Creosote and chimney question

[HOOSIERJIM]

First off I don't post normally just search,read and try to soak up information and ain't real good at this computer,but here is my question and it is about a US Stove hot blast furnace so I may be in the wrong forum area, anyhow I took the brush to my chimney today and got about two thirds of a coffee can of dry flaky sreosote this is after four weeks of shoulder burning and cutting the stove back at night trying to keep my shop and office warm 24 hours,seems like alot to me, I have been burning alot of birch,poplar,pine and all my punky stuff,it all checks below 20 percent with moisture meter,so is it my wood,my burning techniques, or a draft problem, the reason I ask this is it is a litle tricky to get a stove temp over 400-500 with temp guage on front exposed surface of the furnace and my flue temp generally stays 200-300,I only have 4.5 foot of single wall heavy guage welded seam black stove pipe then 6 foot of class A chimney total 10.5 foot without cap

 

[weezer4117]

First off I don't post normally just search,read and try to soak up information and ain't real good at this computer,but here is my question and it is about a US Stove hot blast furnace so I may be in the wrong forum area, anyhow I took the brush to my chimney today and got about two thirds of a coffee can of dry flaky sreosote this is after four weeks of shoulder burning and cutting the stove back at night trying to keep my shop and office warm 24 hours,seems like alot to me, I have been burning alot of birch,poplar,pine and all my punky stuff,it all checks below 20 percent with moisture meter,so is it my wood,my burning techniques, or a draft problem, the reason I ask this is it is a litle tricky to get a stove temp over 400-500 with temp guage on front exposed surface of the furnace and my flue temp generally stays 200-300,I only have 4.5 foot of single wall heavy guage welded seam black stove pipe then 6 foot of class A chimney total 10.5 foot without cap

where to start Pine=NO NO, chimney length is questionable, your stack temp (compaired to mine 300-500) is rather low, and the wood (species). do you have any dry hardwood to play around with to see if you can achieve a hot clean burn? so i would say it is your wood and a draft problem. where are you in the hoosier state?

 

[HOOSIERJIM]

southern Indiana,city called Jeffersonville,I do have better wood just been burning the lesser stuff during the milder temps, I was kind of thinking that maybe extending my flue might help with flue and stove temps thinking of adding at least two feet or does anyone think I may need even more than that,thanks for the reply

 

[CarbonNeutral]

Pine is fine, as long as, just as with any wood, it's seasoned. Are you sure it wasn't just soot? And yes, your pipe is short - most stoves are around 14' minimum recommended - a longer pipe would likely give you better draft and higher temps.

Step away from the punky stuff if it's wet.

 

[weezer4117]

[quote author="HOOSIERJIM" date="1291098111"]southern Indiana,city called Jeffersonville,I do have better wood just been burning the lesser stuff during the milder temps, I was kind of thinking that maybe extending my flue might help with flue and stove temps thinking of adding at least two feet or does anyone think I may need even more than that,thanks for the reply[/quote

2' will help, but to me thats not tall enough. i dont think i would go any less than 16'. now if you add the extra length and start burning the harder woods you may get a significant improvement. i have a place on lake patoka down that way, i spend most of the deer season 15' high in a tree rite off the lake

 

[HOOSIERJIM]

I guess you could call it soot it was all dry with some larger flakes near the top and more like powder closer to the stove,my punky is more funky than punky I guess lot of dead rotted wood

 

[HOOSIERJIM]

been to patoka lake several times, on the water,never hunted there,I have relatives that have property in English not to far from there,if I go anymore than three extra foot on my chimney I will probably have to brace,maybe I will try adding some single wall and if that helps I will replace it with class, I have four foot of single lying in the shop

 

[Backwoods Savage]

First off I don't post normally just search,read and try to soak up information and ain't real good at this computer,but here is my question and it is about a US Stove hot blast furnace so I may be in the wrong forum area, anyhow I took the brush to my chimney today and got about two thirds of a coffee can of dry flaky sreosote this is after four weeks of shoulder burning and cutting the stove back at night trying to keep my shop and office warm 24 hours,seems like alot to me, I have been burning alot of birch,poplar,pine and all my punky stuff,it all checks below 20 percent with moisture meter,so is it my wood,my burning techniques, or a draft problem, the reason I ask this is it is a litle tricky to get a stove temp over 400-500 with temp guage on front exposed surface of the furnace and my flue temp generally stays 200-300,I only have 4.5 foot of single wall heavy guage welded seam black stove pipe then 6 foot of class A chimney total 10.5 foot without cap

where to start Pine=NO NO, chimney length is questionable, your stack temp (compaired to mine 300-500) is rather low, and the wood (species). do you have any dry hardwood to play around with to see if you can achieve a hot clean burn? so i would say it is your wood and a draft problem. where are you in the hoosier state?

