I need help!

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Ziprich

Member
Sep 19, 2011
64
Western Md (Hagerstown)
Hello everybody. I am very new to the wood stove game, as a matter a fact i haven't started yet. I'm having a Harman TL300 installed next Monday, and i have 5 cords of wood out side of my house. i have always wanted to burn wood and i am so excited to now have my own house to do it in.

The big problem I have right now is that I believe i have been mislead by my friends, family, and wood salesman. They all told me that the wood i bought and gathered this summer would be fine to burn this winter. Last night when i first got on Hearth.com i found out that they were very wrong. Now i don't know what to do, i don't want to wait till next year to burn the stove, but i also don't want to have trouble with my stove.

Please let my know if there is anything that i can do to fix my problem. Also any feedback on the Harman TL300 would also be great. Thank you very much!
 
If you want to get a better idea of where your wood supply stands, pick up a basic 2-pin moisture meter from Lowe's, Amazon, or Harbor Freight. They're about 20 bucks or so. Then, take a few pieces of wood, resplit them, then take a moisture reading from the inside of the fresh split. This will help to eliminate any "guess work" on how well the wood is seasoned.

Now, realize that a moisture meter is just a tool, and there is NO substitute for proper seasoning with sun, wind, and time. After a season or two, you won't even need the meter to tell you if your fuel is ready: you'll be able to tell in the look, feel, and performance of the wood. But for a new burner, a moisture meter can be a valuable tool during the learning phase.

You may find that some of the wood is closer to being ready that you suspect. Or, you may unfortunately find the opposite to be true. Also, if you have the desire to do so, resplitting the wood to smaller sizes can help expose more surface area and speed the seasoning process a little. Granted, this is a little late in the game, but when you are new, every little bit helps.
 
Theres loads of downed trees out near you, such as cunningham falls area. Not sure you can grab from there but try "scrounging" anywhere you can. The tops and limbs of standing dead and old down trees should be okay. Otherwise you can buy the wood but ask the questions like how long has it been split and stacked. You want at least a year.

Worst case split small what you have and stack loose.

Good luck
 
If you have a friend with plenty of seasoned wood, offer to swap a cord of yours for his, with you doing all the work.
 
As Pagey suggests, first try to determine just what the state of your wood is. If it's generally less than ~20% mc, then you're probably OK. If not, and you want to burn this year, then you'll want to find some other wood. If you have access to any woodworking shop/cabinetmakers' places, they quite often give away scraps for free. Lots of folks scrounge pallets, bust them up and burn the wood. If you know any other woodburners, you might be able to swap some green for some seasoned. Good luck. Rick

ETA: As Dan suggested above while I was still typing. %-P
 
Another option which may help would be purchasing some bio brick, enviro-logs, or other artifical wood log and mixing it in with some of the drier wood that you do have on had.

Also, splitting the wood that is less than perfect into smaller pieces will help also.

And no matter what, don't put yourself in this condition for next winter! Buy next winter's wood now so that from here on out you can always stay a year ahead.

Welcome to the board, it's great to see someone who wants to not only do it, but do it right.

pen
 
pen said:
...Welcome to the board, it's great to see someone who wants to not only do it, but do it right...

What pen said. Rick
 
Yeah dry wood and a good coal bed are the keys to getting a downdraft stove like the TL-300 humming.
 
Well i went out and got a moisture reader and when i tested it said i was at 28%. i know that's not good enough, but what would happen if i tried to burn this wood? Also how much more will the moisture go down in like a month or so? I'm already looking for some seasoned wood to buy, but I'm trying to figure out what to do if i cant find any. Thanks again.
 
I did some work in the state parks of that area (cunningham, gambrill, greenbrier) when I was in college. At the time, you could obtain a firewood permit to cut within the park. It may be worth looking into. Even that wood may not be the best, but probably better than 28%. Just my $.02
 
Depends on what kind of wood it is. If it's oak, it may not be ready for this year. if it's maple, ash or another "lighter" hardwood, it may well be good enough to burn in a couple of months. 28% wood will burn, it will just be harder to light and won't burn as hot. Split a few more pieces and check if it's all 28%. If you bought some and gathered some, maybe the wood you gathered will be dryer. As others have suggested above, get some wood bricks, dead limbs, or pallets and mix with the wood. You may have to run the stove with the draft a little wider open (but don't overfire). This is a very common problem with new wood burners (myself included, which is how I learned about mixing with wood bricks). You just can't order wood like oil or gas and have it ready to burn immediately (from most wood sellers). The good news is, whatever you don't burn this year will certainly be ready for next year!
 
