2nd year wood burner getting very short burn times what am I doing wrong ?

[Englander]

Well its my second year burning wood, Thanks to everyone that helped me last year get my older style englander 28-3500 wood stove 28-3500 up and running.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/first-time-stove-burner.101685/#post-1312320

This year I seem to be not getting a very good burn. At the start of the year I cut and split a large amount of wood to be ready for this winter. I then stored this all year out side in a covered spot. But in the last week I have gone through at least 2 rick of wood. It has been cold this last week but I just don't know what I am doing wrong. I am getting only a few hours of burn time each time I load it. My wife restarts the fire each morning at about 7am by 9am I am putting more wood on. I then put more wood on at about midday and then again around 2pm or 3pm. It then gets another few loads but towards 10pm I let it burn down to just a hot bed of coals and at about midnight / 1am I put a large log on. Come 7am there are very few embers and my wife then put some kindering on to start it. I clean the whole fire out every 4 days as the ash build up is too much.

I always try and keep the heat in the orange zone on my imperial stove thermometer but am I missing some thing else ? I am not sure if its the cold weather, maybe the type of wood or how I stored it that might be the case for my bad burns but please let me know what you think.

 

[BrotherBart]

Wet wood. Period. You aren't gonna have dry wood cut/split/stacked less than a year, two is real good, and that covered spot ain't helping. You have a rotten winter in front of you. And high wood consumption.

 

[PassionForFire&Water]

Wet wood. Period. You aren't gonna have dry wood cut/split/stacked less than a year, two is real good, and that covered spot ain't helping. You have a rotten winter in front of you. And high wood consumption.

Sad, but true.
You can't burn water
End of storry

 

[Englander]

Thanks guys for the info its live and learn I guess. But the good news is that I will get to build a wood shed for next year. I saw there is a very good "Show us yours! Wood shed" thread so that should give me a few good ideas on build ideas. But if you have any other advise please let me know.

One question is how do you get ahead on your wood to let to dry for 2 years ? Just over cut the wood and try and store as much as possible ?

 

[salecker]

Cut and split as much as you can.
Try to find some dead or dry wood to mix in,palets cutoffs from sawmill,truss plant,demolition sites,munincipal wood lots.
Up here there is more than enough standing dead wood so it's never a worry.
Thomas

 

[jebatty]

IMO, unless you live in a very, very wet location, for fastest drying wood should be c/s/s and left outside and not covered during the seasoning time. The stacks, ricks, etc. should be arranged to allows plenty of air movement around, through and underneath. Green wood c/s/s in a woodshed likely will take longer to dry unless there is plenty of air movement through the shed and the stacks. Moving air plus temperature dries wood. Wood left to season in the open air usually will arrive at the 20% MC on its own and stay there. Wood first seasoned in the open air and then moved to a wood shed for longer term storage is what I do. At the start of each heating season I have 2-3 years of wood on hand, and all wood has dried at least through 2 full summers, usually longer.

Speed of drying also relates to species, diameter and length of splits. Some species, oak is one, will take longer to dry than others, like pine, aspen and most ash. I cannot reliably have dry oak in less than 3 seasons of drying. Some aspen and pine might be ready in one full season of drying, but I dry for at least 2 seasons to make sure all wood is dry. Large diameter and long lengths take longer to dry than the opposite. Round wood, especially with bark on, usually takes the longest. Speed of drying relates to the total surface area of the splits, the greater the surface area, the faster the drying. Moisture moves more quickly to the ends of a split rather than to the sides of the split.

Green wood can consume more than half of the heat energy in the wood just to boil off the excess water. Most wood burning appliances burn best with wood at about 20% MC.

 

[maple1]

I am also thinking your wood is less than ideal. It should be stacked (preferable single stack), off the ground, in the open as soon as it is split, and stay that way until it is dry - which might take a couple years, depending on just how open it is (how good the wind can get at it), and type of wood.

But, have you measured your chimney draft?

 

[mass_burner]

You might want to use bio bricks/NIELS this year and mix in the less ideal wood after you get a hot fire going.

 

[stee6043]

I'm surprised nobody has asked - what kind of wood are we talking about here?

Assuming the wood is dry, as has been hashed and rehashed above, a good pile of cherry is going to have a VERY different burn quality/length when compared to that very same size pile of pine.

If you were burning dry oak last year and switched to pine this year you could very well see the same results your seeing even if the wood was properly seasoned (which you've confirmed it's not). Just my two cents.

Seasoning is critical but you're still going to see variations in your burn times and burn quality based on species of wood.

 

[stee6043]

Cut and split as much as you can.
Try to find some dead or dry wood to mix in,palets cutoffs from sawmill,truss plant,demolition sites,munincipal wood lots.
Up here there is more than enough standing dead wood so it's never a worry.
Thomas

"Standing dead" has been some of the wettest wood I've ever collected. I often cringe when folks suggest they can drop a standing dead tree and toss it straight into their wood burner...

 

[huffdawg]

"Standing dead" has been some of the wettest wood I've ever collected. I often cringe when folks suggest they can drop a standing dead tree and toss it straight into their wood burner...

