I know the purest wood burners are going to have a heart attack w/ this, but do any of you folks w/ gasifiers dare throw in the odd chunk(s) of scrap wood like OSB, stuff w/ a bit of paint or wood preservative on it? I'm just talking about a load of beautiful wood and then maybe a painted 2x4 and/or a few strips of OSB that really isn't worth keeping. If a little bit of ugly scrap is OK, and it seems to burn clean, then how about old tires.... kidding about the tires.
Scraps in a gasifier.
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This topic generated a fair bit of acrimony in the past. Bottom line: gasifiers aren't picky about much of anything besides moisture content. Gasifiers also will burn many materials (certainly wood!) much more cleanly than other wood burning appliances.
However, any elements that are in the fuel will be in the exhaust. If you're burning stuff that's made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen you're probably OK. The combustion environment in a gasifier is pretty good at breaking down and fully oxidizing hydrocarbons. You don't want to stray very far from wood, though, since other fuels require a different fuel to air ratio.
If you're burning stuff that has heavy metals, sulfur, chlorine, or other nasties then those elements and compounds of those elements will be coming out of your chimney.
However, any elements that are in the fuel will be in the exhaust. If you're burning stuff that's made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen you're probably OK. The combustion environment in a gasifier is pretty good at breaking down and fully oxidizing hydrocarbons. You don't want to stray very far from wood, though, since other fuels require a different fuel to air ratio.
If you're burning stuff that has heavy metals, sulfur, chlorine, or other nasties then those elements and compounds of those elements will be coming out of your chimney.
I try to avoid putting things in that I wouldn't want in my soil, as I use the ashes in the garden. I was cleaning the ashes out a few months back and found a ceramic electric fence thing with a nail that had apparently gotten embedded into the ash tree I had cut and I didn't know it was in there. Sometimes you don't know what is in the wood anyway.
I tend to think of air quality when considering what I burn. Though when I dispose of painted wood and pressure treated materials as construction debris at the dump, I have not guarantees about what happens to it environmentally after that. One of my reasons for buying the gasifier was to keep the carbon out of the air, so it seems ironic to burn stuff like that in it. Just my opinion though...
I tend to think of air quality when considering what I burn. Though when I dispose of painted wood and pressure treated materials as construction debris at the dump, I have not guarantees about what happens to it environmentally after that. One of my reasons for buying the gasifier was to keep the carbon out of the air, so it seems ironic to burn stuff like that in it. Just my opinion though...
WoodNotOil said:
I used to take all the construction waste to the dump, untill I learned they burn it as soon as the pile gets to large. No recycling there. Anything usable goes to the restore and the rest into the Eco 40, I feel I can do a better job burning it cleaner than the dump.
I'm curious? Does burning pressure treated lumber in a gassifier produce gas that is harmful to my gassifier ?
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