I've come to the conclusion - I hate bark!

[marky_mark896]

I hate smoldering fires, and I hate bark. Back before I knew how to make a fire, when I was splitting all this wood, I tried to be careful not to break off the bark. Now that I've had my stove for a few weeks, I've come to the conclusion, next spring I'm breaking all the bark I can off the splits when I'm doing them. All the splits I bring in with bark on them smolder and take a lot of coaxing to get them to burn. The all have ice under the bark and it's really annoying. I'm going through the stacks looking for splits without bark. Ok now that that's over - rant off.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Why do you have ice under the bark? Do you cover your stacks?

I've seen charts that show bark as having more BTU than the wood itself.

Matt



1 lb hydrogen = 51,892 BTU with steam as product
1 lb coal (anthracite) = 12,700 BTU
1 lb coal (subituminous) = 8,800 BTU
1 lb coal (bituminous) = 11,500 BTU
1 lb pine wood bark = 9,200 BTU
1 lb hardwood bark = 8,400 BTU
1 lb wood = 7,870 BTU
1 lb dung = 7,500 BTU
1 lb waste paper = 6,500 BTU
1 lb sawdust/shavings = 3,850 BTU
1 kWH electricity = 3,413 BTU
1 therm any fuel = 100,000 BTU


http://www.generatorjoe.net/html/energy.html

 

[bmwloco]

Hmm.

I use bark to start fires. No soot, it burns just fine. A little newspaper (good use for NY Times subscription), sometimes a little fatwood (wife loves it... and now regularly starts the stove first if she's home first). Mind you, most of my bark has been down and dry for 2-3 years.

YMMV I guess.

 

[marky_mark896]

My neighbor and I split these 5 cords from two oaks I had cut down. This was in Sept 06, so over a year ago. He is one of the neighborhood oldtimers, and he decided covers wouldn't look good from the road. The wood burns fine in his open fireplace, where you have unlimited O2, and don't mind hissing and popping, but in an insert or stove, no so good. This spring I'm going to build some sort of wood shed in the area with a slanted roof that he finds acceptable. He's the architectural commitee chairman for the neighborhood, so any changes/building has to be approved through him. When we originally split this wood, I wasn't thinking about using it to heat the house. I was thinking about wood for the useless fireplace we had, and for campfires. Now I am thinking differently about it. Hopefully next year I'll have nice dry wood in storage that is acceptable to the neighborhood.

edit: FWIW, I built a rack for my back deck that holds a face cord and is completely covered, so I can keep about a weeks worth of wood there.

 

[precaud]

Back when I had access to oak, I agreed with your sentiment. But for softwoods, bark can be your friend by slowing down the heating of the wood, thereby giving a more controlled burn. For the pinon pine that I use, my favorite pieces are 6 to 7 inch diameter rounds, with or without bark... but with bark prefered.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I hate bark too. Don't mind the dog so much but hate the bark, especially when it goes on for hour and hour after hour.

On the other hand, because we season our wood for years we have bark that falls off of some of the splits. I'm very happy to throw it away too. I never felt that burning bark gives more heat. I never start a fire with bark either; I use kindling made from soft maple.

 

[bmwloco]

All my bark is seasoned oak; it's dry, and it makes good fire starter. It too falls off, so I keep it piled up for tender to start the Resolute.

 

[swestall]

Gee, I wish my fire would go out once in a while so I could enjoy some bark too! (LOL)

 

[begreen]

I have several boxes in the shed filled with bark and small wood scraps left over after splitting. They're dry and burn fine. I just wait until I have a thick hot bed of fresh coals and dump about 1/3 box on the coals. In about 10-15 minutes there is a good fire and secondary burning shortly afterward.

 

[marky_mark896]

Well it sounds like I shouldn't be so meanspirited toward bark, I should just take time to get to know it better. I'll have to try some after I have a shed built and have it good and dry, but for now, it gets pulled off and the logs that have ice under the bark get stood up on end in front of the stove to thaw and dry out before burning.

 

[PAJerry]

Because I use slab wood, there is a lot of bark, and it burns just fine. You can actually rekindle a very good fire from just a few red coals if you set the slab bark side down.

 

[karl]

BeGreen, I just discovered that myself. I had a bunch of bark in my wood box and I thought I would throw it in the stove while I was trying to burn down the coals. It seemed to burn with a nice flame much longer than the bark itself normally does. It helped get rid of the coals too.

 

[tradergordo]

You mentioned when your neighbor burns the same wood in his open fire, it hisses. Sorry man, but that wood is not seasoned. Bark falling off is one sign that the wood has dried (although it doesn't always come off). Its very hard to force it off when you are splitting unless the wood has been sitting around for a long time. But for what its worth, my personal theory is that most bark doesn't burn well, in fact one of bark's roles is to protect the tree from fire, haha. My first year I saved all the bark for use as kindling, but I never thought it made good kindling, and it smokes excesively. Now I just toss the bark around and behind the shed to prevent weeds from growing there. I use pallet wood for kindling. Nothing beats pallet wood for fast, hot, low smoke starts, and most people can find a source for free pallets. You should try pallet wood if you haven't yet, especially if you are using not so seasoned wood (use even more pallet wood in that case).

