CTYank said:
I'd say find better references- written by scientists or other knowledgeable folks. Not some hack parrot.
I
have provided several articles written by scientists who provided both the actual increased creosote accumulation and the efficiency loss data from their studies, and they all fell on deaf ears here and pissed a lot of people off. Several modern stove manufacturers have made similar claims which have then been ignored by the users. John Gulland, the leading Canadian wood burning authority, has written about this phenomenon (and he
was talking about EPA stoves) and was made out to be an idiot on this board.
As well, I have never read anywhere any information from any stove manufacturer that claims wood must be seasoned for 2 to 3 years to get satisfactory burns. Many claim 6 months is sufficient for hardwood (and don't exclude the oaks), most say a full year. A full year seems right to me, but it has been shown and reported here that most of this outside drying occurs only during the most advantageous times of the year, the rest of the time it sits and waits for good drying days to come along.
I brought this up several times merely to help folks optimize their burns. I included charts and efficiency figures from world-class scientists. I have read just about every lame reason that exists to try to debunk these scientific findings, from "that wasn't an EPA stove", to "those guys are typing that up from their heat pump warmed office". Me, I trust the scientists. They explain quite clearly what occurs in the stoves and in the flues while burning wood at various moisture contents, and the evidence is pretty compelling to me, so I attempt in vain to share.
Then along comes some "expert" who claims he gets his wood to 0% MC, and I say to myself, "Do I really care to educate this person?"
So, burn on, my friend. My own personal experience tells me that it
all burns if you know what you are doing, both too dry and too wet. So, you burn your 0%, I'll burn my 20-25% and we'll both stay warm come February. I've been accused of being obsessed with this "too dry wood" thing, but that's a load of baloney. It's not a contest to me, it's just about staying comfortable when it's 10 below. The fact is that playing around with varying moisture contents allows you one more variable to tweak.
What I find particularly amusing is this Holy Grail of 20%, like wood burns for chit at 22% and needs to wait another year, but magically burns like gasoline the minute it crosses that 20% MC threshold and then stays good at 18%, 16%, 14%, 12%, 10%, 8% and on down to 0%. Where are the references from credible sources that you speak of that supports this notion? I have never seen them, and I have done a whole lot of reading on the subject. What I have found is a lot of studies that show that, because of the way a batch-loaded cordwood heater works, there will always be a "sweet spot" regarding MC for any particular load, in a particular stove, running through a particular flue, in a particular climate, and run by a particular operator. In fact, there is a MC where the stove reaches maximum burn efficiency (cleanest burn) and another one (lower MC) where is achieves maximum overall efficiency. This will be true in
any stove, not just pre-EPA stoves. What are these sweet spots? I haven't a clue for you, but I can pretty well assure you that it ain't at 0% MC.