Anyone have any experience burning biobricks mixed with semi seasoned wood?If so how was the heat output and burn times compared to burning seasoned wood ?
Bio Bricks and semi seasoned wood
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Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
I don't ever recommend burning semi-seasoned wood no matter what it is mixed with. Well, maybe in an outdoor fire at a campground it would be okay.
If you give your scenario, it will enable us to make valid suggestions.
I burned Bio bricks and questionable wood last year.
I burned Bio bricks and questionable wood last year.
I tried some bricks ( don't remember which ones, but they weren't logs) and really don't think I would mix them with anything else. They're a bit tricky on their own. I only had about 18 leftover from a friend who tried them and didn't like them. Maybe that wasn't enough to judge.
Nice
I might consider them if I had no seasoned wood.
I really wouldn't burn green wood except for outside in a pit. and even then it's a waste of good wood.
I used to burn some punky stuff and thought a neighbor was being a bit of a jerk mentioning that my (or somebody's)stove stunk sometimes . I burned a bunch in a open pit. Just really wet punky oak branches that fell on the lawn. Wow. What a stench. I've gone back to throwing the real punky stuff back into the woods.
Pine makes for a nice smelling camp fire. and I've got plenty of white pine.
Nice
I might consider them if I had no seasoned wood.
I really wouldn't burn green wood except for outside in a pit. and even then it's a waste of good wood.
I used to burn some punky stuff and thought a neighbor was being a bit of a jerk mentioning that my (or somebody's)stove stunk sometimes . I burned a bunch in a open pit. Just really wet punky oak branches that fell on the lawn. Wow. What a stench. I've gone back to throwing the real punky stuff back into the woods.
Pine makes for a nice smelling camp fire. and I've got plenty of white pine.
fprintf
Member
I had questionable wood delivered late December last year, only I didn't know it until I tried to burn it. So we stopped burning wood. Later in the winter, closer to spring, we tried some bio bricks and really liked them. Now that I know a little more, I'd be really careful burning anything questionable. If it won't burn on its own really well, that is without the help of the very hot bio bricks, then it doesn't go in the stove.
Rich L said:
Let's get the concepts straight. Seems you have, or anticipate having, overly wet wood? How wet? Talk to us about moisture content. $10 will buy you a basic moisture meter. (IOW "semi seasoned" is meaninglessly fuzzified.)
In an "EPA" stove, I find that burning wood with MC > 15% presents problems. More difficult to get lit and keep lit. More tendency to smoke, blacken window, etc. Then, too, burning it is less efficient than if it were fully air-dried. You likely have more options than you suspect:
1 get going with some serious scrounging now, focusing on dead-standing;
2 sort your stack by MC; some of it may be ready for burning, some may be ready for
3 finish drying wood indoors near the stove; it's possible to see a serious drop in MC in a short time.
Dare you to catch me burning wood with MC > 10%.
wood-fan-atic
Minister of Fire
Ha,Ha!! Thats funny! But seriously -- if what you mean by "semi-seasoned" wood is , say 25% MC, and thats all you have, then I would say you will make out just fine mixing it with Bio-Bricks. If you mean 30%, then you will have a very frustrating winter.cptoneleg said:
I'm going to get flamed here but here goes. I read a pdf file from some college study regarding burning unseasoned wood. I forget where I found it, but I'll look. The article basically said it's not a big deal as long as you burn it at a high temperature. They suggested mixing in dry wood to get the temperature up. Sounds like what you want to do. It's also something virtually all of us on this forum have done at one time or another. I did a little math to see if what they were saying makes sense. It does. I recreated my problem here.
We have two splits. Each contains 10 pounds of wood. One is at 15% moisture. The other is at 30% moisture. The temperature of the wood is 60 F. I assumed the wood was brought from the outside and aloud to sit inside and warm up a bit. A BTU is the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water one degree F. We need to raise it to 212 F to get it boil out of the wood. Actually, it will start coming out of the wood at a much cooler temperature but lets not worry about that. So we need to raise the temperature of water in the split 152 F. We get 8000 btu per pound of wood.