Maybe bark is kind of like coal? There might be a lot of BTUs in it, but you wouldn't want to start a fire with it. It might not be a bad idea to toss it on top of an already hot/burning fire when the smoke is going to be burned up in the normal secondary combustion.

 

[marky_mark896]

It only hisses when it's wet. It's been stacked well for over a year (Sept 06). It's seasoned well, it just has snow on it, and he's not worried about it since he's burning it in an open fireplace and he uses starter logs to get them burning. For kindling, I split up a split into small (1/2"X2") splits about 20" long. Along with newspaper knots, it's easy to start a fire with this kindling. I wouldn't want to try to burn my bark with a blowtorch

 

[swestall]

This probably isn't the place to talk about kindling, but, I bought some of the Super Cedars and just tried them. I broke one in half, then half again. I put two of the 1/4 pieces in the ash bed (a few coals) and then put some plain old medium splits on that. That sucker took off and I didn't need anything else, just added larger splits waited a bit and shut down to long burn. Truely a great product.

 

[marky_mark896]

How much did those run ya swestall?

 

[Fire Bug]

The bark is wood, just like the split it covers. If you are burning well seasoned wood, the part should fall off the wood log when it is split. This shows that the wood is indeed, seasoned, and dried out.
As posted above, the bark does make good firestarters when crushed together.
If your wood is not covered properly, the bark is doing its job by keeping the moisture inside the wood log or split.
This the purpose of bark when the tree is living.

 

[marky_mark896]

Yeah firebug. That's what it is doing. The bark is being held on by the ice crystals frrozen to the split. It falls off as soon as I bring the split in and stand it upright by the fire and let them dry out. It sucks to have to dry your wood before burning it though. Next season mine's going to be in a shed (or my neighbors garage, his choice :lol:.)

 

[swestall]

They are on this site, but I really don't recall what the box cost. Given that you can break them into 1/4 pieces and use 1/2 to start a good fire they were cheap. I used to cut kindling at the end of my season. I would take a day and gather branches from the cut and make a truckload of kindling. Now I just keep the fire going 24/7 and start cold when I have to be away for some reason. The Super Cedars make a lot of sense for that. The fatwood is also pretty good, but the Supers definately were hotter longer.
They show up on this site in the advertising area at random.

http://www.supercedar.com/

 

[Fire Bug]

Yeah firebug. That's what it is doing. The bark is being held on by the ice crystals frrozen to the split. It falls off as soon as I bring the split in and stand it upright by the fire and let them dry out. It sucks to have to dry your wood before burning it though. Next season mine's going to be in a shed (or my neighbors garage, his choice :lol:.)

Hey Marky,
If the bark is falling off when the wood thaws, than you should have good seasoned wood there.
It always pays to bring enough wood in for the day and night to put near the wood stove to help it dry out. You would be supprised at the moisture that this wood collects from just the dampness in the air even if you keep it well covered.
A woodshed is probably the best way to go.
John

 

[bmwloco]

The Resolute is glowing nicely at through the screen at 550F. Stirling fan is doing it's thing as well... just a gentle thump thump as the piston goes up and down and the fan blows the hot air.

Started it with one log, a little bark, and 3 sticks of fat wood. Two 16 year old chocolate labs collapsed and sleeping in front of it, and wife following suit.

Another quiet night in AsheVegas.

 

[marky_mark896]

lol swestall...after I read your reply to my question, I scrolled down, and there was a huge ad for them :lol:. I had something similar that worked well that came with the stove. I started my first fire with it on 1/19, and have hardly let it go out since. I can't wait to get my natural gas bill this month . I looked those super cedars up, and they look like for a box of 100 you can get them for 59 cents a piece. So a 1/4 of them are less than 15 cents... pretty darn cheap. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Fire Bug]

The Resolute is glowing nicely at through the screen at 550F. Stirling fan is doing it's thing as well... just a gentle thump thump as the piston goes up and down and the fan blows the hot air.

Started it with one log, a little bark, and 3 sticks of fat wood. Two 16 year old chocolate labs collapsed and sleeping in front of it, and wife following suit.

Another quiet night in AsheVegas.

Hi bmwloco,
Where do you fit into the above picture you painted after you got this cozy fire going?
I can visualize a picture of your wife and the labs but can't see you in this picture. Your not toting more wood, are Ya?

 

[Darl Bundren]

The Resolute is glowing nicely at through the screen at 550F. Stirling fan is doing it's thing as well... just a gentle thump thump as the piston goes up and down and the fan blows the hot air.

Started it with one log, a little bark, and 3 sticks of fat wood. Two 16 year old chocolate labs collapsed and sleeping in front of it, and wife following suit.

Another quiet night in AsheVegas.

Where are you in Asheville? I live in East Asheville...

 

[bmwloco]

We've got a big, massive, huge leather couch. Room enough for "she who must be obeyed" to curl up and me to surf the web, grab more wood, and land back on the couch with no one disturbed.

As for where in AsheVegas, near UNCA, close to downtown.