Half the food and fuel in February.

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Bozy

New Member
Sep 27, 2010
4
Carthage, New York
Unfortunately I will not be able to live the old fable this winter. We bought this house last spring and the previous owner said you will go through 12 face cord running the Eko 40... I went out and hauled home 16 fc cut, split, and seasoned wood and began to do my research here on my new to me stove. Turns out, that was not enough. I am going to run out of wood! Last Month I had a full 30+/- fc load of R. Oak, R. Maple, Cherry logs delivered. I have cut, split and stacked over half of the load so far, need to get ready for next winter. The wood I am burning now has a mc of about 7-12% and the wood I just cut and split has a mc of about 20-30%. Here is my question; is it better to mix in a stick of the new wet wood here and there OR wait till I run out of the dry wood in a month or two and run the wet wood 100%? I know that it won't have dried much in two months time and it's got to be hard to burn wet wood in an EKO, nearly impossible. Must be easier to burn a stick or two of wet wood with a BUNCH of dry wood. What do you guys think?

Oh yea, not going to have $300-400 worth of cut, split, and seasoned wood dropped off, my wife would never go for that!!
 
I'd start mixing it in now. The boiler will tolerate some wetter wood after you get a good coal base. Start experimenting now and it shouldn't take to long to figure out the right mix of seasoned vs un-seasoned wood.

**EDIT** Welcome to the forum!
 
Thanks for the input. Over the past week of cutting and splitting, I threw in a chunk every now and then of unsplittable knotty sections and they sure do take a bit to burn. Your right about the coals.
 
Another thing that will help allot is splitting the wood that your going to burn now much smaller. I've gone down to 2" squared pieces before and had decent luck. This helps dry out the wood so that it will finally burn while sitting on top of the hot coals. Just try out different sizes and you'll figure out the right ones for your set-up, but generally, if the wood is wetter than you want, smaller is better.
 
Welcome. 2nd that on smaller splits. Can you bring in some where it warmer too ?
 
If you can get some freight pallets and cut them up, they'll be kiln dried wood that you can mix with less than ideally seasoned wood.
 
Pyro-good idea on the pallets. I work on Military Post and there is lots of that type of stuff. Each evening I bring in a wheel borrow full of the wetter wood and split it down to 1-3". I wonder if I should bring it in by the fc and let it thaw? I figured it was better to leave it outside in the sun and wind.
 
Bozy said:
Pyro-good idea on the pallets. I work on Military Post and there is lots of that type of stuff. Each evening I bring in a wheel borrow full of the wetter wood and split it down to 1-3". I wonder if I should bring it in by the fc and let it thaw? I figured it was better to leave it outside in the sun and wind.
Click to expand...

It'll probably dry much faster in a warm indoor space. Water frozen in wood seems less likely to be able to migrate to the surface, and indoor humidity is quite low in the winter, which should help speed drying.
 
+1 on all of the previous suggestions. Try to bring all of the newer stuff that you can fit inside, and get to work cutting pallets. If you can get enough pallets cut, you could just burn the seasoned stuff now and, when that's gone, build fires with the pallets on the bottom (nails are ok) and the new stuff on top. But also, if you haven't already done so, try contacting the previous owner. It's unlikely he intentionally misled you on the amount of wood used in the past. Maybe it's as simple as you setting the t-stat higher than he did. But it's also possible he may have learned some tricks about running that you don't know. Most of us pick up some things along the way that translates into quite a bit less wood used.
 
drying wood this time of year is all about vapor pressure. The moisture will leap out of the wood in side the warm boiler area. split it, check it, stack it and check it every week. you will be surprised how much water it will give up. Here is an idea, wrap the pile in plastic and pull it into a vacuum of about 50 microns it will dry out in a day or so. pull it down to 1% moisture. Sorry just messing with ya one that one. My wood is in a pile out side un-spilt and most has only been cut since may, guess it sucks to be me. LOL
 
You might also be surprised how well it dries in winter. Most think it doesn't but there is very little humidity in the air this time of year. Stick a piece or two on top so it gets burned last. By the time it gets down to the coals it will be quite dry.
 
Wow, thanks for the ideas guys. I got a couple of loads of pallets (are we sure about the nails?) and will get many more. I have about 5-6 fc of the dry wood left. I have brought in some of the new wood and am splitting it real small. I will let it thaw before I mix it in.

Over the holidays I called Mark at AHONA and I tweeked my setting on the stove. I closed the primaries down to 9mm and secondaries to 2.5 turns out. This really helped reduce my wood consumption, wish I had done that 2 months ago, duh! Got really nice blue flame and lowered my exhaust temps down to 350-400*. Side effect is that no matter what I do, I can't get the water temp over 72 C (162F). Most times my burns are averaging around 60C +/- (140F). I opened up the primaries to exactly 10mm and 3.5 turns but no change in the temp. Now add in a bit of the wetter wood and it only makes the problem worse!!! I figured THAT would happen. So here is my question, what about opening up the primaries a bit more say to 12m and leave the secondaries at 3.5. Do you think this will help burn some of that wetter wood and raise the stack tem to 400-450*? Thanks in advance.
 
I'm on my 2nd season with the same boiler, and have been having much better luck this year, mainly because of drier wood, but I also haveadjusted the settings as per the manual, and suggestions here.
As for drying wood, when I bring wood in, I leave it for at least one day to melt off any snow or ice, then put a fan in front of the stack to help with evaporation. then I split a few pieces and check mc. if it's high, I'll run a dehumidifier in the boiler room for 2-3 days, which brings the mc down pretty effectively. I'm able to keep wood inside for at least 2 weeks before burning which helps a lot. Also I have commercial dehumidifiers so I can bring the humidity in the room down to 10% or less.
Clearly the quality of the wood ( moisture content ) is the biggest factor in my improved success this year. good luck with yours.
 
Bozy said:
Wow, thanks for the ideas guys. I got a couple of loads of pallets (are we sure about the nails?) and will get many more. I have about 5-6 fc of the dry wood left. I have brought in some of the new wood and am splitting it real small. I will let it thaw before I mix it in.

Over the holidays I called Mark at AHONA and I tweeked my setting on the stove. I closed the primaries down to 9mm and secondaries to 2.5 turns out. This really helped reduce my wood consumption, wish I had done that 2 months ago, duh! Got really nice blue flame and lowered my exhaust temps down to 350-400*. Side effect is that no matter what I do, I can't get the water temp over 72 C (162F). Most times my burns are averaging around 60C +/- (140F). I opened up the primaries to exactly 10mm and 3.5 turns but no change in the temp. Now add in a bit of the wetter wood and it only makes the problem worse!!! I figured THAT would happen. So here is my question, what about opening up the primaries a bit more say to 12m and leave the secondaries at 3.5. Do you think this will help burn some of that wetter wood and raise the stack tem to 400-450*? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...


The nails will just end up in your ashes- as long as you don't spread them on a driveway or road, no big deal.
 
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