Greenheat in DC

[begreen]

GHA blog just updated with the final results:
http://forgreenheat.blogspot.com/2013/11/woodstock-soapstone-travis-and-wittus.html

 

[teutonicking]

That's real nice teut, how many sf you heating with that baby? I saw a epa list of stove output and the PH was something like 13k btu - 73k btu, that's a lot of juice, my princess was something like 12k - 29 k

Thanks. I have it on the main floor in the family room. It heats 3,400 square feet (the floor its on and the upstairs--about 1700 square feet per floor x 2). I am able to close off some of the bedrooms upstairs if it gets cold so I can focus the heat in the rooms that we use the most. The stove puts out a ton of heat, and I can generally keep my home in the low 70s, as long as its not below 20 degrees outside. The area in Maryland where I live (near Washington, D.C,) generally has pretty mild winters.

 

[BrotherBart]

Great article BG. Thanks. I loved being able to attend and see the contestants and stoves. I am only sorry that more recognition wasn't given to the Smart Stove controller that in day to day burning will probably do more for efficiency than all of the stove design features in the world.

As Grady Booch said: "A fool with a tool is still a fool."

Hearth.com will just have to fill in on the education front in the meantime.

 

[Cynnergy]

Hearth.com will just have to fill in on the education front in the meantime.

And you do a great job of it too. Thanks mods and members for filling in the details for those of us who couldn't be there!

 

[Floydian]

Just checked out http://wittus.com/ for more info on the Twinfire. I have been wondering when we would see the down draft secondary combustion idea in a wood stove.
Not sure about the 93% efficiency claim though. Combustion efficiency is one thing, heat transfer efficiency another and system efficiency another thing still. Sure wouldn't want a condensing wood stove in my house.

Anyone have any idea what flue temps run on the Twinfire at full burn?

Then there is the video....... Not sure the efficiency out ways the complications.


Seriously though, nice stove! Bet it's pricey.

Noah

 

[begreen]

I'm not sure how they are measuring efficiency, but of all the stoves I saw at the show the Wittus Twin-Fire seemed the most radiant. When it was burning a 3 log load the heat radiating from the front of the stove was easily felt 15 ft away.

 

[BrotherBart]

That Wittus was throwing some serious heat for sure.

 

[Oldhippie]

No, I think that would be unlikely. I wouldn't mind testing the stove at all but my wife is pretty particular about the looks of a stove sitting in the living room. It's a visual focal point so looks are important to her. I might get away with testing it for a season, but I suspect that would only be if we hung on to the T6. But who knows? I'll show her the all black model and will let her be the judge.

Looks count in my Living Room too. WAF is a key metric.

 

[begreen]

The Masonry Heat Association has just posted a good photo essay on the Green Alliance Decathlon. This is part one:

http://www.mha-net.org/documents/woodstove-decathlon-part-1/

 

[begreen]

Here's a local TV program praising Woodstock's win.
http://www.wcax.com/story/24027106/upper-valley-woodstove-company-smokes-the-competition

 

[Huntindog1]

I wonder if the Wittus is throwing more heat as it has twice the window area. There is some serious radiant heat that comes thru a window and having two windows cant be a bad thing.

 

[begreen]

Twice the glass area helps as does the intense temp of the secondary chamber.

 

[begreen]

Here is a good article on the decathlon in the National Journal, watch the video too. Good shot of the Wittus running and a short interview on the Mulciber:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/inno...ergy-stuck-400-000-years-in-the-past-20131120

 

[jack_90125]

I dunno 2.5 million plus wood burners most of the cause of pollution?
I would think trucks,busses coal plants,,factories airplanes etc are far more polluting.
yes I can see the usefulness of trying to do better but there are tons of other factors not including poolution in general and what we do to the water supply and oceans,rivers etc.
sounds more like scapegoating more than anything else.

 

[begreen]

I didn't get that slant at all. The focus of the article was on wood smoke specifically and not pollution in general. Of course there are other sources of air pollution, but in the article they are discussing the effects of wood burning, around the world and the influence of a contest like Green Heat just held. Raw wood smoke from fireplaces, old smoke dragons, open pit fires, etc. is incredibly polluting. The point of the article is that new technology is going to be needed to clean up stove smoke. The Univ. of Maryland's team achieved zero particulate in some tests. Jason's simple downdraft adapter achieved zero carbon monoxide in some tests. This is great progress and indicative of a future trend in wood burners. Many of the stoves at the show have emissions down in the pellet stove range.That's pretty amazing!

