alternative fuels

[stockdoct]

I'm purchasing my first wood burning insert *yeahhhh* and have a huge load of split firewood resting in my garage. My question is just out of curiosity --- I have no plans on putting my chimney or my new stove at risk, but I'll ask it anyway:

Does anyone use fuel alternatives to cord wood occasionally? My city mulches cut trees and occasionally gives mulch away to allcomers .... can I use dried out mulch in my stove insert? How about junk mail? I get a stack 6 inches high every 2 days. If I happened to come into a bag of wood pellets made for a pellet stove, can I use them in my fire insert? Heck, nuts.....walnuts, are everywhere in my town; would it be dangerous to put yard debris like nuts in the stove if they're dried first? What have the board members put into their stove besides cord wood?

Just curious, and very appreciative of all the wise folks with experience on this forum


Mike
Lopi Freedom stove (soon)
Rural lIllinois, where cord wood is cheap --- about $140 a cord

 

[crazy_dan]

I just put cord wood and a small piece of fire starter. that is all

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Junk mail has made it in my stove a few times. I rempve staples and plastic from it as I spread the ash on the lawn.

Matt

 

[cmonSTART]

Pretty much anything lacking harmful chemicals has made it into my stove at one point or another, sometimes as a fire starter and sometimes just to dispose of it. Sometimes just to watch it burn BURNN!!

 

[Redox]

I've tried paper before and it just makes a mess. I burn bark and wood chips just to get rid of them, but expect more smoke and ash. I used to do lumber scraps and old pallets, but they aren't worth the trouble if you have wood on hand. I suspect that pellets would just smoulder, but I've never tried them. I just stick to wood now.

Chris

 

[wellbuilt home]

Ive burned just about every thing ,Even wood with stain on it and it seems OK . I'm a builder and get lots of scrap wood and need to ether pay to throw it away or burn it in the stove. Job scraps are great for the shoulder season

 

[mayhem]

99% of my houshold paper waste goes in the recycle bin...the other 1% is tossed into the stove when it needs a little encouragement. I usually don't toss other kinds of things in there.

 

[Old Hoss]

I'm thinking of tossing my dog in the fire.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I would avoid anything painted, stained, pressure treated, laminated, or plastic. The problem with mulch, wood chips, and walnuts is moisture- it's hard to dry that stuff out well in any meaningful volume for burning. Even then- many of those materials don't permit enough air flow to burn well. You need to burn them more like coal, with air introduced under the fuel. Paper is a PITA. It makes a mess and burns poorly if it's in a pile.

 

[edthedawg]

My neighbor w/ the Giant Smoke Dragon tested this theory over the last two seasons. They take great pains to ensure they have consistently good, dry wood - i'm seriously envy of their practices. The wood is amazingly good and has been for years. They make their own firestarters from plain candle wax and little foodservice paper cups (like McD's uses for their ketchup dispensers), and he cleans their unlined central chimney himself twice every season. The stove is in the dining room, and the whole house is blistering hot from it.

2 years ago, they threw every piece of junkmail into the fire to get rid of it. At the end of the year, he removed 10+ GALLONS of fluffy debris from the chimney.

Last year, they burned NO paper at all. At the end of the year, he removed ONE CUP of debris.

The moral of that story? Don't burn paper unless you like to clean it out often.


As for nuts, the shells actually do burn well - we throw handfuls of pistachio shells in there and they burn up great. Wrap a pile into a sheet of newspaper and you have a great little starter - but again, paper in the fire - we usually only use paper, if at all, to start...

It's been well documented that you should NOT burn stuff like 2x4 scraps, anything painted or pressure-treated, etc. Nasty chemicals. Not only do you release them to the air, but they corrode your stove and liner at an extremely accelerated rate. I've stopped burning any of my 2x4 scraps for this reason. There's a lot of salt and other treatments in 'regular lumber'...


I can't tell you about mulch or pellets except to say I wouldn't try either. Very dry mulch might make for decent starter material, but I couldn't see it burning consistently at all. Pellets, if I understand the way a pellet stove works, require a certain amount of air and combustion practices that a 'regular stove' just can't provide...

