Thoughts on Upcoming First Season

[MarkinNC]

Greetings all and thanks for the information I have learned from this site. I read every single stove review on the stoves I was looking at, searched the forums probably a hundred times and read a lot of the informational articles.

I know I will have to post some pictures and I planned to do a review on my stove when I start using it in earnest. A bit of a perfectionist, i have tried to do everything correctly sparing no expense, especially on the chimney, adding an outside air kit etc.

My frustration with the first year is related to the fact I really have no properly seasoned wood. I have over 4 cord of oak and hickory in my yard seasoning with one of the oaks being clearly dead before I cut and split it this August. I purchased 2 cords of seasoned wood. The owner of the tree service assured me that 99% of the wood was "from 2009." Sadly this was one of the people the actually called me back when I responded to ad's in the local paper and CL. It is lighter than green wood , I have no moisture meter but I believe it is not properly seasoned. I know I will never buy wood again and it seems readily available for free here in southern Appalachia.

Hopefully the Lopi Endeavor I purchased will burn wood that is not optimally seasoned if I keep the fire hot. I am thinking I will split the wood into smaller sections (learned that here) as well. I can inspect the chimney myself. I have test fired the stove now with reasonably dry wood and id does run and draft very well even with the temperature in the 60's outside. I am very optimistic about year 2 and beyond.

Any one have any insight? I'll be fine, my glass will get dirtier, keep the fire hot etc.

Oh, I grew up burning wood but that was well before regulated stoves.

 

[Dix]

Greetings all and thanks for the information I have learned from this site. I read every single stove review on the stoves I was looking at, searched the forums probably a hundred times and read a lot of the informational articles.

I know I will have to post some pictures and I planned to do a review on my stove when I start using it in earnest. A bit of a perfectionist, i have tried to do everything correctly sparing no expense, especially on the chimney, adding an outside air kit etc.

My frustration with the first year is related to the fact I really have no properly seasoned wood. I have over 4 cord of oak and hickory in my yard seasoning with one of the oaks being clearly dead before I cut and split it this August. I purchased 2 cords of seasoned wood. The owner of the tree service assured me that 99% of the wood was "from 2009." Sadly this was one of the people the actually called me back when I responded to ad's in the local paper and CL. It is lighter than green wood , I have no moisture meter but I believe it is not properly seasoned. I know I will never buy wood again and it seems readily available for free here in southern Appalachia.

Hopefully the Lopi Endeavor I purchased will burn wood that is not optimally seasoned if I keep the fire hot. I am thinking I will split the wood into smaller sections (learned that here) as well. I can inspect the chimney myself. I have test fired the stove now with reasonably dry wood and id does run and draft very well even with the temperature in the 60's outside. I am very optimistic about year 2 and beyond.

Any one have any insight? I'll be fine, my glass will get dirtier, keep the fire hot etc.

Oh, I grew up burning wood but that was well before regulated stoves.

Nice first post, Mark ! Welcome to the forums !!


Lord knows I had wet wood my first year, and into my second, as did most everyone here, so don't let it get at ya


Pine or ash type woods can be helpful, it will season fast. Wood pallets cut to size..not to many, burns to hot, maybe mix it with the less seasoned wood for maximum effect. Cherry will season quickly, although at this stage of the game, it'd be iffy if you could burn it this winter.

Bio bricks are another alternative, you'd have to do a search here in the forums.

Basically, if you can keep it going, check & clean chimney as needed, you'll get through that first year, by year 2, you'll be more prepared, and by year 3, you should be good to go, so they tell me, we'll see ;-P

 

[cityhick]

Only advice I have is try not to choke down the air supply to much to get longer burns with less than seasoned wood. Itcould cause it to smolder more easily creating more creosote in the chimney. Ive been there too as well as alot of others here. I am about 8 years in and still learn something every year.......Welcome to the forums. Excellent info on hear

 

[Mrs. Krabappel]

Welcome! I'm in H-ville

 

[midwestcoast]

Yep, sounds a little like me at this time last year, though I bought most my year 1 wood.
Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on where you're at & what to expect. I wouldn't look for that oak being ready to burn this year at all. Oak generally takes longer to season than other woods. Maybe, if that dead oak was dead for a few years, the limbwood could be dry enough, but the trunk will be similar to green when cut.
If splitting smaller, start with the purchased wood as it sounds like the most seasoned of the lot. Ask any other woodburners near you about a source of really dry wood. Explain your EPA stove needs it very dry, like split & stacked for a year+. You may get lucky that way, or you may just find that no-one you talk to ever burns well seasoned wood.
Along with the pallets, if you can find slabwood anywhere it'll dry fast & help keep a fire going with the marginal wood.