Must be different here on the pacific, standing dead is usually the most dry wood I can find . Its generally the sapwood that is a little wet but not the core. But I still don't huck it straight into the fire. I split it up into small pieces and it spends a week or so in my boiler room. Soft wood dries a lot faster I think.

 

[timberr]

Englander,

Where is your boiler? If it is in you basement any chance you can get a slug of it in your basement? With the boiler running in the basement the relative humidity is low, if the wood can spend some time in the basement it will dry out. If you can get a fan on it even better. I am lucky I keep about 1 cord in the basement, every week I replace what I burned last week. The new wood has about 4-5 weeks before it sees the boiler. Which is great early season when I burn wood that is outside in the open. By December I am in the wood shed so not much of an issue. Evevn if you can only get a couple of day's worth and keep it near the boiler every little bit of drying you can get will make life easier.

As for getting ahead, the first year is the toughest! Then you just need to keep things rolling.

Good Luck

 

[laynes69]

I'll be honest, the only way we started to get ahead on wood was, concentrating on energy upgrades on our home and upgrading to a EPA certified furnace. We couldn't keep up when we had our old furnace and leaky house. Every year, everything I cut would get burned up that winter, and I also would cut and burn on top of what I stockpiled. After the first season of our new furnace, we had wood left over.

I would expect shorter burntimes with that furnace, but not that short. Are you loading full loads each time, also your wood plays a big part. It can be difficult finding the line where you burn fairly clean, but keep decent burn times. Burning hot and using a little extra wood is better than stuffing the furnace and closing down the air. If your getting more than enough heat, then try closing down the air a little. Otherwise if you need the heat, then it's going to use more wood.

 

[Englander]

Thanks for the replies, I was told the wood was hackberry. I read a posting on here that most said it was ok. But when I asked about it here locally they said it burns hot and fast.

Dumb question how do I measure my chimney draft. As that was the other info needed.

 

[maple1]

With a Manometer.

If you can't find someone local or who you know to come measure it for you, get one.

http://store.solutionsdirectonline....s-mark-ii-molded-plastic-manometer-p2302.aspx

That's what most on here use. I couldn't find a link to the place I got mine from, I thought it was Dwyer Direct, that's just one place I found with a quick google. Mine is permanently mounted. Aside from that, you will need to drill a small hole in your smoke pipe just outside where it hooks to your unit, and get a piece of small steel tubing to run from the hole to the hose that comes with the manometer. Hole big enough to stick the tubing into. I just picked a short piece of brake line off the shelf at the local auto supply place, think it was 1/4".

 

[kopeck]

I can understand not getting much heat out of a load of wet wood but it kind of sounds like he's simply burning up the wood as fast as he can load it in.

If that's the case, wet wood wouldn't help BUT it wouldn't cause the wood to burn faster, in fact it would probably burn slower.

I don't know anything about Hackberry, is it possible it's just a low BTU wood (think Tulip Poplar).

Also, I'm with stee6043, standing dead means almost nothing as far a s cure time goes from what I've found. I've had standing dead oak that was at least 3 years old and squirted when you split it. Same think with letting rounds sit, they just don't dry until you split them.

K

 

[fire_man]

I agree with K. I'm not convinced this is a wet wood problem. There is no mention of a big coal base building up, which would have indicated wet wood. Hackberry has about the same BTU as White Birch, so it's not bad wood. There is also no mention of what is the air setting? Wet wood usually means "give it more air until it burns good". I'm not saying his wood is ideal, just that it's not causing 3 hour burn times.

I am guessing there is an air leak somewhere.

 

[maple1]

I agree with K. I'm not convinced this is a wet wood problem. There is no mention of a big coal base building up, which would have indicated wet wood. Hackberry has about the same BTU as White Birch, so it's not bad wood. There is also no mention of what is the air setting? Wet wood usually means "give it more air until it burns good". I'm not saying his wood is ideal, just that it's not causing 3 hour burn times.

I am guessing there is an air leak somewhere.

Tend to agree - which is why I questioned draft. Could be sucking all the heat up the chimney. Especially if combined with an air leak.

We have had no input on stack temps though, that might also help. If accurately measured.

I have no experience with this unit however - so not sure what is it capable of to start with.

 

[Englander]

Hi guys little lost on what kind of info or tests you want me to do, aways like getting to the bottom of things so happy to test things with you.

Last year the wood I used would have been oak,
It was split and then stored in side so it dried much faster and the heat from the unit helped cure it.

 

[maple1]

Stack temp - temperature of your flue pipe just outside the furnace exit. Can be roughly measure with a magnetic temp guage but they are notoriously low. Or a IR gun. Best way is a probe thermometer.

Flue draft - measured with a manometer. Typically a Dwyer Mark 2, model 25 - as previously mentioned above. There should be a spec for your flue draft in the manual.

Not sure what you mean by your wood drying comment - but wood won't dry very good inside. It should be dried outside in the wind, then brought in after it's dry. It will get 'drier' if inside in a heated space with low humidity & some air movement, but it's not a good idea to bring green wood in - or to expect to be able to burn it that season.