No surprise here...but for those that claim wood too dry lost btu's, I started my stove with some very dry soft maple about 1/2 hour ago. The wood took off easily, and the stove top temps shot up quickly. Now, I don't know if the overall burn time will be shorter given lower moisture, but I'm getting the heat a lot faster which is all that matters.
1 BTU = the amount of energy needed to raise 1lb of water 1°F. The less water there is in it, the less btus it needs to boil off the water, and the more efficient it is.
That works fine until you get to the boiling point. Then all hell breaks loose. At sea level, it takes 970.4 BTU/lb to take liquid water to vapor at constant temp. Kinda huge jump, eh?
As long as you have good air control on your stove, you should be able to cut the air enough to make it burn slow, no matter how dry it is. They say cat stoves can generally be cut back more. I haven't run non-cats, to know how much difference there is...
Agree with WS. This is my first year with a cat stove and prior to this was a secondary (burn tubes) burn only type stove. I have to say the cat gives dry wood a real run for the money, the burn is much more controlled and along with the air damper the burn times go up significantly. I'm not really into this season quite yet but am already impressed with the few burns I've had so far.