What do you mean, "Pine=NO NO...?" Even if said in jest, that should not be told to a new wood burner.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

First off I don't post normally just search,read and try to soak up information and ain't real good at this computer,but here is my question and it is about a US Stove hot blast furnace so I may be in the wrong forum area, anyhow I took the brush to my chimney today and got about two thirds of a coffee can of dry flaky sreosote this is after four weeks of shoulder burning and cutting the stove back at night trying to keep my shop and office warm 24 hours,seems like alot to me, I have been burning alot of birch,poplar,pine and all my punky stuff,it all checks below 20 percent with moisture meter,so is it my wood,my burning techniques, or a draft problem, the reason I ask this is it is a litle tricky to get a stove temp over 400-500 with temp guage on front exposed surface of the furnace and my flue temp generally stays 200-300,I only have 4.5 foot of single wall heavy guage welded seam black stove pipe then 6 foot of class A chimney total 10.5 foot without cap

Jim, naturally wood comes into question no matter what your MM read. Your chimney is short but sometimes you can get by with that....if there are no elbows. If there are bends in the pipe, this effectively shortens the pipe (about 2-3' per 90 degree bend). But you say it is a little tricky to get the stove temperature over 400-500 degrees and that suggests poor fuel and/or poor draft.

Extending the chimney could help some and you could get some single wall to stick up there as a test. If it worked, then but the good stuff up there. You should also have a cap on the chimney.

Another test would be to get hold of some very dry wood to see how that burns.

Good luck.

 

[weezer4117]

First off I don't post normally just search,read and try to soak up information and ain't real good at this computer,but here is my question and it is about a US Stove hot blast furnace so I may be in the wrong forum area, anyhow I took the brush to my chimney today and got about two thirds of a coffee can of dry flaky sreosote this is after four weeks of shoulder burning and cutting the stove back at night trying to keep my shop and office warm 24 hours,seems like alot to me, I have been burning alot of birch,poplar,pine and all my punky stuff,it all checks below 20 percent with moisture meter,so is it my wood,my burning techniques, or a draft problem, the reason I ask this is it is a litle tricky to get a stove temp over 400-500 with temp guage on front exposed surface of the furnace and my flue temp generally stays 200-300,I only have 4.5 foot of single wall heavy guage welded seam black stove pipe then 6 foot of class A chimney total 10.5 foot without cap

where to start Pine=NO NO, chimney length is questionable, your stack temp (compaired to mine 300-500) is rather low, and the wood (species). do you have any dry hardwood to play around with to see if you can achieve a hot clean burn? so i would say it is your wood and a draft problem. where are you in the hoosier state?

What do you mean, "Pine=NO NO...?" Even if said in jest, that should not be told to a new wood burner.

pine is sappy and tends to burn hot, i would suggest he not burn it based off of the results he has got from his burning habbits. if you can burn one split of pine every load, fine, as long as it can burn hot. common sense says that if you load up with pine, damper the primary air way down, then you will lower temps resulting in sticky buildup.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Pine is fine. Burn just like you wood any other wood with the possible exception of not packing the stove. Still, today's stoves would take it just fine. Pine has gotten a bad rap....but what about those poor folks who have nothing else to burn? They get along just fine.

 

[weezer4117]

Pine is fine. Burn just like you wood any other wood with the possible exception of not packing the stove. Still, today's stoves would take it just fine. Pine has gotten a bad rap....but what about those poor folks who have nothing else to burn? They get along just fine.

there is always an exception, boils down to past experiences and opinion. maybe its just because i live in a area where oak, locust, elm, hickory, dog wood, hackberry, and ash are a dime a dozen. you wont find a single piece of pine in my stash!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

weezer, do yourself a favor and look in the Wood Shed forum on hearth.com and you'll find a lot of good information on burning pine. It is just like any other wood; it burns fine so long as it is seasoned.

You won't find a whole lot of pine in my wood piles either for much the same reason as yours, but that in no way says that I am against burning it. It will burn just fine; just won't hold fires as long as the oaks and ash and locust, etc.

