Wood Is Too Dry

[jebatty]

The wood I salvaged after some logging in May 2015, consisting mostly of 1-1/2" to 4" rounds of aspen, ash and birch, is too dry after two summers of seasoning. I had to greatly dampen down the draft fan on my Tarm to keep the stack temperature within a reasonable range. I have a stack temperature controller set to shut the draft fan off at stack temp of 250C (482F) and back on at 245C. It works very well, and the draft fan was cycling consistently today before I re-set the damper to reduce the air input. Not a problem too often experienced.

The last firing before today was six days ago (away for a few days for Christmas), and the tank temperature had dropped to 100F. Radiant load at a flow rate of 2.25 gpm was 43,312 btuh.

 

[ihookem]

1 1/2 " popple that is 2 yrs old? You might as well roll up some cardboard and burn it. Snicker.

 

[jebatty]

I do snicker, all the way to the bank! Poppel and pine are most of the wood we have, and it has done the job for many years. A pound of popple has the same heat content as a pound of oak.

 

[STIHLY DAN]

Is it to dry or just drier than the other stuff your burning?

 

[TCaldwell]

Not to hijack the thread but splits stored in the boiler room dry out substantially, I've gone to larger splits to keep some consistency. I have different pid settings for the primary and secondary dampers for this along with inducer speed.

 

[jebatty]

I was using bigger splits, leftovers from last season heating. It would be quite useful to have

different pid settings for the primary and secondary dampers for this along with inducer speed.

The Tarm from 2007 is low tech

 

[maple1]

Don't load as full?

 

[Fred61]

Surprising that it got that dry since it's still in the wrapper. Usually one needs to expose the wood by scratching through the bark, splitting or removing a section of bark toward the middle of the piece. I've seen birch rounds rot before they dried if they weren't split or if the bark wasn't broken.

 

[dogwood]

Had some five-ten year old unidentified softwood splits get the flue temps up to near 800F last week because I forgot to change the air intake from hardwood to softwood settings, so you're not alone. That stuff was almost like balsa wood. It burned like a rocket with both air intake settings at 100%.

Mike