seasoned oak

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kevinmerchant

Member
Jul 29, 2009
114
Cheshire, CT
If wood does not sizzle or hiss, does that mean it is seasoned. I have some 3 year split red oak from neighbor. I run the air wide open on stove but it never gets above 450 with this stuff. Why wont it burn any hotter.
 
It can still burn without sizzle and not be seasoned. I'm burning some oak cut/split in the spring that measures around 30% m/c right now and it doesn't sizzle at all. The flame is lazy and the fire is slow to get going though.
 
Could it be not seasoned after 3 years split, stacked off the ground. The flame does not seem to be lazy either.
 
burn it said:
If wood does not sizzle or hiss, does that mean it is seasoned. I have some 3 year split red oak from neighbor. I run the air wide open on stove but it never gets above 450 with this stuff. Why wont it burn any hotter.

Well part of the problem is that with the air wide open you're sending quite a bit of that heat right up the chimney . . . once you have the fire established try closing the air 3/4 . . . wait 5 minutes or so . . . if the fire is still going strong . . . try closing it to the half-way mark and again wait 5 minutes . . . if the fire is still going strong . . . try closing it to the 1/4 mark . . . what should happen if the wood is good and things are going well is that the secondary combustion (assuming you have an EPA stove with secondary combustion here) should kick in . . . i.e. Northern Lights, Bowels of Hell or BBQ Propane Visual Effects . . . and within a few minutes both the stove top temp and temp in the room should increase.
 
Listen well to Jake. He has a good post there.

On our stove, the stove itself won't heat much until we turn the draft down. Leave draft wide open and on any stove most of the heat goes straight up the chimney. It is okay for the chimney (if it doesn't get too hot) but now worth a hoot for heating a home. Our draft control goes from 1 to 4 and to get a good burn we usually have the draft set from 1/2 the way to 1 or lower, but, we also have a cat stove.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Listen well to Jake. He has a good post there.

On our stove, the stove itself won't heat much until we turn the draft down. Leave draft wide open and on any stove most of the heat goes straight up the chimney. It is okay for the chimney (if it doesn't get too hot) but now worth a hoot for heating a home. Our draft control goes from 1 to 4 and to get a good burn we usually have the draft set from 1/2 the way to 1 or lower, but, we also have a cat stove.

And good advice from Backwoods . . . well except for his love of splitting wood vertically . . . but we won't get into that here. ;) :)
 
ummmmmmmmmmmm...
 
Backwoods Savage said:
ummmmmmmmmmmm...

HehHeh . . . just trying to get you going Dennis. :)
 
Well, I feel like I really do need a jump start at times; especially today. But I found out real early in life that jumper cables just don't work.
 
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