burning the trees or the trash

[ketoret]

i have read here, most recently from eernest4, that you can stoke your stove with all kinds of wood junk, including stuff which is painted lacquered, liquoured, glued, and who knows, even upholstered. we are not talking of putting this stuff in a cat, of course. but someplace else - maybe a site about operating a masonry stove - they said to be real careful not to put in anything except for usda grade AA wood - you know what i mean, the stuff that trees are made of, au natural. becasue of strange heat, weird particulates, free radicals, i don't know. what's the story here. recycling wood junk into heat seems a nice green thing to do. will it ruin oa stove or masonry heater?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

What is in the smoke of treated wood? It may be bad for the lungs or eat away the stove/chimney itself.

Matt

 

[kalevi]

Well, the older CCA (Chromiated Copper Arsenate) treated wood is definitely something you don't want to burn. The smoke can be a real killer. I can't tell you what the stuff will do to your stove or liner. Burning any kind of rubber or plastic is going to give you lots of gooey black smoke with lots of nasty stuff in it. Most upholstery is some kind of polymer (plastic). Most paint and lots of varnishes are also some kind of polymer. I wouldn't do it. This is why they closed the old fashioned garbage incinerators.

 

[Todd]

All those chemicals cause reactions in the metal and expedite corrosion.

 

[begreen]

I'm glad we're not living downwind from that chimney. Paints, finishes and glued board can break down into a chemical soup when burned.

 

[billb3]

No trash and no people in stoves.

Deal ?

 

[ketoret]

reminds me that siemens, who took good advantage of slave labor during WW2, recently took out a patent on the name zyklon for their new line of gas stoves. only when it was pointed out that zyklon was the name of the gas used in the gas chambers they, well, thought the better of it and found another name.

let keep both chemicals and people out of the stoves, i'm with ya there.

 

[milner351]

My goodness - our neighbor would have be arrested in a heartbeat if I burned anything that smelled funny!

We've been round and round with them about the smoke from our chimney "filling their house with smoke and choking them to death"

My question has remained the same --- why is smoke - or any outside air of significant volume -- getting inside your house?

They seem more content calling the police, township inspectors, and DEQ / EPA folks to complain about our perfectly legal stove than they are about repairing their own drafty home.

I know for sure treated lumber is a no no even in an outdoor camp fire, many toxins and ethyl methyl badstuff in there, as for stain, urethane etc on finished woods.... I just wouldn't go there.... unless it was an outdoor bonfire - then, have at it, but still don't stand down wind!!

 

[Jags]

i have read here, most recently from eernest4, that you can stoke your stove with all kinds of wood junk, including stuff which is painted lacquered, liquoured, glued, and who knows, even upholstered.

I would "unlearn" that. It is not a recommended practice, and most likely will void any warranty for your stove or pipe as well as create a potentially dangerous situation.

By dangerous, I mean that it can foul the air with nastys or even do physical harm to your stove and/or chimney.

Its nice in theory, but can be bad in practice.

If a bug won't bite it, don't burn it.

Give it a natural diet and it will thank you.

 

[Martin Strand III]

Don't burn anything* except seasoned wood, maybe fireplace logs, white paper and noninked cardboard!

*No garbage
*No plastic
*No rubber
*No solvents, paints
*No painted or treated wood
*No plywood
*No particleboard

These materials, when burned, produce noxious corrosive toxic smoke and fumes which are MUCH WORSE for you, your family, neighbors, your catalytic combustor, your flue and your lungs than is from burning seasoned wood.

Do you realize wood smoke from even clean seasoned wood is more toxic than tobacco smoke? "The EPA estimates the cancer risk from wood smoke to be 12 times greater than from an equal amount of tobacco smoke."

So, if you are going to burn, burn smart and burn healthy. This means burning only dry seasoned wood in HOT fires (to minimize smoke; hot fires burn smoke - a major source of heat that goes up your chimney by not burning hot).

PLEASE! No smoldering! No sniveling! No fooling!

By burning the other above listed materials because of ignorance, apathy or indifference is detrimental to our planet, our neighbors, our families and ourselves.

Aye,
Marty

 

[ketoret]

Marty writes:

"Do you realize wood smoke from even clean seasoned wood is more toxic than tobacco smoke? “The EPA estimates the cancer risk from wood smoke to be 12 times greater than from an equal amount of tobacco smoke.”

so let that be a warning, guys. DON'T INHALE

 

[backpack09]

This is why they closed the old fashioned garbage incinerators.

They closed the old fashioned ones, but they invented new ones... Most of our trash in southeastern Mass ends up at an incinerator.

Any of you ever TRY to burn pressure treat? I brought a fence post camping with me last year, assumed it was untreated cause it was half rotted. Tossed it in the fire around 8am, was still a whole smoldering green log at 8pm when I had to douse it and get a real fire going... I am assuming this piece was CCA aswell.... But I would assume ACQ would burn very pretty with all the copper in it, nice green flames if you split it up small enough.