You can mix in the 28% wood with dry wood that you have already got going. But what happens is the wood will dry out during the first 30 - 60 minutes of being in there.

Best if you can get drier wood for this year

Other strategies are:
Mix with dry wood or bio bricks
Split into smaller splits
 
Ziprich said:
Well i went out and got a moisture reader and when i tested it said i was at 28%. i know that's not good enough, but what would happen if i tried to burn this wood? Also how much more will the moisture go down in like a month or so? I'm already looking for some seasoned wood to buy, but I'm trying to figure out what to do if i cant find any. Thanks again.

What will happen most likely is that attempting to light a fire will take up a lot of time and energy . . . and may be a bit frustrating as the kindling may burn up and the splits may just be charred . . . or you may get the fire going and it will take a long time to bring the woodstove up to speed as the fire will be cooking/seasoning/drying out the excess moisture in the splits (which you may see or hear as spitting or hissing wood.) Besides the time and frustration the other concern will be not being able to bring the stove up to temp very quickly which could lead to excessive creosote being build up in the chimney . . . not to mention the gunked up glass in the stove.

However, do not despair too badly. Try to get some truly seasoned wood -- that would be your best bet.

Barring that consider Eco-bricks or even find a good source of pallets that you can break up and use as kindling -- you can use this stuff to get the fire going and allow it to "dry" out the wood in your stove . . . it is not the best or most perfect solution, but it will help you get by . . . just be sure to check and clean the chimney frequently to avoid a chimney fire.

Having thermometers will help you a lot in knowing you are burning at the proper temp . . .

Start scrounging or buying your wood now for next year if you truly want seasoned wood . . .

Again, do not despair too badly . . . many of us were like you . . . we too thought about the fuel supply way too late . . . but like us, you will get by and do OK . . . heck, you may finish off the year thinking you did great . . . at least until you start Year 2 with truly seasoned wood and realize just what your stove can pump out for heat . . . Year 2 is a whole other experience for most folks.

By the way, family and friends did not totally steer you wrong . . . I mean they did . . . but they did not do so intentionally . . . heck, even if you tell them that you need to have your wood split and stacked a year or so before you need it (longer with some species of wood such as oak and shorter for other species of wood) they may still not believe you . . . the reason being for many they've always got their wood in the Summer (or for some even in the Fall -- I'm seeing that right now here in Maine with folks splitting and stacking their Winter wood) and it's worked well for them . . . in their older pre-EPA stoves . . . and many will also tell you that having a chimney fire is normal, it's normal for your house to smell like stale smoke and those new-fangled stoves are no good (all of which is wrong.)

Welcome to hearth.com.
 
Different species of wood dry at different rates. Is your wood all one species or a mix? It's going to be hard to get seasoned wood at this time of the year unless it was stored and dried properly. Often sellers will say wood is seasoned when it is really only partially seasoned. Check a couple splits off the truck before they dump the load. When checking the moisture, re-split the wood and check on the freshly exposed surface.
 
I did the same thing my first year, and bought a bunch of green wood. I ended up burning it anyway. Yes, it did take a bit longer to really get humming, and sometimes it would falter, but all-in-all, once the thing got cranking, it ate away the wood fairly well. You may notice that your stove will struggle a bit. In the long run, it wasn't the end of the world.

Strangely, in parts of central Ontario, the folks there think that green is the way to go! They believe it lasts longer, thus more heat output over a longer period of time. I try to reason with them, and they don't want to hear it!

Sooo... a few years ago, I ordered an additional seven cords of wood for the subsequent years, so I'd be a few years ahead. We'll be burning 2 year old wood this year! YAY!
 
