Anyone use/combine different fuel other than cord wood?

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Gasifier

Minister of Fire
Apr 25, 2011
3,211
St. Lawrence River Valley, N.Y.
Does anyone with a gassifier burn any other type of fuel other than cord wood? In combination with, or substituting for, cord wood.
 
Pallets full of nails, trim and studs from on site construction, old fence posts, etc. All wood. BUT do love to throw in plastic bottles, milk jugs and easy to handle paper products for a short term energy boost. If it burns and easier to put in boiler vs take to trash collection... In she goes. Sometimes not a big boost to boiler energy but if it's a boost to mine... In she goes. Never had any coal or anything like that if that's what your asking. Christmas morning makes a hot fire for a little while!! BTW, because I mix a lot of stuff with nails in with my split wood I put all my ashes in a metal wheelbarrow to cool then ashes go to a dumpster in trash bags so the nails don't end up in tractor, Ranger, or mower tires. Never burn garbage that has moisture content. All else fair game. Happy Gassin' to ya. I'm about a month from firing down here.
 
Pallets full of nails, trim and studs from on site construction, old fence posts, etc. All wood. BUT do love to throw in plastic bottles, milk jugs and easy to handle paper products for a short term energy boost. If it burns and easier to put in boiler vs take to trash collection… In she goes. Sometimes not a big boost to boiler energy but if it’s a boost to mine… In she goes. Never had any coal or anything like that if that’s what your asking. Christmas morning makes a hot fire for a little while!! BTW, because I mix a lot of stuff with nails in with my split wood I put all my ashes in a metal wheelbarrow to cool then ashes go to a dumpster in trash bags so the nails don’t end up in tractor, Ranger, or mower tires. Never burn garbage that has moisture content. All else fair game. Happy Gassin’ to ya. I’m about a month from firing down here.

All of that free stuff sounded good until you said plastic bottles. Can that be a good thing for the air quality? I realize that plastic is just a product of oil but there has to be all kinds of nasty ass chemicals in there to make it plastic. Not to mention the the nasty ass oil itself. If it burns and easier to put in boiler vs take to trash collection? That doesn't sound good either. To each his own. I guess?
 
Where I live all the town trash goes to the nearby big municipal trash burner for power generation. So it's going to get burned and in the atmosphere, anyway. I'm not of the habit of burning trash but I don't stop to remove the occasional piece of polyethylene from my paper/kindling/scrap that I burn every so often. PVC and other plastics have some chlorine but Polyethylene is not a lot different from paraffin, I believe. And polyethylene is the bulk of the trash plastic, at least here in the land of bottle deposits.

In a good gassifier burning at a good rip does anything come out the stack that wood alone doesn't produce? We all have opinions on this (some pretty strong ones, too, ) but does anyone know?
 
Where I live all the town trash goes to the nearby big municipal trash burner for power generation. So it’s going to get burned and in the atmosphere, anyway. I’m not of the habit of burning trash but I don’t stop to remove the occasional piece of polyethylene from my paper/kindling/scrap that I burn every so often. PVC and other plastics have some chlorine but Polyethylene is not a lot different from paraffin, I believe. And polyethylene is the bulk of the trash plastic, at least here in the land of bottle deposits.

In a good gassifier burning at a good rip does anything come out the stack that wood alone doesn’t produce? We all have opinions on this (some pretty strong ones, too, ) but does anyone know?

I do not know. I guess I was just thinking of when our county was considering putting in the latest technology Incinerator for garbage. Most said that something like 99.5% of the stack emission was steam. That's it. But the temperatures in that incinerator must have been very high. I don't really know. What ended up happening was a few "environmentalist" got involved and they ended up scraping the project all tegether because they said it would be bad for the environment. So now, everyone brings their trash to a local transfer station. It is then hauled a long distance away and dumped into the ground, which makes dumping the trash for everyone more expensive. Yes, there are liners in the landfills, but I have to believe eventually those liners are going to leak and that stuff is going to get into the ground water. Just me. But the worst result of it I think is that because the trash fees at the transfer station are a little expensive. Many, many people out in the country burn their garbage in a burn barrel. Now imagine the temperatures in a burn barrel. And the top of the barrel is about 3' off the ground. Now all those chemicals are going into the air. Seems ass backwards to me. But that is just me. Oh, they have sense passed a law that makes it illegal to burn trash in a barrel or open fire. Only one problem with that. They can't enforce it. Why do they pass a law if they know they will never have the resources to try to enforce it? I would think the incinerator would have been a better solution. You would not have to haul it a huge distance, the fee would be next to nothing for locals to bring it their, you can charge for others to bring it there and use the incinerator, etc., etc. I know I would rather see it burned in a Gassification boiler than in a burn barrel.
 
