of the creasote, etc. When burned properly the burn in excess of 1800F, which pretty well eliminates all woodsmoke pollutants. If you look at the garn website there is a video that is impressive.

Andrew
 
Traditional indoor units are just as "dirty" but most people are smart enough to not have a smoldering fire in one for fear of burning down their house. The OWB solution is to move it far enough away to not be a fire hazard and obtain long burn times by burning very large unseasoned wood. The reason you hear complaints about OWB vs. traditional indoor units, is the chimney height difference. With all of the regulation and talk of coming up with new emissions testing, it is probably safest to invest in a boiler that uses gasification technology. The basic ones cost about the same as an OWB. I hope that helps with your question.
 
Around here there almost as common as sliced bread. Some smoke more than others but I think It mostly depends on the operater. Very few around here have even heard of a wood gasifaction boiler. Starting
to think I'll be the first in the county to have one.
 
You won't be the only one for long when word get's out how little wood you burn in comparison.
Rob
 
Some of the newer OWB's are gasifiers. I've got a CB E-Classic 2300, and it smokes VERY little when used correctly. My first winter with it and my wood was cut in the spring, but still it worked pretty good. Next fall my wood will be 1 1/2 years old and covered since splitting. I'm excited to see how it burns...should be real good. I'm using some 2 year old wood for summer burns for DHW currently and it does not smoke at all once I get it lit and roaring.

I like the looks of the new Econoburn OWB. It's pretty much like their indoor boiler, and they are very well liked.
 
Like Ken says if you burn dry wood they don't smoke too much. But most guys around here buy OWB's because they don't have to burn dry wood. Nobody told them that burning wet, frozen, unsplit hemlock doubles their wood consumption.

Like most things it's more about the operator than the equipment.
 
I know of one right off the highway that smokes so much it looks like a house on fire. The others are newer CB and are nothing to complain about, just a little smoke. None smoke as little as my EKO though.
 
Thanks for the answers. I was curious. Do any of the boilers use anything like the catalytic converter in my Woodstock Soapstone stove? What about OWB makes people think they can burn anything in them?
 
A catalyst is used to help a reaction occur at a lower temperature. So, if you need to burn creasote in a 600F flame, you might be able to do it in with a catalyst (it normally burns in a much hotter flame). The gassifiers just simply increase the temperature high enough to burn anything.

The "catalyst" is raw heat!

Andrew
 
Where on the web can I read more about gassifiers?
 
Flatbedford said:
Where on the web can I read more about gassifiers?

I have some articles at my site. Check out the major retailers of gasifiers: BioHeat, Econoburn, AHONA, CozyHeat, SmokelessHeat, Garn, etc... and you will find lots of information... Also, type gasification into Youtube and you will get a lot of videos of the process in action.
 
Flatbedford said:
What about OWB makes people think they can burn anything in them?



Size of the door and the fact that smoke spillage isn't inside the home. And the mentality that you can make stuff disappear without too much effort (lazyness) regardless of what it does to the environment.
 
:kiss:
frugalLEE said:
Flatbedford said:
What about OWB makes people think they can burn anything in them?



Size of the door and the fact that smoke spillage isn't inside the home. And the mentality that you can make stuff disappear without too much effort (lazyness) regardless of what it does to the environment.
:kiss:
 
BLIMP said:
:kiss:
frugalLEE said:
Flatbedford said:
What about OWB makes people think they can burn anything in them?



Size of the door and the fact that smoke spillage isn't inside the home. And the mentality that you can make stuff disappear without too much effort (lazyness) regardless of what it does to the environment.
:kiss:

Le' me guess yur Houdini? :coolsmile:
 
It's funny to hear people clamor about the environment in regard to noxious wood smoke . . .

On the contrary, it's beneficial for the environment.

If ya burn oil/coal/gas instead of wood, you and your neighbors lungs are gonna last too long. All the while you dig/extract stuff outta the earth.

If, on the other hand, ya burn stinky noxious wood, you and your neighbors may die sooner, giving this planet a break.

We've ***** and pillaged the earth, then we wonder why she won't hop up and get us a meal and a beer.
 
Yep, dead BTU, every time I let some smoke out I just know I'm making some ones grass greener somewhere. Anyway, do you live near Utica?
 
I have a OWB, I don't care for the smoke but I try to burn dry wood and only feed it what it needs. When I do that I can keep the smoke down.

I know the Gasifers burn a lot cleaner and will most likely go that route eventually.

But all the OWB bashing here is not productive. Where does it end? In reality all burning wood is dirty compared to other options, even gasifiers, compared to solar space heating. People heating with solar can look down there noses at people burning any type of fuel for heat. Is it practical for everyone, no it is just one of my random thoughts.

gg
 
[quote author="ISeeDeadBTUs" date="1274231428"]It's funny to hear people clamor about the environment in regard to noxious wood smoke . . .

On the contrary, it's beneficial for the environment.

If ya burn oil/coal/gas instead of wood, you and your neighbors lungs are gonna last too long. All the while you dig/extract stuff outta the earth.

If, on the other hand, ya burn stinky noxious wood, you and your neighbors may die sooner, giving this planet a break.

We've ***** and pillaged the earth, then we wonder why she won't hop up and get us a meal and a beer.[/quote
Too funny!

We are after all just very succesfull parasites!
 
ihookem said:
Yep, dead BTU, every time I let some smoke out I just know I'm making some ones grass greener somewhere. Anyway, do you live near Utica?

