Kiln Dried Firewood

[dmmoss51]

So since most problems that especially new burners seem to have on this site comes down to wood not being dry enough yet, I thought this link might be helpful.

http://arndtlumber.com/index.html

Noticed they sell this near me at Meijer stores. It would probably be more expensive than oil if you tried to heat all winter with this, but if trying to determine the cause of an issue it would help rule in our out your wood supply.

.75 cu ft was about $7 means $1200 a cord

 

[Soundchasm]

I bought a few packages of a similar product at Lowe's when I was diagnosing all my new stove/wood problems. It was very helpful in that after I eliminated the fuel the only thing left was was my burning technique and slightly anemic draft. I chose Lowe's because all the packages were indoors and appeared really dry. The bit I found entertaining was the package contained small for kindling, and some larger splits as well. The two packages were very consistent.

I think you'd need two packages to get an established fire and then a reload.

Since it's for research, there out to be a grant out there to pay for it with.

 

[blades]

Likely cheaper to use some compressed ( non waxy type ) wood logs/bricks for testing. Now that stuff is "no questions asked" dry. And in a worst case scenario 3 tons of those would be about $1200. ( 1 ton of compressed about = to 1 cord of say Oak)

 

[jebatty]

Your idea is good. Rule out a dryness issue, and then move on to find other issues, if any. It is possible too that the kiln dried wood will be too dry, less than 15%. That may lead to a very robust fire and overly rapid production of wood gas, which could lead to puffing, popping-like small to large explosions in the boiler fire box, secondary burn chamber or even the chimney, wherever there is extra oxygen and sufficient temperature to maintain combustion.

Please excuse my "pulling your chain" on this comment. One ton of any wood, compressed or fluff, is about the same in heat value as one ton of oak. Only the volumes vary. The binders in a compressed wood product, though, might increase the btu value of the resulting compressed product.

On a more serious note, kiln dried, store bought, firewood is there to hopefully eliminate the possibility that the firewood is harboring any insects, etc. The kiln drying gets the wood up to a temperature to kill those nasty things. After the kiln drying process, the wood will gain moisture from the air until it reaches an equilibrium moisture level, just as cordwood left to air dry will lose moisture until it reaches an equilibrium moisture level. Kiln dried firewood generally will be fairly small splits because it takes longer and is more expensive to heat to the correct temperature large, thick splits of wood.

 

[blades]

just a note , kiln heating of wood to kill bugs does not insure a dry product. As the the numbers are apx 140-150 for 2-4 hours Generally this would be insufficient to dry fire wood to acceptable moisture levels , but would allow transport across quarantined areas as in the case of pallets. As the cross section increases so does the time required for wood to reach internal temps in this range.