15% split 30% split
10 pounds of wood 10 pounds of wood
1.5 pounds of water 3 pounds of water
10x8000= 80,000 btu 10x8000= 80,000 btu
1.5x152= 228 btu 3x152= 456 btu
80,000-228= 79,772 btu 80,000-456= 79,544 btu
79,772-79,544 = 228 btu
79,544/79,772 =0.9971418542847114 or 99.7%
So the wet split will put out 99.7% of the heat of the dry one, and that's going from a 'way too wet to burn' split to an ideal split. The problem is getting the wood hot in the first place. This takes dry wood and a hot fire. Last year, I had some really nasty wet wood that would not burn. I found I could put a couple of wet splits in with dry without any problem, but I could not put wet splits in by themselves. Not even on a bed of hot coals.
I believe in math, but I have to admit, I have a hard time believing that the wet stuff puts out 99.7% as much heat as the dry one.
We have two splits. Each contains 10 pounds of wood. One is at 15% moisture. The other is at 30% moisture. The temperature of the wood is 60 F. I assumed the wood was brought from the outside and aloud to sit inside and warm up a bit. A BTU is the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water one degree F. We need to raise it to 212 F to get it boil out of the wood. Actually, it will start coming out of the wood at a much cooler temperature but lets not worry about that. So we need to raise the temperature of water in the split 152 F. We get 8000 btu per pound of wood.
15% split 30% split
10 pounds of wood 10 pounds of wood
1.5 pounds of water 3 pounds of water
10x8000= 80,000 btu 10x8000= 80,000 btu
1.5x152= 228 btu 3x152= 456 btu
80,000-228= 79,772 btu 80,000-456= 79,544 btu
79,772-79,544 = 228 btu
79,544/79,772 =0.9971418542847114 or 99.7%
So the wet split will put out 99.7% of the heat of the dry one, and that's going from a 'way too wet to burn' split to an ideal split. The problem is getting the wood hot in the first place. This takes dry wood and a hot fire. Last year, I had some really nasty wet wood that would not burn. I found I could put a couple of wet splits in with dry without any problem, but I could not put wet splits in by themselves. Not even on a bed of hot coals.
I believe in math, but I have to admit, I have a hard time believing that the wet stuff puts out 99.7% as much heat as the dry one.
Danno77
Minister of Fire
May have similar BTUs stored in them, but does the study address the rate at which those BTUs can be released? I think that's where the real problem is. If you can get the temps high enough, then you can start getting a more complete burn and even start getting secondaries going.
Danno77
Minister of Fire
Oops, forgot why I stopped into this thread. Was wondering if there is anybody in the Midwest who has burned bio bricks? If so, what was your source?
Jotul Rockland - CT said:
I asked the dealer where I bought my Lopi from about using biobricks in the Lopi.He said never burn just biobricks in the Lopi alone because they'll get to hot for the stove and cause damage.He added I could burn biobricks in the stove if I mixed in some semi seasoned wood which would keep the stove from getting too hot.
So what happened when you used biobricks with the questionable wood ?
dafattkidd
Minister of Fire
I'm with the wood fanatic on this one.
Mix the bio bricks with your cord wood. Almost every one of us had to start one season with green wood. And we all made do. Bio bricks mixed with cordwood is probably one of the best alternatives to all seasoned cord wood, and probably the best way to get btus from not perfectly seasoned cord wood. Either way good luck with it.
Mix the bio bricks with your cord wood. Almost every one of us had to start one season with green wood. And we all made do. Bio bricks mixed with cordwood is probably one of the best alternatives to all seasoned cord wood, and probably the best way to get btus from not perfectly seasoned cord wood. Either way good luck with it.
Rich L said:
I see you joined this post in 2008, there are lots of post helping folks get through first yr, I burned a few of these bricks, got them at Tractor Supply, but I only burned about 20 or so and used them in the middle of night, wasn't that impressed. Before anyone can really help you need ( as others have said)to state what kind of wood is it how long stacked how big of splits.
Bigg_Redd
Minister of Fire
Rich L said:
I've never burned biobricks and I have no idea what you mean when you say "semi-seasoned" wood. But, I say go for it. Worst case scenario is diminished heat output and a sooted up chimney. It's not like it'll cause a tear in the space/time continuum.
Thanks for the responses,though it looks as if none of you have actually tried mixing biobricks with semi-seasoned wood.(wood seasoned about 6 or 7 months).I was hoping someone could share their actual experience with the above scenerio.I like the rest of you is in the maybe,probably or not ever realm.Hopefully someone with some real life experience will chime in.
