This is what people are gripping about.

Why?????? I pass two homes with OWB's on my way to work. One is obviously burning seasoned wood (hardly any smoke) and the other looks like a coal train coming in their back yard.

 

Yes, some, if not all, can burn cleanly, with the gassifying types being impressively clean. The problem comes in when they are used in the 'on demand' mode rather than running hot. When they are used to supply hot water to a building, and the demand for that hot water cycles which is always does, the boiler goes into 'idle' mode when there is no demand. Unfortunately wood fires cannot be turned off or idle so they smolder away until there is demand for hot water again. Basically, they are being used incorrectly. The correct way to use them is to fire the entire load of wood continuously and burn hot enough so there is no smoke, and store the heat generated in the form of hot water. Then the hot water in turn supplies the house (or whatever building(s) ) as needed until it is too low in temp. to supply sufficient heat; at that point the wood boiler is fired up again and again burned hot.

A good situation is when there is enough water storage to hold enough heat for an entire day's heat and well as hot water needs. That way the boiler can be fired once a day, burn cleanly and the whole system is very efficient. But that takes a lot of water storage and a more complex setup than just connecting the wood boiler to the heating water in the house.... so they have to 'idle' and make that mess. They are also very inefficient when used like that. And because wood boilers, just like any other wood device, cannot really be regulated to burn cleanly and correctly, municipalities and even whole states just outright ban them.

I was in New Hampshire last fall, going down a wide 2- lane road on my motorcycle when I hit 'smoke alley'. Wood smoke all over the place as far as I could see. Turned out to be a string of very small rental cabins, each with a wood stove, and about 1/2 of them chugging some seriously thick smoke. And right in the middle of the cabins was a wood boiler, desperately trying to win what was obviously some kind of smoke generating contest. Lots of people renting the cabins who obviously were not very skilled in burning wood but stabbing at it. Anyway, the output of smoke was truly impressive and while I am not normally an advocate of lots of legislation to try and fix 'people problems', if I lived near that disaster I would have to do something about it.

Brian

 

This is what my owb looks like when it is burning. Where I live most foul smells come from Amish burning their garbage, not from outdoor furnaces, mine or several of my neighbors. I installed an outdoor furnace because there was no place to put a chimney in my house. I would love to have a wood stove indoors but that wasn't an option. P.S. I haven't had a fuel oil delivery in 7 years.

 

Look how clean yours looks too compared to dirty burners looks new still

 

There are a lot of OWB's in my neck of the woods. Some, like 38f20 burn them in a decent manor. Most don't. Since this is rural Iowa most folks don't complain about smoke or smell. What really gets me is that a lot of nice looking farm homes that have an OWB turn into what looks like a brush dump come fall. Just pile the logs and R.R. ties and whatever kinda other type of burnable stuff you can find right there. The guy in the above vid that was loading that log into his burner with a grapple bucket on his skidder could have gotten warmer by cutting it up into man sized pieces and throwin it in by hand. Sides, when the power goes out or the SHTF that boiler aint gonna heat nuthin but a metal box in the yard.
38f20 Hows about a pic of the F20 if that's what your screen name is about.

 

I'm not an owb expert, but there are a few manufacturers that make inefficient systems. I know more about gas and oil boilers, and the few wood boilers that are indoor units. That said, the systems are not that different, basically choices between open an closed water loops. The open systems are much less efficient, and it appears there are more open owb systems than closed.

Now, whether the liquid system is open or closed has no bearing on if the owner is burning dry wood or not.

 

Here ya go Butcher. Picture taken a couple years ago at our local tractor show.

 

Theres not but a few OWB members here, I'm glad a few of them chimed in.
I almost think the ones that don't burn seasoned wood like the idea of not having
to put the work in and burn green despite what comes out of the stack.
The video of the skid steer and a whole green log going in makes me think that
way. I'm glad for the ones that do burn seasoned wood.

 

This is what most of my loads look like. I try to avoid cutting any green wood because I don't have the time to season it properly. I burn from 10 to 12 cords/ year and I don't buy any so doing firewood takes plenty of time already.

 

Nice looking truck and load of what looks like dead standing barkless red oak? No matter, you do things the right way, do you also notice the difference?

 

i do not know anything about owb but it seems to me they wood want to put taller chimney on them to keep the smoke up higher

 

Not sure that would matter much considering what comes out of some of those stacks

 

I really have not cut much green wood either. There always been enough dead standing or downed trees to feed our needs. That said, I've cut some green trees down this winter if they were not healthy and would be better off cut down and turned into fire wood for future winter's burning.

 

Thanks for the compliment. I must admit that some of what I burn could be more seasoned but I usually don't notice much difference. What I do notice is that with very dry wood the coals build up much quicker. Outdoor furnaces don't heat that well with a huge bed of coals especially central boilers with no draft fan.

 

Looks good. I like ta see'em in their work cloths rather than a trailer queen. Oh, back to the OWB deal.

 

We used to tell the boots (new Marines) to go ask Gunny for their ID10T form and many other things.

 

Thanks for posting the picture BWS, I have been saying it all along and getting blasted by some but a picture is worth a thousand words as they say.