Been waiting for us to get into garbage gassification like many EU nations do. Lots of supply, most of it goes in the ground though. :shut: Hopefully soon we start using that energy rather than just burying it. A large facility at large points of use, public buildings like universities would be a good start IMO. Up here all the latent heat after power generation could be used 7 months of the year to heat buildings, so hopefully more eff than a warmer climate where power gen would be primary/only use. Have a feeling though that in 10 years I will still be waiting.
 
Last year a couple of guys were talking about burning some coal. I have about a half ton in the yard so I thought I'd give it a shot. I bought a small cast iron grate ( that goes in some coal stove) and put it on top of the nozzle. I piled a layer of coal on top of the grate, then some wood etc. The coal burned red hot but I wish I took a picture of what it did to the grate - warped, melted, deformed like you wouldn't believe. That was the end of that. At least I know it's pretty hot down in the nozzle area.
 
I burn mostly the briquets I make during the year and the scrap wood from the shop. Great hot fires during the day but I want to use some cord wood for overnight to hopefully have some coals left in the morning. I just don't want to spend money on cord wood or fuel oil. I know the municipalities probably burn or bury everything but I would rather see the plastics recycled. I did google burning PE and PTE and found it is somewhat safe if it is burned with a good oxygen supply and I stumbled upon this site which I thought was interesting but not sure if I believe it. I'm wondering if a gasser is efficient enough to burn those types of things completely.
http://www.wasteplastictechnology.blogspot.com/
Who knows.
 

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Briquetmaker said:
I burn mostly the briquets I make during the year and the scrap wood from the shop. Great hot fires during the day but I want to use some cord wood for overnight to hopefully have some coals left in the morning. I just don't want to spend money on cord wood or fuel oil. I know the municipalities probably burn or bury everything but I would rather see the plastics recycled. I did google burning PE and PTE and found it is somewhat safe if it is burned with a good oxygen supply and I stumbled upon this site which I thought was interesting but not sure if I believe it. I'm wondering if a gasser is efficient enough to burn those types of things completely.
http://www.wasteplastictechnology.blogspot.com/
Who knows.

How do you make your briquets? I'm a residential framer and fill dumpsters up with cut-offs and scraps from the new construction as well as tons of demolition scrap.
 
Mike,

You would need to purchase a grinder for the lumber to produce shavings to send to the briquet press. Not a small investment unless you can find them at auction. I have a cabinet shop and send my sawdust from the dust collector to the press but did not go for the grinder, another 15K+.
 
So then I should just burn the scrap as is right?

I haven't even hooked my gassifier up yet!

But when I do....look out....I'll be burnin everything thats not nailed down!!! No pun intended!
 
Briquetmaker. Very cool. How much of a burn time to you get out of them? What type of boiler are you burning them in? I mostly just burn cord wood. I am lucky that someone in my family has some land with Ash and pine on it. The Ash burns nice. I use some standing dead pine when the bugs get to it but that burns very fast. But I still like to look around and get some ideas wherever I can. I also like to find/scrounge wood if it will save me a little work from having to haul it out of the woods. Every once and a while I will find someone who wants a tree(s) down and are easy to get at I will do that. I just finish splitting about 3 face cord of mostly a junk tree, not sure if it is a soft maple or what (I have to look that up.), and a little Ash mixed in there as well. It will be dry enough for next fall after being out in the sun and wind for a while. What else are in those briquets besides the wood dust? Must be a little glue of some type to help keep them together?
 
I load 5 to 6 - 10lb bags in my Tarm Solo Plus 60 and get about a 3 hr burn. It's nice to just throw in the bags, makes it very easy. I also burn all the off cuts from sizing our lumber. All this nice dry material keeps me busy loading the boiler because it burns hot and fast but its all free. The pressure of the press and the heat it produces causes the lignin in the wood to bind together.
 
I have thrown in some "stove" coal in my WG on the real nasty nights. If I didn't have 700 acres of woods and didn't like making firewood, I'd have me a Coalgun!
 
I know coal has been buried underground for thousands of years but once it becomes processed can it go bad.

I have a friend who, when he bought his house 10 years ago had a basement full of coal.

He took it out and stuck it behind his garage because he didn't know what else to do with it.

It really sounds dumb but Is that stuff still good to burn.
 
Ready to go! Just gotta keep it from freezing into chunks in the winter. (if it gets rain/snowed on)
 
I burned cob corn (not shelled) when I thought I was facing a wood moisture problem in extremely cold temperatures. The corn burned alright but was a hassel to load. Ended up having the same basic problem with the corn but for a shorter period of time. Ended up being cold wood in a warm boiler causing condensation build up on the wood. Once the wood warmed up the problem went away. Under better burning conditions the corn burned fine but did not last as long as split wood. Considered growing a couple of acres of corn and harvesting it just for loading the boiler but decided to settle for cord wood as there are/were a lot of dead trees in the area and I would rather split wood and eat corn. With storage cob corn would work fairly well if you could come up with a lot of paper bags to stuff the corn in to so you could load the corn into the stove.
 
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