The OFFICIAL Firewood Hoarder's Club thread!!!

Pine is fine , as long as it's dry . No ,it won't burn your house down
Here's some learnin for ya
Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage 2014-07-24

 

Sure is good stuff , saves us from a lot of splainin

 

I have put some of my windows in myself. The original 12-13 we paid to have installed when we moved in as I did not have the time to doit then with other home work. I watched them doit. It is as easy as it looked or you see on videos. Even easier if you can just slip in the replacement windows. But I had AL frame just k here before so we had to tear them out and just put the new ones in the holes. Its real easy. A few hours per window max. Less if you know what your doing.

 

Got it and got it! Thank you for the reading!

Let me clarify, I am by no means an anti-pinite. I like pines and many of my friends have pines. Heck, I live right next door to a man who has pines. Needles in my steep driveway that cause me to lose complete traction when wet? No problem, those needles were born that way, they cannot change. I'm a lover, I'm a giver, to all of the children of nature.

My understanding came from my first class (I can't say enough about this guy, if you're in richmond I will refer) chimney guy told me not to burn pine. Maybe he thought I would burn it soaked in gasoline with the stove door open, not sure.

 

I dont under stand those type people I wonder what they think they burn in the west or mountain regions...most of canada and places like alaska if pine will burn your house down and they can't burn pine or softwood.??

 

Well now you can tell your chimney guy it's a myth

 

Hey Scotty Overkill - does this count towards my cord hoarder level?

 

I dunno. You plan burning it?

 

Is that my new deck? Looks great!

 

Looks more like our new greenhouse.

 

Now for my least favorite part of the process...

 

I am not sure this is the best place for this question, mods please move if necessary.

So I read over the primer to which HDRock posted a reference, and have 2 questions.

1.> The notion of wet wood not producing as much heat. Is this a measurement of perceived heat? Can someone explain the technical cause of this? A calorie is a calorie, and the caloric content of the solid matter of a piece of wood does not change when water is present, no? If water could deplete caloric content then wouldn't drinking excessive water with your meals be a weight loss miracle? I believe that the gained heating result is true, not doubting it, just trying to wrap my head around how this is possible. In fact I have been thinking about this for a few months now since Mr. Curry mentioned it a while back.

2.> What is the reasoning behind leaving a layer of ashes in your stove? I have been cleaning them out completely every time I make a fire, for about 6 years now. But I'm a minimalist, ashes included.

Any input is greatly appreciated!

p.s. no more orange shirts in XL

 

Wet wood requires heat to boil off the moisture. That is heat thats not warming your house or stove. It also creosotes up your chimney as the moist air condenses in chimney.

Dont believe me burn wet wood in a modern stove then dry see which works better.

 

Hmmm.. Boiling off the water simply raises the temperature of the water until such time the water molecule becomes gaseous. So the water is still hot and in your stove. No heat should be lost there anymore than say the steam rising in a steam type boiler system, which of course is radiating into your house. In other words, if you use the heat from your stove to heat up a pot of water on top of the stove vs heat up the water in your wood, the heat loss to heat the water was the same. But this brings up a good point. We all know moist air is a better conductor of heat than dry air. Might it be that the moist steamy air coming off the burning log is going up the chimney thus carrying more heat with it than normal or dry air would?

Again I have no doubt to the wet wood heat loss ideal, I just can't understand it from a scientific standpoint. Inquiring minds would like to know!

 

No.
The act of boiling water causes a state change that consumes much more energy than just heating water. At atmospheric pressure it eats up 970 BTU/pound to change state but only about 1 BTU per pound to move the temperature a degree. Going from 32ºF, but still liquid, water to 212ºF only takes 180 BTU/lb. Every BTU used to convert water to steam is completely lost into the outside atmosphere unless you get condensation in your flue stack, something you definitely do not want.

If you boil water on top of the stove and it condenses on your windows you do recover some of that heat but again it is not a situation you would really want.

If you really want to understand it, look up or Google "latent heat". Not even the engineers that work with it every day like to work with those numbers much, but they do know how. Latent heart of water varies a lot with pressure right up to a pressure/temperature called the "critical point" at about 3206 PSI above which there is no difference between steam and water. Try wrapping your head around that when it actually matters in a design.

 

I am thinking my way through this as we speak and have some follow up question/clarification. Before I do so, can you please clarify what you answered "No" to? Was it the question "Might it be that the moist steamy air coming off the burning log is going up the chimney thus carrying more heat with it than normal or dry air would?" or some other detail I mentioned? Thank you in advance!