Down draft stoves and burning wet wood.

[oldspark]

"Over the years (mostly from Dennis), I have moved from considering “seasoning†to be 1 good year to 2 years, to now 3 years."
Dune-What do you gain by drying your wood for 3 years if it is at 18% after 7 months?

 

[Dune]

"Over the years (mostly from Dennis), I have moved from considering “seasoning†to be 1 good year to 2 years, to now 3 years."
Dune-What do you gain by drying your wood for 3 years if it is at 18% after 7 months?

I burn mostly red oak, and pitch pine and I split as little as possible.
Eastern pine, cherry, apple, pear and maple, I will burn after a year unless it is rounds, then two years.
I havn't had locust or ash here in years.
I don't have much sun or wind. My yard is fenced in and treed.

Red oak in my yard is not 18% after 7 months. Three year seasoned oak is awesome fuel.

 

[fran35]

There is no excuse for burning wet wood.....in any stove. You may as well take out a $100 from your wallet and burn that. At least you'd lose only the bill and wouldn't have the ugly mess afterward like you will with wet wood.

I have to say that you are wrong. There are some situations where wet wood is the only option. Not everyone owns acreage like you. Not everyone has access tp the money or connections to get dry wood. After last year purchasing 5 cords of wood from three different firewood "dealers" and finding them all to be varying degrees of wet and green, I had to make do and used the help on these forums to make it work. This help came from many who said that it is best to burn dry wood, but you could get by with wet if you had to. They gave pointers and tips on how to make that work instead of pontificating on the evils of wet wood. I got by with the wet wood and religiously cleaned my chimeny each month and tried to scrounge pallets to burn with the wet stuff. However, that was all much cheaper and less painful than paying the propane guy $600 a month.

So yes, your statement is inaccurate and mildly offensive. There are times when there is an excuse to burn wet wood. Many of us have done it out of necessity, the rest of you are awaiting canonization.

I disagree. I go to pretty great lengths to burn dry wood.
When I decided to install a wood stove, I waited untill I had fours cords of seasoned wood and then installed the stove.
I don't blame you or anyone else for not knowing that, I heated with a stove for most of my life, still didn't know much about it till I got here,
but did know you don't burn wet wood.


I have cut untold hundreds of pallets for firewood.
I have burned a great many standing dead tree branches and trees.
I have dried tons (literaly) of seasoned but wet firewood by storing it in the stove room.

Last resort, I would buy bio-logs.
Over the years (mostly from Dennis), I have moved from considering "seasoning" to be 1 good year to 2 years, to now 3 years. Thanks Dennis.

I agree with all of your points. However, I think that you are missing mine. When one does not 1) have stored wood prior to installing a stove 2) have access to acreage or timber 3) have access to the thousands of pallets that would be required for 24/7 burning and finally 4) the money to buy enough bio logs to burn 24/7 as a sole heat source. So, factoring in all of this and seeing that it is almost impossible to get seasoned fire wood in the middle of winter, there is a very valid reason to knowingly burn unseasoned wood.

Now that I have had enought time to realize that 99.9% of firewood dealers sell fresh cut wood(no matter what they tell you) and I must season it myself and also found plenty of scrounges on CL to store and season, I am OK with this 1 year seasoned wood, but it is still far from the 2-3 year seasoning mark. Until then, I guess I will have to burn "unseasoned" wood and have to live with the fact that I have no excuse to do such.