Steam coming out of the flue?

[Fred Wright]

Hi folks.

Our neighbor across the way must be burning some wet stuff this winter. When I walk out to get the paper in the morning I look across the field and see steam or white smoke pouring from their flue. They've been burning like this all winter.

Just curious... what causes this? Is it partly seasoned wood or green perhaps? They have a tarp over their wood stacks.

Thoughts?

 

[Jags]

Even at an accepted 20%mc a 40 pound load of fuel is gonna have 8 pounds of water. That equates to darn near a gallon. At cold temps the steam is also easier to detect.

 

[BrotherBart]

Not to mention the humidity in the air the stove takes in.

 

[JrCRXHF]

The wood i burn is between 15-20% and esp on the 0F and lower nights it is always showing some steam coming off. It is just sucking all the water out of the house too. I put around 5 gallons of water a day into the house when it is really cold and dry like that.

 

[Oldman47]

Even if your neighbor was burning 0% moisture wood, totally unachievable, the products of combustion are primarily H2O and CO2 with traces of other chemicals. Wood is a hydrocarbon and its combustion produces water from the hydro part and CO2 from the carbon part. White smoke, which is really steam, is a great thing to see. It means you are seeing a clean burn. If it is a few feet above the chimney pipe it is hot enough to avoid any condensation inside his chimney, which would be even better. If it seems connected to the top of the chimney it indicates a marginal final chimney temperature and possible creosote build up. That is no problem for you but may prove dangerous for your neighbor.

 

[Seanm]

Agree with those above. We have forced air natural gas furnaces out here and when its cold you will see steam coming from the neighbours furnace exhausts and steam from my chimney and my wood is below 20%.

 

[blades]

650 deg stove top, white plume from flue dissipates in a few feet. totally different than white plume at start up or reload as that drifts around a bit before dissipating. Bottom line no payee utility baron.

 

[Sawset]

Last Saturday when I left the house, looked back to see a thick white plume rising from our class a chimney. 7am, stove freshly reloaded, -8degF. 14miles of rural roads later later I had counted a total of 32 similar class a chimneys, with similar to identical thick white plumes. Return trip, 9am, counted only 4, not so white plumes. We're secretly taking bets on those 4.