Burning myths

I know that Drolet advises I do not bring my stove up to temp too fast and that's good enough for me.

 

Good enough for you then I'll stick to it

 

Equally well versed at unstacking too, no?

 

I have heard he's pretty good at that too

 

A common myth that every boy scout knows and treats as gospel. You need to build a fire from the bottom up so that the flames will light the stuff above it. Total BS. Top down fires work just dandy.

 

Hmm. Well, Oldman47, we are about the same age, so I will not question your wisdom, but this old Eagle Scout still starts from the bottom. Guess it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

 

Some one needs to talk to this young yup?

 

I am not impressed with that yup who burns wide open to get her chimney hot enough but ignore the terrible acting and listen to the content here. I think it would help a new wood burner.

 

One wood burning myth that has always had me wondering is the one I some times hear about having far wood inside and up to room temps before putting it into a wood stove. Admittedly I didnt read through all the above posts to see if this was already discussed so if it has, beg my pard. I try to keep enough wood in my basement to last at least a month but not to warm up the wood but just as a matter of convenience. Sure if the wood was completly covered with ice or snow I would not want to throw it into the stove but what does the actual temp of properly taken care of farwood have to do with anything? Just wonderin out load here.

 

I find wood that has been indoors for at least a day or two takes off way quicker than wood pulled from outside in the cold. This time of year around here, the temp differential between indoor/outdoor could be 80-110 F, so I think there's something to it. I'm not sure the BTU's to warm 15 lbs of wood to room temperature, but it must be a little bit of something.

 

Me too . Soaking wet even worse. I don't care if it's just 5 minutes difference, that's an extra 5 minutes of smoke coming out the chimney. I try to burn as cleanly as possible. Why not. Trying to burn clean isn't rocket science, it's just giving a damm. Like keeping a good flame on your oil burner or even your cook stove under your pan. Why be sloppy when there's no need to be. And the young yup seems to have her stove pretty much figured out considering what it is.

 

Maybe you misunderstood my question or I am misunderstanding you. I was not speaking of soaking wet wood but the actual temp of the hunk of wood itself when it goes into a wood stove. I guess I just dont understand the physics behind that reasoning. Enlighten me please as I like to learn. What makes a piece of wood with an internal temp of lets say 60° burn better than one that has an internal temp of 32° ? But then, unlike the young gal that was in the vid I posted, I prefer not to throw sawdust soaked in fuel oil into my stove just to get it lit. But thats just me I guess.

 

No wood burns until it reaches the right temperature (at least at the burning surface). The warmer the wood is, the faster/easier it is for it to reach that temperature.

I'll give an extreme example from my own personal experience. I have a masonry pizza oven. It is a big, heavy, well insulated deal. It can easily be 300 degrees or more the following night. At the end of use, I load it up for the next time. If I use it the next day when the wood is hot, I can light 3-4 inch thick oak splits with a lighter, no kindling or anything needed. Clearly, room temperature isn't as close to burning temperature as is my pizza oven, but it is a hell of a lot closer than -20F fresh off the porch in New Hampshire.

 

Not "burn better" , get going better. Might be because I have such small stoves but I can most certainly measure the difference time-wise between a couple splits of wood I just brought in from outside ( when it is real cold out ) and tossing in on hot coals and the splits I brought in yesterday and tossed in on a bed of hot coals.
I try to keep a day's worth of wood beside the stove just because warm and dry I don't have as much smoke coming out the chimney getting the firebox back up to a good efficient burning temp. And yeah, I try not to smoke out the neighborhood. I don't have any complainers, but I want to keep it that way. I only have smoke when I reload or try to damp it down too soon and try not to. Try. I certainly goof up every now and then. ( and when I do I blame the weather )

 

Per Specific Heat of common Substances, the specific heat of wood is between 3.11 and 5.73 BTU/pound degree F. Lets take 5 to make the math easy. 15*5=20 BTU/degree to warm up 15 pounds of wood.

So warming up the wood, you are 2000 BTUs closer. Of course those BTUs came from the wood burning in the stove the night before- there is no free lunch. But, it happened at a time and place far more convenient than in the wood stove while you are trying to get a fire lit.

 

I know you are addressing someone else, but I had a few thoughts on this issue. I think although any temperature spread could make a difference, it's the extreme spreads where the temps are above freezing vs below freezing where it matters.

A 10 lb round perfectly seasoned to 20 % moisture, is still holding 2 lbs of water. This same round sitting in your freezer is holding 2 lbs of ice.
Now put 2 lbs of 60 degree water in a pot on the stove and see how long to boil.

Now put a 2 lb block of ice in the pot, and see how long to boil.

I believe it would take a fair bit more energy to get the ice melted and boil. I'm sure there's a chart stating how much BTU's to raise the temp of water. Time for me to google.

British thermal unit - Wikipedia

 

Great insight regarding the wood being frozen!

The BTUs to raise the temperature of water is straightforward: 1 BTU/degree for each pound of water (at 1 atmosphere pressure and at 60F, but it is pretty close across temperatures and we are wood burners not engineers).

The ice is the trick and that is where the big difference comes. To change from ice to water requires heat to simply change phases. The latent heat of fusion of ice is 144 BTU/ pound. That is, it takes 144 BTU to change one pound of ice at 32°F to one pound of water at 32°F.

That latent heat of fusion is why ice keeps a (well mixed) drink cold until all the ice melts.