Greetings.
TLDR: How well does a full load of poplar perform in a Princess 32 or King 40?
A year ago we moved into a log house (kit), that's primarily heated with by woodstove, in northeastern Ontario.
The stove is a Jotul F 600 non-catalytic that's rated for 13k-45k BTUs at 63% efficiency. It's fairly centrally located and the chimney is close to 30ft of mostly straight single wall pipe to the thimble in the ceiling - the house has high vaulted ceilings and a steep roof pitch. The exterior pipe is doube-wall stainless steel that's at least 6ft. As you can imagine, the draft is quite strong, but the seals were in reasonably good shape so shutting the damper all the way produced the slow moving, dancing flames of a well functioning secondary burn stove. Unfortunately, even when fully damped down and packed with high quality dry hardwood, the stove was effectively either on or off, and the burn time where appreciable heat was being emitted was about 4 hours. I'd load the stove twice a day (3 during the coldest weeks) and the house would bounce between too hot and too cold. We burned about 8 face cords of hardwood and another 2 of softwood and poplar.
One of my co-workers has a tree cutting side business and heats exclusively with a larger stove. He's been a great source of knowledge and advice about wood, but he has never owned a catalytic stove.
Last year I burned hardwood that was purchased from a local firewood producer and began harvesting from my property for future winters. I very much enjoy cutting, splitting, and burning wood.
My property has a lot of small (under 8") sugar maples and white birch, some large poplars/large tooth aspen (18-22"), and some small softwoods - balsam fir and spruce.
I'd like to prioritize harvesting the poplars as they're nearing end of life, block light to the maples, and yield the most wood. Yes I know that they have noticeably fewer BTUs per cord.
I've burned poplar in the stove, but only during the spring so I don't have a great feel for how it directly compares to hardwood. As I was burning at most once a day in a cold stove with less temperature/pressure gradient for the draft it obviously felt much less potent than hardwood and a lot of efficiency was lost getting the stove up to operating temperature.
I found that the poplar did not like having the damper close all of the way, but I'm not sure if that's due to its lower heat output or the less than optimal burning conditions.
We're building an addition this summer and one of the the changes will be removing the old stove and chimney (which is inaccessible for cleaning without a cherry-picker), and installing a BK in the addition where the chimney piping can be installed such that I can actually access it. I intend to get the King 40 for its large firebox and its long burn times.
Will packing the 40 with poplar give me half a day's heat and allow me to focus on harvesting them from my property? Does it do well with the damper on low, or is it prone to extinguishing, and requires more airflow?
Thanks!
TLDR: How well does a full load of poplar perform in a Princess 32 or King 40?
A year ago we moved into a log house (kit), that's primarily heated with by woodstove, in northeastern Ontario.
The stove is a Jotul F 600 non-catalytic that's rated for 13k-45k BTUs at 63% efficiency. It's fairly centrally located and the chimney is close to 30ft of mostly straight single wall pipe to the thimble in the ceiling - the house has high vaulted ceilings and a steep roof pitch. The exterior pipe is doube-wall stainless steel that's at least 6ft. As you can imagine, the draft is quite strong, but the seals were in reasonably good shape so shutting the damper all the way produced the slow moving, dancing flames of a well functioning secondary burn stove. Unfortunately, even when fully damped down and packed with high quality dry hardwood, the stove was effectively either on or off, and the burn time where appreciable heat was being emitted was about 4 hours. I'd load the stove twice a day (3 during the coldest weeks) and the house would bounce between too hot and too cold. We burned about 8 face cords of hardwood and another 2 of softwood and poplar.
One of my co-workers has a tree cutting side business and heats exclusively with a larger stove. He's been a great source of knowledge and advice about wood, but he has never owned a catalytic stove.
Last year I burned hardwood that was purchased from a local firewood producer and began harvesting from my property for future winters. I very much enjoy cutting, splitting, and burning wood.
My property has a lot of small (under 8") sugar maples and white birch, some large poplars/large tooth aspen (18-22"), and some small softwoods - balsam fir and spruce.
I'd like to prioritize harvesting the poplars as they're nearing end of life, block light to the maples, and yield the most wood. Yes I know that they have noticeably fewer BTUs per cord.
I've burned poplar in the stove, but only during the spring so I don't have a great feel for how it directly compares to hardwood. As I was burning at most once a day in a cold stove with less temperature/pressure gradient for the draft it obviously felt much less potent than hardwood and a lot of efficiency was lost getting the stove up to operating temperature.
I found that the poplar did not like having the damper close all of the way, but I'm not sure if that's due to its lower heat output or the less than optimal burning conditions.
We're building an addition this summer and one of the the changes will be removing the old stove and chimney (which is inaccessible for cleaning without a cherry-picker), and installing a BK in the addition where the chimney piping can be installed such that I can actually access it. I intend to get the King 40 for its large firebox and its long burn times.
Will packing the 40 with poplar give me half a day's heat and allow me to focus on harvesting them from my property? Does it do well with the damper on low, or is it prone to extinguishing, and requires more airflow?
Thanks!