 

[firefighterjake]

I would avoid anything painted, stained, pressure treated, laminated, or plastic. The problem with mulch, wood chips, and walnuts is moisture- it's hard to dry that stuff out well in any meaningful volume for burning. Even then- many of those materials don't permit enough air flow to burn well. You need to burn them more like coal, with air introduced under the fuel. Paper is a PITA. It makes a mess and burns poorly if it's in a pile.

Same here . . . softwood and hardwood are game for me as are scrap wood from projects (but nothing painted, laminated, glued, etc. and no plastics -- just trying to do my part to help save the world.) I will occasionally burn cardboard and often use newspaper or some junk mail to start a fire, but as AP mentioned the problem with stuffing a bunch of this stuff in a stove is either it will not permit enough airflow if you stack it on top of each other or if you crumple it up it will burn up way too quickly . . . ditto for woodchips, mulch and other small biomass items.

 

[Corey]

I've chucked most 'non chemical containing, but burnable' items in my stove at one time or another...lumber scraps, junk mail, coal, charcoal, pallet scraps, sawdust, bark, nut hulls, etc. Generally, yes, everything will burn in small quantities when put over a good bed of coals. But if you plan to corner the free wood chip market and heat your home, or subscribe to every junk mail publication under the sun and have free fuel delivery to your door, you will probably be disappointed. The surface area to mass ratio of most of these fuels is substantially different than cord wood, as are the general burn properties. You tend to get a lot of small, hot fires with lots of stoking and tending required. Some (paper) also have a pretty high ash to energy ratio, so you get quite a bit of ash for not a lot of heat...again, it burns, but requires lots of tending and clean-up.

Bottom line, if you have the stuff laying around, you can get away with burning it, but I probably wouldn't go get 10 tons of wood chips specifically for the purpose. And as others have said, always stay away from the chemical laden stuff...CCA treated wood, hydrocarbon fuels (dangerous), used motor oil, painted or finished wood, plywood, particle/fiber/chip board, etc.

Also, depending on how long you wood has been 'resting' in the garage, it may or may not be ready to burn. It's a pretty common newbie mistake to get the stove, then go looking for the wood...which usually turns out to be green and not really ready until next season. But I see you have nearly 80 posts under your belt, so hopefully you've seen all the discussion and got everything ready to go! Enjoy the fire!

 

[Adios Pantalones]

If you store up wood chips or mulch uncovered for a year or 2 before drying- you may find that what you have in the middle is now compost. I am a compost fan, but it's not a great fuel source and will be significantly less mass than the starting material.

 

[kenny chaos]

I burned used vegetable oil in my old stove.

Loads of free, dry chips?

 

[JerseyWreckDiver]

I use my stove as a paper shredder for all my office paper that needs secure disposing but it's not like a desirable thing to burn. Occasionally through in some lumber scraps, pieces of pallets when they are dry. Through in handfuls of acorns and hickory nuts at times just to see... Not sure how you would go about drying a large quantity of mulch to a sufficient level... Lots of nuts, especially walnuts have quite a bit of natural oils that give them considerable btu value but to use as a primary fuel you would need something with an induced draft or combustor to make sure they don't soot up like mad. Probably work fine in a Finish (sp?) style heater that has forced combustion.

I have an old Fatso, I think coal stove, in my driveway. Since I do a lot of my processing in the winter I use it to keep warm while splitting and such. It was all beat up when I got it and I just use it outside and it kind of serves as my disposal. All my construction scraps, plaster lath, wood trim, 2x cuttoffs, gets burned out there where I don't have to worry about damage to my chimney. Also burn all the gnarly half rotted, moldy, small chunks & chaff from processing my primary supply.

Recently, had the fire going outside splitting a recent scrounge, as the sun was going down more & more I noticed the secondary burn coming off the top of my "stack".

 

[Adios Pantalones]

JWD- should route the chimney through a big box and turn it into a wood drying kiln.