 

[laynes69]

We ran a furnace like yours for years. Normally once a month or every two months we had to sweep the chimney and clean the flue. We ran with a 400-500 front like you and at that point the furnace inside was roaring. Having a furnace that doesn't have secondary combustion you will have some creosote. Its just important to monitor and clean things when needed. Having found what you did, its not bad for that furnace. I do know when having the furnace cranking it will eat wood. But if your warm thats all that matters. We removed our furnace last year to upgrade to the newer cleaner burning units.

 

[weezer4117]

weezer, do yourself a favor and look in the Wood Shed forum on hearth.com and you'll find a lot of good information on burning pine. It is just like any other wood; it burns fine so long as it is seasoned.

You won't find a whole lot of pine in my wood piles either for much the same reason as yours, but that in no way says that I am against burning it. It will burn just fine; just won't hold fires as long as the oaks and ash and locust, etc.

i think we are getting off subject, my one and only point i guess was to suggest that part of his problem was his wood. under the conditions that he was operating his furnace i suggested that he didnt use some of the species of wood that he was because the results were 2/3 of a coffe can of creo. now the pine wood probably wasnt the sole purpose for this buildup but i am sure it was a main contributor under the cirumstances given.

Backwoods- did you see my baffle that i built in my fisher insert?
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/64266/

 

[Gator eye]

First off I don't post normally just search,read and try to soak up information and ain't real good at this computer,but here is my question and it is about a US Stove hot blast furnace so I may be in the wrong forum area, anyhow I took the brush to my chimney today and got about two thirds of a coffee can of dry flaky sreosote this is after four weeks of shoulder burning and cutting the stove back at night trying to keep my shop and office warm 24 hours,seems like alot to me, I have been burning alot of birch,poplar,pine and all my punky stuff,it all checks below 20 percent with moisture meter,so is it my wood,my burning techniques, or a draft problem, the reason I ask this is it is a litle tricky to get a stove temp over 400-500 with temp guage on front exposed surface of the furnace and my flue temp generally stays 200-300,I only have 4.5 foot of single wall heavy guage welded seam black stove pipe then 6 foot of class A chimney total 10.5 foot without cap

Back to the orginal question.....

I feel that when burning a wood furnace with the blower taking a lot of the heat out of the flue gasses on the way to the chimney it produces a dirtier chimney.

If your burning a wood furnace your gonna have to clean your chimney more offen than a wood stove, I run the brush through mine every month just to be safe.

 

[HOOSIERJIM]

Thanks for all the ideas and sorry I'm late getting back,I added a 2 foot section of chimney today and will monitor things and see what happens, my first impression is that it seems to be drawing the heat out of the furnace as my flue temps have increased slightly and furnace surface seems to have dropped slightly,I will cut back on the pine just didn't want to waste my better wood during the milder outside temps,I do have some cherry ,ash,locust,maple,and a little oak,this thing actually heats my shop and office pretty well at 35 degrees outside the shop stays an average temp 70-80 depending on where you check with the office being the warmest and my maine work area the coolest the whole building is concrete block with 14 foot ceilings in a 1600 square foot area and 8 foot ceilings in the other 1100 square feet and trust me it isn't airtight, during these temps I am burning a wheel barrow or slightly more over a 24 hour period,I am not totally new to this wood burning thing, I have been burning wood in the house for my third straight,the stove in the house runs 24/7 and I have hed no creosote problems what so ever, I ran a fisher for 2 years,had that thing pretty well figured,then went and bought a BKK Ultra,so know I have a whole new learning curve, sorry about all the text being crammed together,but most will tell you I have a bit of a redneck and repair automobiles for a living so posting and typing aren't my cup of oil,again thanks for everyones input

 

[JustWood]

A coffee can of crap-o-sote ain't squat for a furnace. I get more than that in 2 weeks burning 4-5 year old wood. I've tried insulating the chimney, running hotter, etc and the only hing that helps keep the crap-o down is mixing coal with my wood. But I still feel it makes 2 much.
I burn some pine, it's fine!

 

[bigburner]

back in the Carter administration I had a similar setup. I was building at the time and would bring home scrapes of Pine & OSB & Plywood. I would just burn a real hot fire with before mentioned and that wouldd take care of any of the tar like stuff. Don't remember how often, but maybe two three times a season. I would take the cap off and drop in the log chain and all the crusty stuff would just fall in to the furnace. 10 minutes tops.