Dry wood in my Newmac....what a difference!

[cricco]

Well, the heating season has started here in western Mass. I have had my Newmac burning wood for a week now, and after last year, I am feeling pretty good about what I'm seeing so far. Last year, we were building our house, and got caught offguard with heating. we had to purchase firewood from wherever we could get it. This resulted in burning wet, green wood all winter. I was burning a TON of wood, and I was running my air intake wide open all the time. This year, I was able to cut my own wood all summer (about 9 cords). So we are heating with dry, seasoned wood. I am now able to close the intake down to the minimum, and run up to 12 hours before reloading the firebox. There is minimal smoke, and minimal creosote (unlike last year). Now I am actually getting to "know" my heating system, and I'm loving the fact that it is soooo much more efficient now. I just hope that 9 cords gets me through the season.

 

[begreen]

AMEN! Dry wood rules!

 

[thebeatlesrgood]

if 9 cords of good seasoned wood cant get you through this season, then you werent joking when you said you burned A LOT of wood last year. green wood at (at least) 30% drop in efficiency you couldve gone through 12 or more cords. unless your house is in the 4000+ square feet i think you should be good with 9 cords ;-)

im in the same predicament this year as you were in last year. this is my first year burning and ive been so busy with the install, buying all the woodburners crap, and just getting my house ready, ive fallen behind and a lot of my woods not seasoned. im keeping my fingers crossed this year but at least i already have about 4 cords waiting for next year.

Newmac_Owner how often did you have to clean your chimney, or how often did u have to load your stove with creosote remover pruducts last year with the unseasoned wood? i just want an idea of what im in for :sick:

 

[Driven]

9 FULL cords?? :gulp:

 

[CowboyAndy]

Well, the heating season has started here in western Mass. I have had my Newmac burning wood for a week now, and after last year, I am feeling pretty good about what I'm seeing so far. Last year, we were building our house, and got caught offguard with heating. we had to purchase firewood from wherever we could get it. This resulted in burning wet, green wood all winter. I was burning a TON of wood, and I was running my air intake wide open all the time. This year, I was able to cut my own wood all summer (about 9 cords). So we are heating with dry, seasoned wood. I am now able to close the intake down to the minimum, and run up to 12 hours before reloading the firebox. There is minimal smoke, and minimal creosote (unlike last year). Now I am actually getting to "know" my heating system, and I'm loving the fact that it is soooo much more efficient now. I just hope that 9 cords gets me through the season.

I am where you were last year, not so seasoned wood. It's not a fun place to be.


What newmac do you have?

 

[cricco]

if 9 cords of good seasoned wood cant get you through this season, then you werent joking when you said you burned A LOT of wood last year. green wood at (at least) 30% drop in efficiency you couldve gone through 12 or more cords. unless your house is in the 4000+ square feet i think you should be good with 9 cords ;-)

im in the same predicament this year as you were in last year. this is my first year burning and ive been so busy with the install, buying all the woodburners crap, and just getting my house ready, ive fallen behind and a lot of my woods not seasoned. im keeping my fingers crossed this year but at least i already have about 4 cords waiting for next year.

Newmac_Owner how often did you have to clean your chimney, or how often did u have to load your stove with creosote remover pruducts last year with the unseasoned wood? i just want an idea of what im in for :sick:

I actually haven't had to clean the chimmney yet. I have a 35 foot Selkirk Metalbestos chimmney, which oddly, looks pretty clean. I DID however have a B***H of a time cleaning all of the boiler tubes with a brush. I also cleaned out the flu pipe and firebox. I think the fact that I was using creosote removing spray pretty religiously may have helped me out with that. I used a spray liquid, and doused my firebox with it each time I loaded it last year. My house is brand new, and about 2200 sq feet, with a heated garage also.

 

[cricco]

Well, the heating season has started here in western Mass. I have had my Newmac burning wood for a week now, and after last year, I am feeling pretty good about what I'm seeing so far. Last year, we were building our house, and got caught offguard with heating. we had to purchase firewood from wherever we could get it. This resulted in burning wet, green wood all winter. I was burning a TON of wood, and I was running my air intake wide open all the time. This year, I was able to cut my own wood all summer (about 9 cords). So we are heating with dry, seasoned wood. I am now able to close the intake down to the minimum, and run up to 12 hours before reloading the firebox. There is minimal smoke, and minimal creosote (unlike last year). Now I am actually getting to "know" my heating system, and I'm loving the fact that it is soooo much more efficient now. I just hope that 9 cords gets me through the season.

I am where you were last year, not so seasoned wood. It's not a fun place to be.


What newmac do you have?

I have the BC-160 combo oil/wood boiler, with an idirect fired Weil Mclain 85 gallon water heater.

 

[Plumbit]

I was online looking for a forum on Newmac BC160 and found your post from last year about starting up. We just started our BC 160 wood only monday nite the 8th Dec. and expect a slow learning curve on proper settings of controls. After reading obout your concerns about the performance and $ spent last year, and then this years post I feel we both made a good choice of boilers. I was looking at locking in on a oil contract at 4+ $ a month, so we as a family chose to buy the wood boiler to save on oil.(Price of oil today was 2.09 cash) We had expected to pay for the boiler in two yrs with the savings of not locking in on a contract but we all know that gas and oil will go back up and it may take Three yrs. I did the install myself (I'm a plumber by trade) so our expense's are less then others hence the faster payoff. I'm also new to blogging but I'll say that this is the fastest way to learn the do's and don'ts of any topic. Remember God gave us two ears and two eyes but one mouth so we can see and hear twice as much as we say. Thank you !! for the forums on the info.

 

[scottgu]

I have run across a 2 year old BC-160 for $2800.00 canadian. If the boiler is in good shape is that a good price?

It is 160,000 BTU WITH AERO BURNER & CONTROLS.

 

[flyingcow]

9 FULL cords?? :gulp:

versus 1/2 full cords

 

[LLigetfa]

This year, I was able to cut my own wood all summer (about 9 cords). So we are heating with dry, seasoned wood.

Unless you cut standing dead wood with no bark on it, I wouldn't exactly call it dry seasoned wood. If you have any left over to burn next year, then you will be able to call it dry seasoned. Most wood need to season at least one year.