I had a post like this last year. The tree service I purchased from basically lied about selling seasoned wood. I think there idea of seasoning is that it layed in a pile for a few months, then they split it before they load it in the truck for delivery. Plus they shorted me and there was a lot of buts and uglies. I'll never buy wood again, God willing!

I made it last year but I was fortunate to cut down a very large beech tree that was indeed dead and dry. I had a few frustrating fires. Hopefully up there if you are burning 24/7 you will have a nice coal bed to work with to restart your fires. Hopefully you have a nice chimney with a strong draft as well.

I'll wait for Dennis to chime in on the importance of dry wood. Needless to say, all the wood I have this year is over a year old, so it should go smoother, and even smoother the year after that.. If you could get yourself in the same position, next year will be smoother.

Good luck but and you will make it through this.
 
Ziprich said:
Hello everybody. I am very new to the wood stove game, as a matter a fact i haven't started yet. I'm having a Harman TL300 installed next Monday, and i have 5 cords of wood out side of my house. i have always wanted to burn wood and i am so excited to now have my own house to do it in.

The big problem I have right now is that I believe i have been mislead by my friends, family, and wood salesman. They all told me that the wood i bought and gathered this summer would be fine to burn this winter. Last night when i first got on Hearth.com i found out that they were very wrong. Now i don't know what to do, i don't want to wait till next year to burn the stove, but i also don't want to have trouble with my stove.

Please let my know if there is anything that i can do to fix my problem. Also any feedback on the Harman TL300 would also be great. Thank you very much!

Welcome to the forum Ziprich.

Don't feel too bad because you have done much like other new wood burners. That is, put the stove in and then think about the fuel. However, if you are very careful you may get through your first year without too many problems. You have taken a couple steps in the right direction already.

First, do you know what kind of wood you have?

If it is oak, then by all means, do not try to burn it. Oak is about the slowest drying wood there is but once it is dry it is about the best you can find. As others have suggested, you might luck out and find some dead standing trees and if so, at least the tops of those trees will probably be dry enough to burn right away. What else can you do?

1. If it is not already, move that wood into the spot on your place that gets the most wind. If it can also get sunshine, so much the better but go for the wind first of all.

2. Make sure it is stacked loosely. Don't try to make this a perfect stack that really looks neat. The most important thing you need now is for air circulation so don't stack it tight. Also, make sure it is stacked so air can circulate under the wood. Even landscape timbers will work good for stacking the wood on.

3. Don't cover the wood or if you feel you must, then make sure you cover only the top of the stacks. Never cover the sides or ends. Remember, you want air circulation.

4. Stack in single rows and leave enough room between the rows that you can walk comfortably between the rows. Again, the wood needs air.

5. If you need to, don't be afraid to re-split the wood into smaller pieces as this will help the wood dry quicker.

6. I hate to recommend this but you may find yourself having wood inside for a couple days before putting it into the stove. If you do this, watch for any bugs as you don't want too many crawling critters in the house, or at least most folks don't. But some have had good luck stacking lots of wood close to the stove. However, that comes with a risk.


7. By all means, CHECK THAT CHIMNEY AT LEAST ONCE PER MONTH. If it needs cleaning then do not hesitate a day. Clean it or hire it done. Your second year will go much better than the first year but this is really important to keep that chimney clean. Just imagine how your car would run if the exhaust pipe was partially plugged. Or stick a potato on the end of your exhaust pipe and drive down the highway. That is how a stove will work if the chimney starts to plug with creosote. Problem is, that stuff will also light and cause a large fire that can sound like a locomotive. Do you want that in your house?

8. Have I mentioned that you need to check and clean your chimney monthly?


Also, you now know that one of the very best things you can do right now is to get all the wood you need to burn this winter....plus all the wood you need to burn the following winter. I always recommend folks be 2-3 years ahead on their wood supply. We already have more than one case of some folks who, because of sickness or injury are not able to put up wood this year but fortunately most of them have a few years ahead on their wood so they are fine. Remember too that a nice wood pile is better than money in the bank as it will pay many more dividends than the bank will.


Good luck to you and be sure to visit The Wood Shed too. Lots of good knowledgeable folks there who are willing to help.
 
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