Partially seasoned wood in a catalytic stove

So now to explain myself. I have been burning wood all my life. When I used to cut and split my own the rule my father taught me was anything split before July was good for that winter. I currently buy my wood from someone who follows the same rule. I have a Joltu Firelight 600 and have never had a problem with any of the wood that I have split or that I have bought.

I have recently come in to some money and I am going too buy an Ideal Steel. I have never run a Cat stove before. I have been doing alot of research and see that for any Cat stove they want a moisture reading of 20 or below. So I went out and bought a Moisture meter and test a few pieces from the half cord that I have left over fro last year ( and yes I split it and checked the fresh flesh) and I get 19%. So that means the wood that I will be getting this year will be above 20 and I'm guessing 25% or more.

Now that I know that I am getting this stove I am buying double the wood so that I can season it an extra 12 months, but my question is how bad is this going to be during this transition? I know that someone out there has had to of burn 25%+ moisture wood in a cat stove and if you are brave enough to admit it I would really love to learn from your experiences. Not everyone could have planned the transition from non-cat to cat stove 2+ years in advance.

 

Frog welcome. I am going to let the more knowledgeable folks answer that question. Just to let ya know we enjoy dogs, beer and lots of pics. Great group of folks out here. You will like it here.

 

Welcome rfogg !!! I don't have a cat stove, so I can't speak from experience.. I will offer you a couple of solutions to lower the moisture of your wood.. First, you could split some of it smaller so it loses moisture a little more quickly (probably not enough though). Mix in small pieces with the bigger pieces to bring down your average moisture content. Next option would be to buy a cord of kiln dried wood. If you can get some that is 15%, you can average it in with your 25% wood and to help reduce the overall moisture content. Finally, you can look for dead standing or dead and down wood that has been down for several years.. That stuff will tend to dry more quickly as most of the bound moisture has already vacated the wood. Not sure of your capabilities with respect to cutting and splitting your own wood.. Whatever you do, I would think that a more frequent inspection of the catalytic combuster would be in order.. Best of luck with the new stove!!!!

 

Welcome, rfogg!

No disrespect to you or your dad, but give this a good read -

Primer on Woodburning by Backwoods Savage

 

Standing deadwood is not an possibility for me. I am how ever building three more wood racks next to the stove so that way I will have 1 cord in the basement drying at all times. I will also split it down some to help it dry quicker. With my Jotul I would go through about a 1/4 cord per week during the peak of the season so I figure each rack will get about a month to dry inside before i need to use it. I was planning on mixing what I have left over from last year with the new stuff 50/50.

I'm waiting on a call back from a place that sells kiln dried hopefully that won't be to expensive. And I am going to try to find pallet wood but I hate the nails.

 

I augment my supply with branch wood from trees that I process. Call me crazy, but I've processed an entire tree (except for the stump and roots) to go through my wood stove. If you have a chop saw, and a place to pick up dead branches, you can get a supply of pretty dry wood to mix in.. It's obviously a lot more work than just getting a cord of kiln dried delivered but it works and you can clean up your yard in the process.. Some of my favorite wood is red oak branches that have died on the tree, dried out and fallen to the forest floor. Those burn like they were doused in gasoline!!!..

 

Welcome rfogg !
You should be able to burn stuff that is 25%, but you are going to lose efficiency (with ANY stove) and gunk up your chimney some...so you will burn more wood, need to clean the chimney more often, and have to fool with the fire more...the wetter the wood the more cantankerous it is to burn. Once you get to 30% MC I don't think I'd bother burning it, too much trouble in my opinion.
You can try to get wood that dries quickly, like silver maple, boxelder, pine, poplar, basswood, maybe beech, etc. then you add that to your wetter wood to help balance the loads average moisture content...not ideal, but it might help get you by until you get ahead a couple years worth. Compressed sawdust bricks/logs work too...

 

Thanks for the info on 30%. I hope it won't be that bad!!! I was thinking about getting a second cat and doing a monthly clean and sweep, but I don't know if it is worth damaging 2 new cats. I was also wondering about running the stove in bypass. I know that it would not be as efficient but I would think it would be similar to running my Firelight.

 

As for using pallet wood...just slice n dice 'em up with a circular saw...I can have one made into "firewood" in a couple minutes...but I burn 'em nails and all so...if you don't want the nails, just cut the slats right beside the stringers and then don't burn the stringers.
Oh, and congrats on choosing a great stove! There's many members with WS stoves here...

