Tarm solo 40 on wood chunks?

[islandadam]

Hi has anyone run a Tarm on wood chunks? split the better part of 14 cords last year and I'm getting tired of that game. Looks like it is a lot easier to process wood in a chunk fashion, and it looks like it would dry a lot faster. We have pretty high humidity all winter and most of the summer, wood is considered dry here if you don't get splashed when the axe hits it. Please let me know your experiences.
Thanks!

 

[Chris Hoskin]

Hi has anyone run a Tarm on wood chunks? split the better part of 14 cords last year and I'm getting tired of that game. Looks like it is a lot easier to process wood in a chunk fashion, and it looks like it would dry a lot faster. We have pretty high humidity all winter and most of the summer, wood is considered dry here if you don't get splashed when the axe hits it. Please let me know your experiences.
Thanks!

14 cords is a lot of wood to put through a Tarm, even if you have the Solo Plus 60. Which model do you have and what kind of building are you heating? Are you talking full cords (128 cubic feet), or "face cords"?

 

[islandadam]

14 cords is a lot of wood to put through a Tarm, even if you have the Solo Plus 60. Which model do you have and what kind of building are you heating? Are you talking full
cords (128 cubic feet), or "face cords"?

It is a Solo 40. I am talking face cords. It is a 3700 square foot house plus basement built in the mid 1920's with 10 foot ceilings on the main floor and a finished attic space and dozens of original windows and doors. Neat old house, and well built, but not very well insulated. The biggest challenge has been getting dry hardwood on the island. Fir does not gassify well at all and that is the most common source of wood available. Alder works well but it is hard to get more than a few months supply at a time. Maple and arbutus burn great but are expensive and hardtop get in any significant quantity. Poplar is plentiful and basically free. However, unless you split it fairly quickly, it rots. So, I wondered if chunking was an easy way to process the wood I need and get it to dry a little easier. Could be bagged and stacked. Wouldn't want to build a chunker and churn out 10 or 15 cords of product I cant use. Anybody put chunks in a gassifier before?

 

[maple1]

Define 'chunk'.

 

[warno]

Define 'chunk'.

I'm guessing the OP is talking about cutting really short rounds and letting the wood season that way. or at least that's what I got from the first post.

 

[Bad LP]

All I can say is that "chunk" wood is going against the recommended loading practice as found in the owners manual.

 

[Fred61]

Chunks thrown into the firebox are not likely to work that well for one reason, maybe two. We all know that in order for wood to burn well the logs need a "friend" in close proximity to share the job of concentrating the heat between them. In longer splits you will have 16 or 18 inches of close proximity to do this. With chunks the wood will only be touching at small points as small as a knife edge or edges the diameter of a pencil. They will basically be lonely and in need of a closer friend or a hug.

A humid environment such as the one you inhabit multiplies this situation.

If I had to put up with the situation you are in having to burn stuff I leave in the woods I would go back to fossil fuel. Sorry, maybe I just have an ATTITUDE since I plan to stop burning wood and plan on going back to oil in two years when my supply runs out. I'll be 78 if I make it.

 

[islandadam]

I'm guessing the OP is talking about cutting really short rounds and letting the wood season that way. or at least that's what I got from the first post.

2" cubes to 4" cubes. Not sawdust or shrapnel from a wood chipper. The wood gas for internal combustion engine crowd uses chunked wood. looks easy to make.

 

[islandadam]

2" cubes to 4" cubes. Not sawdust or shrapnel from a wood chipper. The wood gas for internal combustion engine crowd uses chunked wood. looks easy to make.

The cubes are sheared not cut, so the wood ends up with lots of cracks in it. monster surface area and good airspaces around the material. Or so it would seem to me.

 

[Mike Fromme]

I don't see why it wouldn't work... Worth a test if you can find someone with a chunker.

You thinking onion bags to store and dry them in?

Though unless you have just the right size logs to process I don't see it saving any time.

 

[Bad LP]

If I had to deal with all that crap on the ground everyday for heat I'd poke my eyes out with a sharp pointed stick.

 

[easternbob]

If you think of it like shoveling coal might work. The availablity of the correct size material might be tough. The stuff in the picture above looks like limbs, something that is normally left in the woods.

 

[Bob Rohr]

Chip and pellet boilers work just fine, so the size of the fuel should not be that critical for burning. The quality (dry, green) and type off wood has more to do with efficiency and output.

They tested a bunch of OWF in Wisconsin years ago and they used 4" red oak chunks for the control fuel.

 

[DaveBP]

I think the old-fashioned whole-cob corn cribs would dry them nicely.
In some parts of the country they might be available as salvage from farms that no longer use them.

 

[Mike Fromme]

Saw this and thought of this thread

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[Fred61]

Cool! Built the way it should be with none of those dangerous safety shields.