What if you have less than par wood?

[Northof49th]

I'm in the market for my first wood stove, and am leaning towards a BK. I'm already stack-piling seasoned wood, but my question is what if I run into a problem in the future where my wood is less than optimal? Maybe a softwood, or wood that isn't quite seasoned yet? I'm curious since - correct me if I'm wrong - being a catalytic stove, you should always burn dry wood, preferably a hardwood. Can one burn it regardless, and just not engage the cat? Can you get away with burning that type of wood in a secondary-burn stove? Just trying to figure out all the do's and don'ts.

 

[EbS-P]

Any wood is fine as long as it’s dry. Plenty of people but soft wood In catalytic stoves. I recall some reports of some super pitchy pieces of softwood not burning as cleanly. Almost as if the cat could not handle that amount of smoke.

Wood that’s not dry enough. Well I imagine everyone has been there once. Solar kiln for a summer would be my solution. It but compressed sawdust logs/bricks and plan on burning more electrons or oil/gas.

I suggest a good woodshed that has three bays each big enough for a seasons worth of wood.

 

[kborndale]

Absolutely nothing wrong with softwood. It's what most people burn on the west coast. Just make sure it's dry or you are going to have a very difficult time starting a fire and getting enough heat out of it. If you have to burn wet wood, (if it's a choice between burning wet wood or pipes freezing I would burn the wet wood) make sure you check your chimney weekly and be ready to clean it as often as monthly.

 

[Diabel]

Pick up a moisture meter and test your freshly splits before burning. Anything over 30% mc will give you a hard time with lighting off the cat.
I would not run the BK without engaging the cat ever.

 

[begreen]

Consider buying some compressed fuel bricks or logs to supplement.

 

[Highbeam]

Always engage the cat when the cat meter indicates active, the bypass hole opening that allows heat up the chimney during warmup with a bypassed catalyst is extremely fragile and has been known to melt out. Replacing the melted bypass opening gasket retainers is a cutting and welding job that is almost certainly not worth the value of the stove. It's really the Achilles heel of this otherwise excellent stove system.

If your wood is wet then you can buy compressed sawdust firewood at many places. They work. You can use those manufactured logs exclusively or in combination with some wet wood. What many of us do is have several year's of wood stored and ready. This helps the wood dry fully and also means you can skip a year and just burn from your storage if you went to jail or got injured or something else happened that prevented annual wood processing duties.

 

[Poindexter]

Yeah, cocktailing damp cord wood with some kind of very dry compressed log product may be your lifeline. I had to do it at least once, maybe twice before I got my seasoning process under control.

Spruce-Pine-Fir are the new burners friend. Just keep plugging away. SPF you split, stack off the ground and top cover in March 2024 should be ready to go without cocktailing in October 2024.

I pretty much burn spruce only up here. I am on a small suburban lot and simply don't have the real estate to have 2-3 years of cordwood on the lot and available to burn the winter after I blow out a knee.

BK stoves will chew through softwoods just fine, Doug Fir, Larch, tamarack, spruce, the various pines, no problem. I like to have next winter's wood stacked up off the ground and top covered by Saint Patrick's Day, March 17; and have never had a problem when I light my BK full of SPF in late August.

Good luck, keep stacking.

 

[begreen]

For dry wood to mix in, I would also visit construction sites for 2x4 and 2x6 scrap cutoffs. Another source can be flooring companies. See if you can get untreated and unfinished cutoffs from hardwood flooring installs. I got two garbage cans full from our flooring installer.