I was able to obtain some very dry 3 year c/s/s Lodge Pole Pine for a test burn in the Beta Woodstock Ideal Steel. I received a request from a forum member to do a test burn with this type of pine "to see how long it will burn at a decent output. Doesn't have to scorch paint, just a 300-400 stove top + duration at that temp." I started this burn on a 3"-4" ash bed at 3:00pm, small to moderate amount of hot coals. I loaded 8 moderate to large size splits and ran it on 100% air for the first half hour, engaging the cat after about 15 minutes. At the half hour mark stove top temps were 350, and the hot spot on the front middle of the stove above the door was at 450, so I cut the air back to about 30%. First floor temp was 68 when I started and outside temp was 40. At 40 minutes, stove top temps were at 385 and the hot spot on the front middle of the stove was at 500, so I cut the air back to about 20%. At that point, except for some small purple secondary air flames at the top rear, the firebox pretty much went dark so not much of a show on the video. By 50 minutes the firebox was completely dark and stove room temp was 72. At two hours, stove top temp was 460 on the IR, room temp was 74, outside temp was 41. At 7 1/2 hours into the burn stove top temp had dipped to just under 300 so I opened the air back up to 30%. First floor temp was 73, outside temp was 34. At 9 1/2 hours into the burn, first floor temps were still 73, outside temps were 33, and I went to bed. If you follow the needle on the magnetic thermometer, it is tracking about 150 to 200 degrees higher than stove top temps by IR readings. So when the magnetic thermometer is reading 650 on video, the stove top temp is around 450 - 500. The time lapse video was obtained using the TimeLapse app from zyster.net (http://www.xyster.net/timelapse), a GorillaPod mini video tripod and a SnapMount SM2 Tripod Mount to hold my iPhone 4s. Total recording time was 15 hours, total video time 1 minute, each photo making up the video was snapped once every 30 seconds, and the iPhone flash was on for the duration of the time lapse. I added a small lamp during the video (you can see it brighten at about the 10 second mark) for a better view of the wood in the firebox. Here's my "studio":
Ben the ghost cat makes several cameo appearances in the reflection of the door glass, as well as my 17yo son's hobbit feet while we were watching a movie last night.
Hmmm a weatherguy without a weather sticker? Tsk tsk tsk.. Shame on you WG! BTW welcome to the forum!
Welcome to the forum WG! Honestly, I didn't do anything with the stove till about an hour ago, 11:00. There were very few hot coals, mostly just really fluffy light white ash. I had to use a firestarter, and since I'm going to be out of the house for the rest of today I just loaded oak. I'll do another test burn of this wood early next week.
Thanks Brian, I noticed some of you have the weather on your sig, I'll have to figure out how to get it there.
Go to http://www.wunderground.com/stickers/classic.html?query=San Francisco, California&MR=1 Select your location Look at the weather stickers to see what you prefer Right click the sticker you want From the pop up dialog box click "Copy image location" Open forum then click on the image icon in either the post box and/or your signature An image url box will pop up Paste the code into this box Click insert Voila you're done!
I just ran another load of the Lodge Pole Pine with a couple Aspen splits too. This one is packed tight with ten good size splits, including 2 or 3 Aspen. (I split the last log into three to fill in the top.) First floor temp was 70 when I started this burn at 3:30pm, outside temp was 36. Within 45 minutes first floor temp was 73. On 25% air, stove top temps stayed in the 450 range for the first three hours then dropped off into the mid 300s. Five hours into burn, keeping small lazy secondary flames going continuously since this burn cycle started, notice the purple color of the secondary flames with this pine in the second photo with no flash. This is the first I've seen such deep blue/purple secondaries: At six hours and 15 minutes into this burn, outside temp was 26 and windy and first floor was still 73. Firebox had gone dark, no secondaries. At 7 hours into this burn cycle some cool little blue secondaries reappeared at the left rear of the firebox. At 7 1/2 hours I opened up the air to about 50% to keep heat output up. Its now 8 hours into this burn cycle: Hot spot temp above door on front of stove is 350, stove top temp is at 275, outside temp 16, and first floor temp is still at 72. Given past burn cycles this should hold our first floor temps above 68 (where I have my thermostat set) for the next 2-4 hours, for a total of 10-12 hours or so of usable heat on this load of Lodge Pole pine and Aspen.
Brian, You (or whoever is on that video) sound(s) like Ike! His great linguistic gift to this country: "like". Toss is a few you knows, and whole sentences get spoken with no content. Hope the home schooling is going well. Actually, I'm a big fan of home schooling. Want to break the habit of saying "like" in a habitual, meaningless way, then get a friend or family member to interject a chosen two syllable word every time you say "like". It works, because it both distracts you and makes you aware. My favorite word to use is "teacup". We just had a freeze quake. I don't like them. They are disconcerting.
That was a friend of the family who was visiting who is Chinese-American. My daughter is a cantor at church and he is an awesome singer and was helping her with a new mass setting. My problem is that when I'm working on something I am absolutely 100% oblivious to anything going on around me (monomaniacal?) I shoot these silly little videos and it's only after I upload them and go back to view them that I realize there was a full blown conversation going on around me. Kinda like an absent minded professor.
Nah, everything cant be posed and perfect. Got to keep the human element in it. Thanks for posting all you do on this. Its been interesting reading...
LOL! I finally had a chance to turn off everything else and turn on the speakers and listen to that video's audio track. (I think I'll put a music sound track on that one.) Oh my. Believe it or not that guy is scary smart and works in IT. Homeschooling is going exceptionally well, thanks. The oldest two are college age now and my youngest is a junior in high school. We've been doing this for 16 years now, no regrets. Best thing we ever could have done for our children (though admittedly it's not for everyone.)
Great info on the lodge pole pine, those are good burn times for a species that has a bad rap. Wonder what all the pine haters would say about that.
I thought the Lodgepole pine burned surprisingly well. The forum member who asked me to try it for a burn test asked me how it compared with what I've been burning. I told him it was pretty much equal to the cherry I've been burning in heat output and duration of burn. According to this site, http://forestry.usu.edu/htm/forest-products/wood-heating its BTU rating is actually a little bit better than cherry. I certainly wouldn't feel undergunned if Lodgepole pine was all I had to burn. It might not be oak or locust but its not bad at all.