 

[Martin Strand III]

Burning trash and garbage is, well, Third Worldish.

On a family trip to "the islands" (Bahamas), as we walked around, my son kept saying, "What's that smell?" My daughter, who has spent a lot of time in W Africa (Burkina Faso) doing music research immediately replied, "That's burning garbage. Once you smell it, you never forget it."

I'd like to think here in North America we don't have to do this and are intelligent enough not to...

Aye,
Marty

 

[ketoret]

yeah, where i live we certainly have pockets of third world - sometimes driving through a cloud of trash smoke. other times the cloud is of a pungent olive wood charcoal used as heat - an amazing smell! but anyone here who goes out of his/her way to be green - you're pretty much on your own. third world folk have other bothers on their mind than ecology.

but marty, we're not talking trash. trash is trash - i mean like disposable diapers. but wood detritus - furniture, plywood, palettes, lumber that's been used for concrete forms, door and window frames from remodelled houses...is like those btu's are just calling for liberation. but the idea that by doing this, one is poisoning the air downwind....i got enough guilt to work through without needing that! i was wondering if the heat of a stove would incinerate the harmful elements, or simply liberate them into the air.

 

[moondoggy]

i have read here, most recently from eernest4, that you can stoke your stove with all kinds of wood junk, including stuff which is painted lacquered, liquoured, glued, and who knows, even upholstered. we are not talking of putting this stuff in a cat, of course. but someplace else - maybe a site about operating a masonry stove - they said to be real careful not to put in anything except for usda grade AA wood - you know what i mean, the stuff that trees are made of, au natural. becasue of strange heat, weird particulates, free radicals, i don't know. what's the story here. recycling wood junk into heat seems a nice green thing to do. will it ruin oa stove or masonry heater?

yea man, think that was my post you read in yesterday. i tried to not acknowledge much of what he suggested.
i would not put any of that in my stove.

as has been said above, only good seasoned wood and plain newspaper.
Be safe, be conscious

 

[Martin Strand III]

... i was wondering if the heat of a stove would incinerate the harmful elements, or simply liberate them into the air.

To my knowledge, there is no beneficial effect or chemical reaction that renders toxic substances harmless by burning them in a stove that releases it's gasses and smoke to the environment. Burning above listed items on an earlier post in a stove is the 'best' way to liberate the noxious particles into the air and environment - NG for everything and everybody. Better to let those seemingly good BTUs covered with paint, varnish or impregnated with solvents and toxic chemicals to rot in a landfill than to burn them.

Aye,
Marty

 

[DiscoInferno]

Any of you ever TRY to burn pressure treat? I brought a fence post camping with me last year, assumed it was untreated cause it was half rotted. Tossed it in the fire around 8am, was still a whole smoldering green log at 8pm when I had to douse it and get a real fire going... I am assuming this piece was CCA aswell.... But I would assume ACQ would burn very pretty with all the copper in it, nice green flames if you split it up small enough.

When I was a teenager a friend grabbed some wood scraps from his house for a beach fire, and some turned out to be pressure treated. One lungful of that smoke just about put me down. Just awful.

 

[Martin Strand III]

yeah, where i live... third world folk have other bothers on their mind than ecology. ...but marty, we're not talking trash. trash is trash.

Yeah, I've heard that logic before: leave it to the other guy; it's not 'my' problem, I'm doin' my thing. Simply put, this doesn't cut it.

Realize it or not, we are all connected.

Aye,
Marty
Grandma used to say, "Rather than be part of the problem, it's just as easy to be part of the solution."

 

[Tarmsolo60]

Any of you ever TRY to burn pressure treat? I brought a fence post camping with me last year, assumed it was untreated cause it was half rotted. Tossed it in the fire around 8am, was still a whole smoldering green log at 8pm when I had to douse it and get a real fire going... I am assuming this piece was CCA aswell.... But I would assume ACQ would burn very pretty with all the copper in it, nice green flames if you split it up small enough.

When I was a teenager a friend grabbed some wood scraps from his house for a beach fire, and some turned out to be pressure treated. One lungful of that smoke just about put me down. Just awful.

I didn't think they had pressure treated back then.....

 

[myzamboni]

i have read here, most recently from eernest4, that you can stoke your stove with all kinds of wood junk, including stuff which is painted lacquered, liquoured, glued, and who knows, even upholstered. we are not talking of putting this stuff in a cat, of course. but someplace else - maybe a site about operating a masonry stove - they said to be real careful not to put in anything except for usda grade AA wood - you know what i mean, the stuff that trees are made of, au natural. becasue of strange heat, weird particulates, free radicals, i don't know. what's the story here. recycling wood junk into heat seems a nice green thing to do. will it ruin oa stove or masonry heater?

This comes down to: If you believe everything you read, maybe you shouldn't read.

As everyone else has said, no paints,solvents,synthetics, rubber, chemically treated anything.