 

Yeah I use to use a chainsaw to cut them up but skillsaw blades are much cheaper than chainsaw chains.

 

I don't know the condition of your basement but I have heard other out here say they set up fans and dehumidifiers to help the wood dry.

 

My first winter with an EPA cat stove, I burned red oak with MC in the mid 20's. Blacked the glass worse. More creosote in the chimney. Takes longer to get a reload burning good. Etc.
But it burned ok, got me by with no real problems.

 

Welcome to the club. Lots of great folks on here, sharing knowledge and humor. Have you gotten the WS stove yet? Does it have to be installed this fall? Just thinking maybe use the Jotul to give yourself more time to get dry wood. We have a Drolet Blackcomb, which has tubes, it's not as picky about the wood either.

 

If you have some leftover wood, you could look at mixing dry and wet together as you mentioned to bring down the average moisture content of the load. Also you mention keeping some wood inside - if you can stack the next load near (BE CAREFUL) the stove for a couple stove cycles before you burn it, the heat and dryness will drive a bit of extra moisture out of the outside of the wood, making it catch easier.

We switched from owb to an Ideal Steel last season, so I had a bunch of under seasoned wood that had to be not only cut down to size (owb cut to 24" , too big to fit in new stove!) but also dried a bit before burning. It can be done, but you will definitely feel the difference between "go" and "no go" wood in output and ease of reload.

One tip for burning marginal wood is to reload before it's absolutely necessary. A hot bed of coals will drive out moisture quickly and leave you with a much easier fire to manage than if you're lighting on a marginal coal bed, or God forbid a cold restart. You'll learn to read the fire and the temps to know when you're good to drop the cat, just give yourself some extra time if you know the reload has some wetter wood in it, and as has been mentioned be ready to clean the chimney and cat a few times over the course of the season.

With some good preparation you'll be fine, and it will all be gravy from here on.

 

It doesn't need to be installed this fall but I do have some dry wood left and would like to take advantage of the 6 month but back garuntee if we don't like it. I really do like my jotul. And the way money goes in my house if I don't buy it now then we will use that money for some other project.

Can you run it in bypass without damaging anything if the wood is a bit to wet?

 

I think it has been mentioned, but see if your wood guy, or another wood guy, has any pine or cedar. It could be cheaper and should be dry in time.

Just spit-balling but could you scrounge some pine or cedar or yellow poplar logs, or silver maple and cut them into cookies. The cookies should dry out even faster, although i’m not sure exactly of the best way to stack cookies.

How many cord do you think you need?

Landscaping companies love to dump pine chips, but I bet you could get logs even easier. Try a “chipdrop” for pine logs and I doubt you would be waiting long, depending on your area, but worth a shot.

 

I thought about getting pine because it will dry faster. I don't know if my wood guy even deals with pine because of all the wood fired power plants around it's just easier for him to drop the pine there.

He didn't call me back yesterday either so I think that means he is on his annual fishing trip to Alaska. Hopefully he will be back soon so I can see what he has left for wood.

With my Jotul I would only go through about 4 cord a year but that was because I can't light it until it gets below 35 outside otherwise we are sitting in a sauna all night. I'm hoping the IS will be better for the shoulder season.

 

Welcome aboard rfogg


Is there much/any ash up your way?

It dries pretty quickly, and if split small and stacked near the he stove, it should dry enough to burn.

We purchased an IS ourselves, and I believe that it can be run in bypass mode, but of course wouldn't be as efficient. I also see no need to completely forgo using the cat, just engage it a bit later after reloads/restarts.

Since you'd be burning in much the same manner as with your Jotul, you shouldn't get much more creosote than before, but something to keep an eye on.

 

Welcome to the FHC rfogg ..
I happen to have a Woodstock IS.. and I probably live 45 minutes north of you.. if the wood is 20% moisture or less on a fresh split.. You will have no problem burning it.
It's not really the cat that causes the problem IMO. The cat needs to be about 500 + degrees to burn the smoke efficiently. The problem is wet wood does not burn at 500 degrees.
I don't have many Oaks up here mostly maples ash beech. Etc etc
I burned almost dry wood the first year it made it harder to learn the stove. The next year my wood was 15% average and the IS is the easiest stove in the world to run..
Fill it, get it to temp, shut it down and forget about it for 8 to 14 hours..