Bark in a Bag

[pybyr]

I'd previously mentioned that I'd found loose bark (that falls off of wood during handling) to be a real disappointment for use as kindling- lotsa smoke, not much heat.

BUT, tonight, faced with a lot of loose dry bark, of all sorts of sizes, large and small, at the base of my cellar hatch from chucking wood in periodically during the winter, and deciding that it'd be a pain to clean it up and haul it out somewhere as part of spring cleaning, stuffed a bunch of it in several big paper grocery sacks, and, once I had the gasifier running (with a good bed of coals), periodically fed it the big bags (bag, contents, and all, shoved into the upper chamber) and the Econoburn seemed to really thrive on it (judging by rate of temperature rise and net heat output.

 

[Duetech]

I'm too lazy to bag it I just use a broom and flat shovel but then my boiler is in an out building on a concrete pad and close enough I can sweep the bark near the boiler. A good coal bed and dry bark will gasify nicely. At the wood splitter I rake up piles for the wheel barrow to haul in and burn as needed.

 

[Jeff S]

I will often throw a bag of this dried bark in my boiler,the bag allows me to put a large quantity in the boiler while opening the boiler door only once and eliminating the smoke that generally escapes out the door when loading loose bark.

 

[WoodNotOil]

I will often throw a bag of this dried bark in my boiler,the bag allows me to put a large quantity in the boiler while opening the boiler door only once and eliminating the smoke that generally escapes out the door when loading loose bark.

That is the same way and reason I dispose of my floor debris that way. Having an indoor (gasification) boiler does not really create the "mess" that OWB salesmen like to portray as a sales pitch. I would take loading mine inside in January over going outside anytime!

 

[Piker]

Tiny chunks of bark and debris release a lot of gas all at once during the pyrolysis reaction in the upper chamber. It can really make the torch in your combustion chamber something to behold. I did this very thing this weekend when cleaning out the wood shed.

cheers

 

[pybyr]

Tiny chunks of bark and debris release a lot of gas all at once during the pyrolysis reaction in the upper chamber. It can really make the torch in your combustion chamber something to behold.
cheers

That's for sure (the extreme torch effect)-- I took a peek, and had never seen anything like it so far.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I do that all the time. It's a great way to clean up.

 

[sdrobertson]

I bought a new tractor and I have been playing around in the yard cleaning up a few brush piles that were left over. The largest pieces I have is about 1 inch around but most of it is just twigs. It's a major pain breaking them up and filling the boiler but with a good coal base, its like the space shuttle taking off for about 15 minutes and then its time to refill. A whole lot of babysitting the boiler but cleans the yard and heats the tanks up in a hurry. New tractor, no more branches in the yard, free heat in the house - doesn't get much better than that.

 

[pybyr]

I now almost think that if I ran across a cheap usable used woodchipper that I could feed small dry wood detritus into, and had a way of storing the stuff (and keeping it dry), it'd have a place in the scheme of things- as in, when you really want a sudden boost of heat. Alas, I have too many projects already to mess with this any time soon. But it's great to discover that the mess on the floor can heat my house, and not just have to be heaved somewhere.

 

[Fred61]

I did the bark in a bag thing and truly did observe a bottom chamber absolutely full of blue burning gas. Now, I'm not the type that slams his head in the refrigerator door, doubting whether the light actually does go out, but I couldn't help wondering if the flame was that violent upon closing the door on the EKO. I don't see how my secondary air would allow that much combustion at the settings they are set at. What do you think?

 

[Duetech]

Actually the size of the flame with the door closed is limited only by the amount of available exhaust porting. A while back some guy claimed he had the best in gasifiers with a unit that had a 4" exhaust. My EKO40 has six 1 1/2" heat tubes and by area dimension all of them would fit in a 4" exhaust with a little room to spare (12.566" total area in a 4" circle). So theoretically if the exhaust porting of your unit is equal to the area of the nozzle outlet of your upper chamber then the flame should see little if any restriction. It's been a while since I measured but I think the nozzle width of the 40 is 1.25" if the nozzle length is only 8" then the area of the nozzle is 10" and the combined area of the heat tubes is 10.6". If the nozzle is longer than 8" it will force restriction in theory but there are almost always some coals on/in the nozzle that are restricting flow so the heat tubes might not offer restriction in that case. If your unit runs with a reduced fan speed there may not be a restriction either.

 

[pybyr]

I go not only by the look of the flame, but by the sound as I initially crack open the lower chamber door.

No gasification= sound of fan, only; visually= wimpy sparks spitting into lower chamber

Feeble gasification= intermittent wimpy rumble, mix of sparks and yellow, varying flame

Good gasification with cordwood= steady, robust rumble, blue core of flame, with yellow outsides

Bark in a Bag= thunderous rumble, chamber full of blue flame, even with door quickly and barely opened so that it cannot be the air from the door that's lighting or sustaining this.

If I had endless bark, endless brown grocery bags, and an ability to be nearby to feed it, I am amazed at the rapid and highly efficient burn one gets from bark in a bag once there's an established bed of coals. Well-dried woodchips stuck/ formed in some form of cubical "factory-formed-fagott" (intending the original Brit meaning of the word, not the homophobic US variant) would probably also make one heck of a fuel/ feedstock for residential-scale wood gasifiers.

 

[antknee2]

Hi everyone
This year I used the Econoburn exclusively and had to re-cut my fire wood from 26''-27'' for the big Seton down to 21'' for the Eburn . So I ended up with lots and lots of cot offs , little chunks of wood all over the place . One cold night I loaded the boiler right to the top with the small chunks of well seasoned wood . You talk about record setting tank charging and full home heating all at the same time . Love the energy of dry wood .
PS: I used all the cut-off's
Anthony

 

[flyingcow]

I tried burning the old bark and odd ball chunks. Worked wonderful. I was outside yesterday splitting wood, doing yard work. Did as suggested, started fire, only used 4 chunks of good hardwood, and got fire going, which turned into a good bed of coals. Took a flat shovel and just shoveled in 2 at a time.Since I was outside, it was simple to do. About every 45 minutes just shoveled a couple of more in. A lot of heat and cleaning up my mess in the yard. Recharged tank from 100 to 175 on very little good wood. Will have to wait to use stuff that is outside as it is snowing/sleeting/raining cats and dogs for the next couple of days. But i still got a good pile inside that I'll use when convenient, just got to think ahead. I also put a small tarp under the splitter, got a lot of little pieces that can be used up. A lot more of that when doing it by hand. But the big thing about the tarp is I'm cleaning up my mess.