What! Tell me I read this wrong.

[sapratt]

I was playing around on the net yesterday and stumbled acrost this web site. It said new stoves build creosote faster than old
stoves. And can build up enough in 3 days to cause a chimney fire. Now I know I was tired from work and didn't really think
much of it yesterday. I was either so tired that I read it wrong or that site is giving out false info. I've been trying to find it
but so far had no luck

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Any stove burning really wet, unseasoned wood will give you a problem. I have heard people say that new stoves are worse with creosote, and have heard the opposite. New stoves produce less smoke and particle output, and therefore less creosote should condense during use (my firm belief, and have seen at least one report on the subject). Every stove will be different, however.

I don't know how old my next door neighbor's stove is- but man what a smokah it is. Then last weekend I saw he and his kids out cutting/splitting and moving the wood up to the house in a pile for this season (may have been from the big log-length stuff there... but they did just take down some trees). No wonder it's so nasty- it's sopping wet.

I just swept my own chimney and got a couple cups of dusty creosote out of it- that's from, I think- 2 years burning in a new Hampton insert.

 

[sapratt]

Can't find web site address but if you google. Colestin rural fire district stoves and flue fires. Click on that and half
way down the page you'll see it.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Here's a site that claims the opposite- up to 90% reduction in creosote. This is not a scientific study, however. We know that incomplete combustion leads to smoke and creosote, and we know that epa stoves are more efficient, so this all seems like a logical hypothesis- but I'd like to see an actual creosote study.

 

[Corey]

I'd like to see their source for that info. I suppose the operative word is 'can' - Like if you burned the absolute most soggy wood, your flue was shaped like a 'p' trap on a sink, totally exposed to cold outside temps to condense every last bit of creosote, then at the last hour of the 3rd day, you threw in a pile of 2"x2" pine sticks that had been in someone's attic for 100 years and built the hottest, cracking fire ever seen = yeah you might be able to light off a pool of creosote in the flue and cause a flue fire.

But all things being equal, a properly installed and operated modern stove would blow away a smoke dragon from the days of yore. And even then I've known many people to burn the dragon all season long and only clean out the flue once.

 

[RedRanger]

The new inserts and stoves like the one you see in my avatar almost demand nice dry and seasoned wood. No dry wood, = no secondary burn ,etc. Only thing you can be sure of when burning wet wood is tonnes of cresote. and that ain`t good. Want heat, burn wood with a moisture content of 15-25% moisture content. thats it period!! Or be prepared to clean the chimney at least once every 6 weeks :sick:

 

[myzamboni]

I just cleaned my chimney and last winter creosote production yielded about 6oz of powdery creosote. I figure I put 1 1/3 cords of wood: 40% almond, 40% pine, 20% dimensional/pallets. Some of the pine was a little less seasoned than I preferred.

You can't believe everything you read on the internet.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I just cleaned my chimney and last winter creosote production yielded about 6oz of powdery creosote. I figure I put 1 1/3 cords of wood: 40% almond, 40% pine, 20% dimensional/pallets. Some of the pine was a little less seasoned than I preferred.

You can't believe everything you read on the internet.

You're lying

 

[BJ64]

I can add to this.

As a kid (late 1960's early 70's), we would start cutting wood in the fall for the on comming winter. We did not split much of it either. I would sit by the fireplace and wach the sap bubble out the ends of small rounds. More often than not there was a pall of thin smoke in the area from our flue.

That fireplace was huge and bricked all the way up on one of the few two-story homes in this tornado alley. Once or twice a year it would sound like a jet comming down the stack and we knew it was a flew fire. Once it started we had no knowledge of how to stop it. The stratigy was to let it burn out and deal with the side effects. Flames would shoot out the top and embers would be flying down similar to fireworks. We always kept the water hose ready to use for watering livestock. We would have to hook it up in a hurry and spray the roof because we was afraid it would set the shingles on fire. Everybody else would be stomping out the fires inthe dead grass. Back then, at least around here, they built fireplaces with flue fires in mind.

The wood stoves were not much better and in the area was found all kinds. There was cast iron Franklin types and welded box stoves. Many people in the area knew how to weld. I built several stoves in my high school vocational-agriculture class as "shop projects" for various school board members. Everybody seemed to be burining green wood and all of us farm kids smelled like wood smoke at school. Stories about flue fires was common and there was at least one house fire a year from it.

In the last 20-years, many new homes were built with central heat and air. Wood fell out of favor except for a few die-hards. I converted to coal for 10 years and abandoned burning wood myself. Since then I have moved. Central heat is ok, but it seems like a waste of money and has nowhere near the satisfaction of using wood. We used the fireplace for a while but it hard trying to feed it wood all night long.

A few years ago a budy had a Vermont Castings EPA stove he raved about. Then sombody else got a big Lopi EPA unit. The advantages were clear, more heat, from using less wood, without the smoke inside or outside the house. With dry wood, I am convinced there is less to worry about regarding flue fire.

The trick to sucess here is seasoned wood no matter what you burn it in. By nature the new EPA stoves are even better at keeping the flue clean and prevent flue fires. It is well past time to change to the new.

 

[sapratt]

I under stand that new stoves are more efficent than old stoves. But everything I have read basically says. It doesn't
matter what kind of stove you use to get the best performance out of it use well seasoned wood.