Utica!

OWB smoke would actually improve that hole. Maybe it would choke out all the corrupt politicians.
 
goosegunner said:
I have a OWB, I don't care for the smoke but I try to burn dry wood and only feed it what it needs. When I do that I can keep the smoke down.

I know the Gasifers burn a lot cleaner and will most likely go that route eventually.

But all the OWB bashing here is not productive. Where does it end? In reality all burning wood is dirty compared to other options, even gasifier, compared to solar space heating. People heating with solar can look down there noses at people burning any type of fuel for heat. Is it practical for everyone, no it is just one of my random thoughts.

gg

As Official Outdoor Wood Boiler Basher in Chief I shall respond.

Bashing OWB is just so much fun, that's all. I have an old hippie friend who has heated with wood off and on for decades in all sorts of "subprime" setups, and a few that worked quite well (as I have also) but we still are amazed and amused at the terrible performance of some OWBs.

There may be people on this site who have not seen a classic OWB in all of it's smoke belching, wood hogging glory. You, goosegunner, are obviously not that kind of operator, but many of these units are loaded once a day, right off the truck with wood that was alive the day before, or with wood cut that fall. And how could you possible get a year ahead on your wood supply when you can barely keep up with the thing. Splitting is something you do when the wood won't fit in the door, which fortunately isn't very often. Some manufacturers make units with doors that you can load with a forklift, and use to burn all sorts of refuse. There are serious health effects to this sort of pollution, in my completely uneducated guess, health effects worse than smoking in this day in age of less smoking.

A well designed and tended OWB is a great choice for a whole lot of people. The sad thing is that it would be so easy to make them so much better, so a pup trailer of logs would last 3-10 times as long and result in far fewer unnecessary days of being dead. The classic OWB is a large water jacketed fire box, with a blower that turns on for a few minutes when the water temp falls, and enough room to load the thing up for a day or so. The funny part is how bad this design is, what could you possibly do to make this burn worse? You would almost have to design a sophisticated gasifier that doesn't allow secondary combustion to put out more pollution per pound of wood than some OWBs achieve. If you lined the thing with firebrick and changed the controls to take advantage of the water storage, it could have some chance of getting a hot enough fire going to burn clean for a bit before it shut off. There are better models being made,(Portage and Main, and other gasifier) but I haven't seen any of them.

Plopping down an OWB, or any solid fuel burner, is not as simple as slapping in a furnace or fossil boiler. Barring any horrendous mistakes any furnace will perform pretty much like any other. The fundamental difference is that a wood burner is more trouble to start and stop, and tricky to turn down without smoking.
 
[/quote]

As Official Outdoor Wood Boiler Basher in Chief I shall respond.

Bashing OWB is just so much fun, that's all. I have an old hippie friend who has heated with wood off and on for decades in all sorts of "subprime" setups, and a few that worked quite well (as I have also) but we still are amazed and amused at the terrible performance of some OWBs.

There may be people on this site who have not seen a classic OWB in all of it's smoke belching, wood hogging glory. You, goosegunner, are obviously not that kind of operator, but many of these units are loaded once a day, right off the truck with wood that was alive the day before, or with wood cut that fall. And how could you possible get a year ahead on your wood supply when you can barely keep up with the thing. Splitting is something you do when the wood won't fit in the door, which fortunately isn't very often. Some manufacturers make units with doors that you can load with a forklift, and use to burn all sorts of refuse. There are serious health effects to this sort of pollution, in my completely uneducated guess, health effects worse than smoking in this day in age of less smoking.

A well designed and tended OWB is a great choice for a whole lot of people. The sad thing is that it would be so easy to make them so much better, so a pup trailer of logs would last 3-10 times as long and result in far fewer unnecessary days of being dead. The classic OWB is a large water jacketed fire box, with a blower that turns on for a few minutes when the water temp falls, and enough room to load the thing up for a day or so. The funny part is how bad this design is, what could you possibly do to make this burn worse? You would almost have to design a sophisticated gasifier that doesn't allow secondary combustion to put out more pollution per pound of wood than some OWBs achieve. If you lined the thing with firebrick and changed the controls to take advantage of the water storage, it could have some chance of getting a hot enough fire going to burn clean for a bit before it shut off. There are better models being made,(Portage and Main, and other gasifier) but I haven't seen any of them.

Plopping down an OWB, or any solid fuel burner, is not as simple as slapping in a furnace or fossil boiler. Barring any horrendous mistakes any furnace will perform pretty much like any other. The fundamental difference is that a wood burner is more trouble to start and stop, and tricky to turn down without smoking.[/quote]


Nice response, Thanks for taking the time.

I do understand the problems with OWB. I have witnessed them with my and try you do the best I can until I find something different. I almost bought one of the econoburns that were on ebay. But with a daughter off to college in the fall I have other priorities.

For what the setup with storage would have cost I could probably put in a nice solar setup to supplement my LP heat, heat my pool in the summer, DHW and not create any wood smoke. That would be pretty nice.

gg
 
ken999 said:
The new Econoburn 'OWB' is not to be lumped in with the standard OWB's. It is a gasifier just like their indoor models and will burn quite well if used properly.

I know I was looking at the indoor one and putting it in a building.

The outdoor one still needs storage to be useable for me. 6-8 hour burns won't work.

gg
 
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