Slow1
Minister of Fire
karl said:
However, if you add it up, you are actually comparing a 11.5 lb split to a 13lb split. Re-do your calculations holding the total fed into the stove constant (include the water weight - reduce the wood fiber weight - hold the total weight constant making the first 8.5lb wood/1.5 water and the second 7lb wood/3lb water), and you will find your overall difference is more on the order of 82%. Not flaming, just trying to point out that to believe in the math be sure you are modeling what you wish to represent. By holding the weight of the split going in constant you can summize that the net BTU/Lb is about 18% lower for the 30% water wood.
15% wood calc:
Split Weight: 10 lb
Water Weight: 1.5 Lb
Wood Fibre: 8.5 lb
Wood BTU : 8.5 * 8000 = 68000 btu
Water BTU Loss = 1.5lb * 152 = 228 btu
Net BTU = 68000 - 228 = 67772 btu
30% wood calc:
Split Weight: 10 lb
Water Weight: 3 Lb
Wood Fibre: 7 lb
Wood BTU : 7 * 8000 = 56000 btu
Water BTU Loss = 3lb * 152 = 456 btu
Net BTU = 56000 - 456 = 55544 btu
55544/67772=.8195... or approx 82%
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
What would we do without engineers? 
Ugh. Me do old Indian trick. Cut wood, wait many moons until dry, burn wood, carry out ashes. Go cut more wood.
Ugh. Me do old Indian trick. Cut wood, wait many moons until dry, burn wood, carry out ashes. Go cut more wood.
dafattkidd
Minister of Fire
Backwoods Savage said:What would we do without engineers?
Ugh. Me do old Indian trick. Cut wood, wait many moons until dry, burn wood, carry out ashes. Go cut more wood.
BRAVO! Good show savage!
fredarm
Minister of Fire
I mixed Bio-bricks with semi-seasoned wood (didn't have a moisture meter then) my first year burning and it worked fine. Wood that didn't burn particularly well on its own burned fine when mixed with the bricks. I put the wood in the back of the firebox and the bricks in the front and it burned from front to back drying the wood out as the bricks burned. I wouldn't try it with green wood, but it worked well with semi-seasoned wood. I still mix bricks with wood--I usually go through a cord of wood and a ton of bricks each winter. I can stack the bricks in the garage where they are easily accessible when there's 2 feet of snow on the ground. Four bricks and a quarter of a Supercedar are a great way to start a fire, too.
fredarm said:
Thanks fredarm for sharing your story.That's exactly what I wanted to hear.I'll be doing this come winter and share my thoughts about it when the time comes.
Slow1 said:
I originally did it that way and changed it. I didn't change it because the numbers look better my way. I changed it because the size of a split doesn't really change much as it dries out. So keeping the wood weight the same would keep the split size the same. An 8.5 pound dry split is going to be bigger than an 7 pound dry split. If you soak the 7 pound split in water until it ways 8.5 pounds. It's still going to be smaller. Also most of the btu loss your way is due to it being a smaller split not because it's drier.
Danno77
Minister of Fire
Math can't prove this one. Let's make up something that is highly unlikely, but still possible. I dunno if it is or not, but here we go...karl said:
50%
10 lbs of wood
5lbs of water
10x8000=80,000btu
5x152 =760 btu
80,000-760=79,240 btu
79,772-79,240 = 532 btu
79,240/79,772 = 0.99333099333099 or 99.3%
So the energy is there, Water only takes a small portion of those BTUs from our hypothetical split, but I insist that those BTUs will take longer to express themselves in the wet wood. With this example I just provided, I'd be skeptical that you could even light it for such an experiment!
Dix
Minister of Fire
Rich, I played with some Bio Bricks last year. I had to. New 2nd stove, one of the worst winters we've seen ( didn't see my back deck from Christmas night until March, 3+ feet of snow), thought I had enough wood, but was wrong. Way wrong.
I mixed what I had left seasoned, with some marginal, got lucky in February with a cord of seasoned, bought a sopping wet 2 cords in December, and another in February, and mixed it up about 1/3 of a cord of bricks to eek out the winter. It worked, cleaned the chimneys 2 X's from October to May.
I was lucky in that I had ALOT of kindling, and "uglies" to help get the fires going.
I mixed what I had left seasoned, with some marginal, got lucky in February with a cord of seasoned, bought a sopping wet 2 cords in December, and another in February, and mixed it up about 1/3 of a cord of bricks to eek out the winter. It worked, cleaned the chimneys 2 X's from October to May.
I was lucky in that I had ALOT of kindling, and "uglies" to help get the fires going.
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