Remember, in many parts of the world cooking and heat are still done with an open flame wood fire. This causes major health issues. There are great efforts on cleaner burning cook stoves too. They had a few showing at the decathlon and locally a company has started mass production of a cleaner cook stove. This will save lives and reduce fuel consumption significantly. That in turn could save a lot of habitat from being destroyed for fuel. Modern, simple cook stoves for developing areas can burn 50% less fuel and put out 95% less smoke.

http://www.burndesignlab.org/our-stoves/
http://www.biolitestove.com/homestove/overview/

 

[stoveguy2esw]

i remember during my tour in Korea the locals heated with a stove which burned "andol" (not sure the spelling) it was essentially a big cylindrical block of what looked like coal or charcoal obviously molded from a slurry and dried with holes through it to allow combustion, one would burn for several hours and smelled pretty bad. you could literally smell the gasses from it in the homes. knowing what i know now about stoves it makes me shudder to think of how unhealthy these things were.

 

[begreen]

This is Dehli, India in 2004. That fug is from coal fired power plants and many hundreds of thousands dung fires. In winter you could hear the native coughing a lot. Locally they called it the Delhi chuff.

 

[Holiday]

I worked in India in 02. Always flew into Mumbai and spent a day there before heading 200 miles north of there. Not a pleasant smell, especially in the winter when it's a bit cooler.

 

[BrotherBart]

When we left Vietnam the air quality probably improved a thousand percent. What we mixed with diesel fuel and burned constantly wasn't for heat.

 

[Hogwildz]

When we left Vietnam the air quality probably improved a thousand percent. What we mixed with diesel fuel and burned constantly wasn't for heat.

Ah the diesel doot fires, nothing like the smell of burning diesel and crap.

 

[begreen]

National Geographic has just posted a nice film on the decatholon:

 

[Todd]

I think they are all winners, clean burn, high efficiency in every model but does it really make that big a difference between 1gph and 10 gph? Or a 5-10% efficiency improvement? One big forest fire out west will wipe out any gain by cleaner more efficient wood stove regs. I'm for all cleaner more efficient stoves but I think we are getting a little to picky on numbers and don't look at the real world.

 

[BrotherBart]

Point I tried to make on the panel is that you can build the cleanest burning most efficient stove on the planet and if you can't educate the operator it is all for nothing.

"Use dry wood and don't let the stove glow." Ain't getting it done.

 

[webbie]

I think they are all winners, clean burn, high efficiency in every model but does it really make that big a difference between 1gph and 10 gph? Or a 5-10% efficiency improvement? One big forest fire out west will wipe out any gain by cleaner more efficient wood stove regs. I'm for all cleaner more efficient stoves but I think we are getting a little to picky on numbers and don't look at the real world.

It makes a difference in more heat from less wood and in the local neighborhood also.....

But I'm with you in the real world. Way back when this all started, the Defiant Encore beat most every stove in the market in tests - something like 1.6 gph compared to 6 for a lot of other stoves. Then some in-home studies were done and it was found that almost none of the EPA stoves performed as advertised. Other studies since have shown a 50 or 60% reduction (I think) from non-EPA stove, nowhere near what the numbers say...

But that's just the point. These newer designs are being tested with real wood....which is a good thing! It will take a long time, but eventually you will be likely to not even know when your neighbors are burning wood...or you'll just get that pleasant smell instead of the one that burns your eyes.

BB has a point about customer education. Look at the wood shed here and we can see that many folks are building sheds, drying and storing properly, etc. - a lot of the problems have always related to lack of education.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

It makes a difference in more heat from less wood and in the local neighborhood also.....

But I'm with you in the real world. Way back when this all started, the Defiant Encore beat most every stove in the market in tests - something like 1.6 gph compared to 6 for a lot of other stoves. Then some in-home studies were done and it was found that almost none of the EPA stoves performed as advertised. Other studies since have shown a 50 or 60% reduction (I think) from non-EPA stove, nowhere near what the numbers say...

But that's just the point. These newer designs are being tested with real wood....which is a good thing! It will take a long time, but eventually you will be likely to not even know when your neighbors are burning wood...or you'll just get that pleasant smell instead of the one that burns your eyes.

BB has a point about customer education. Look at the wood shed here and we can see that many folks are building sheds, drying and storing properly, etc. - a lot of the problems have always related to lack of education.

well the difference is that cordwood is not used for emmissions testing by the labs. the reason is they need a "control" for the test so they use a weighed set of douglas fir dried to a certain moisture percentage now , the numbers will not match with cordwood due to the variables in the wood , but the numbers do corrolate somewhat , a stove that tests at 1.6 while it wont hit that number with cordwood will burn cleaned with cordwood (when used properly) than a stove that comes in at say 6.0