Hedge-Major Popping Embers

[dboone]

Does anyone burn hedge and if you do have you had big problems with the sparking? Last night before bed I put on 3 - 5" hedge rounds. This morning there were still coals in the shape of the logs so I went to break them up before reloading and....BAM!, pop!, embers and sparks flying everywhere. There were 1" chunks of wood sent several feet outside the stove and landed on the carpet. Many of them cleared the burn rug. I had my rake in the stove at the time and later thought that while I was ducking for cover I might have yanked that rake out so quickly it may have pulled the big coals out of the stove. I am not sure whether it was that or explosion of wood that sent them out of the stove. I would guess this happens when the hedge all of a sudden has air again and gets hotter. Am I doing something wrong or should I not burn hedge at all? Does wood dryness contribute to this? I hate to think that my wife could have been putting logs in while this happened. She would never touch the thing again if this happened to her. I have noticed this sparking many times before with hedge, but this by far was the worst incident.

 

[Shari]

Well, in the absence of anyone else answering yet, I can say I have never burned hedge BUT before I load the stove I turn the air up all the way and let it sit like that for a bit before opening the door to re-load. Opeing air like this allows the coals to safely 'flare', if they are going to, inside a closed stove.

Shari

 

[Battenkiller]

I would guess this happens when the hedge all of a sudden has air again and gets hotter.

I've never burned hedge, but that is what is happening. Super-heated gases (probably mostly CO) inside the dense coals ignite the instant they receive an abundance of oxygen and then expand violently, sending out showers of sparks. It is very common with super-dense woods we have around here, like hickory and black locust. I always open the air fully for a few minutes to burn off most of these gases when using these woods. With care, sure these are all very safe woods to burn. Myself, I'd love to get my hands on some hedge.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Hedge burners talk about the pops all the time. Snap crackle pop.

 

[Corey]

Yep - it does happen, and particularly more-so with hedge than any other wood I've burned. Usually just a nice sparkler show inside the stove, but can be quite dramatic if you're poking around with the door open. It gets particularly dramatic when you have an eruption of embers flying everywhere, then each one of those embers pops and splits into several smaller sparks.

It's sort of a trade off for 3 logs giving a good overnight burn. If that wood was most anything else, those logs would have been ashes long before you ever woke up.