 

[MarkinNC]

Welcome! I'm in H-ville

Hey Neighbor

 

[branchburner]

Like others have said, pallets, both hard and soft. That got me through winter #1 in good shape. The other thing I did (and still do) is scrounge around for a lot of dead and dry branch wood, 1-3" - lotta work for a little wood, but it burns. No green oak in this stove.

 

[MarkinNC]

Thanks every one for the advice. I just read a another thread about someones second year and how much easier the stove is to run with dry wood. I had initially fired my stove with some dry wood I had. It started right up, got hot quick, and was easy to get into secondary combustion.

Now if I contrast that with last night when I tried some of the wonderful seasoned wood I purchased, it was hard to get the fire going and hard to get the stove hot. I could hear the wood hissing and could actually see water coming out the ends of the splits and bubbling. It took about 1.5 hours to get the stove stove good and hot. When I did get it hot it would do secondary combustion nicely. I had to feed it more wood than I should but it did work.

I think this year will be on the frustrating side but 24/7 burning should be OK so long as I keep the fire pretty hot. Sadly starting a little fire to heat the house up is probably going to be a pain in the but this year. I guess the good news is the wood won't get any wetter.

 

[gyrfalcon]

What kind of oak, red or white?

I have no experience with white oak, but I can tell you that last year I very successfully burned a fair amount of red oak that had been only been cut down (but not further cut and split) for about six months. I split it way down to 2 and 3-inch splits and mixed it with drier wood and it did just fine. I just had my chimney cleaned last week, and had a fairly small amount of powder creosote but no hardened stuff, according to the sweep. I gather you can't do that with white oak, but it worked just fine with the red. This is despite the fact that my stove is tiny and can only get as high as 500 if I'm burning a load of small splits of very high BTU wood like beech or black birch or apple.

Friend of mine with an older VC cat stove uses exclusively large splits of red oak of about the same age from the same supplier and has no problem burning. (he did have a small chimney fire last year, but he'd unwisely skipped a year in sweeping the chimney)

Getting enough ahead on firewood for it to age for a couple years before using it is a perpetual struggle for me, but it does dry much faster if it's split fairly small and stacked criss-cross in widely separated rows so it gets maximum sun and wind.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Thanks every one for the advice. I just read a another thread about someones second year and how much easier the stove is to run with dry wood. I had initially fired my stove with some dry wood I had. It started right up, got hot quick, and was easy to get into secondary combustion.

Now if I contrast that with last night when I tried some of the wonderful seasoned wood I purchased, it was hard to get the fire going and hard to get the stove hot. I could hear the wood hissing and could actually see water coming out the ends of the splits and bubbling. It took about 1.5 hours to get the stove stove good and hot. When I did get it hot it would do secondary combustion nicely. I had to feed it more wood than I should but it did work.

I think this year will be on the frustrating side but 24/7 burning should be OK so long as I keep the fire pretty hot. Sadly starting a little fire to heat the house up is probably going to be a pain in the but this year. I guess the good news is the wood won't get any wetter.

Welcome to the forum MarkinNC.

You have found, like others, that when the wood sellers tell you the wood is "seasoned" they mostly do not know what they are talking about. Even if wood was cut in 2009, if it was not split and stacked so the wind hits the pile, it will not be seasoned enough to burn properly. Hopefully you will get through this year okay and will be in better shape for next winter. Good luck.

 

[firefighterjake]

You've already got some good advice . . . but I'll chime in to repeat some advice since it's important and perhaps add in a few of my nuggets of wisdom . . . well nuggets of experience at least.

Wood pallets . . . get 'em. You'll need 'em . . . you'll come to have a love-hate relationship with 'em in your first year. In most places they're free for the asking (just ask first) and many places are happy for you to take them so they don't have to get rid of them . . . and while these pallets can be a pain to bust or cut up they'll save you . . . the thin slats are wicked dry usually and are fantastic for getting a fire up and running . . . and you will find that adding them to the fire will help keep the fire hot enough for the excess moisture of the "seasoned" wood to boil out . . . pallets . . . a pain to haul around, a pain to process, a pain to deal with the nails . . . but they're great for the first year burner.

In your first year you might think you're doing OK with your wood . . . especially once you get into a regimen . . . but then next year will roll around and you'll discover that both the glass in your stove and your chimney are a lot cleaner (which reminds me -- damp newspaper dipped in wood ash works well to clean off the black and be sure to check and clean your chimney on a regular basis if you're using less than optimal wood -- once a month is not unreasonable), you'll be getting more heat and more impressive secondaries with the same amount of wood in the firebox and you'll find that you can actually cut back on the amount of air than you did in your first year . . . and will be pleasantly surprised to find that you are burning less wood and have longer burn times.

Of course, it's just a matter of getting through the first year of burning . . . that's the bad news . . . the good news is that we're here to help if you need the help or have questions . . . most of us have been in the same position as you.