I bought a load of wood to finish out my need for the coming season. Getting to old for this chit. The splits are bigger than I normally process my wood. As an example: The split I measured was 8" and quart split. 32" dia, round I would have normally split that piece in half again. Will these larger split make the combustor work better? Woodstock AS
Smaller pieces will still be consumed a lil faster, no? Might burn a lil hotter too? But I dunno, never owned one. Might just come down to drying faster, and easier to handle...
Burn away with no concerns. If it fits through the door it will burn fine and the cat will not care what size you burn.
It will likely need longer drying to reach the same moisture content - and that is what determines most of how stuff burns (as well as combustor performance).
I initially start my fires with about eight pieces in the 1&1/2 to 2" range with a couple hand fulls of splitting slash. Within minutes I am up to 500 degrees or more and then kick in the catalytic cumbustor. So smaller splits will get your stove cooking faster and hotter. Eight inch pieces should be fine once you have a bed of coals created. I like splits in the 3-5" range for producing nice flames and keeping my glass clean.
I've been burning this cat stove for like 12 years now and about 50 cords. I experiment with split sizes because the BK ads tell us that a benefit to their stove is that you don't need to waste time splitting so small. They say the larger splits with the less surface area are able to be burned slower which is a good thing for longer and lower burn times where these stoves are meant to be run. Here's the problem, it's hard to fill a stove with huge splits. You need smaller ones to fill in between the splits for maximum pounds of fuel in there which makes for maximum burn time. The actual size of the split doesn't matter as much as how many lbs you can get in there. So I go a bit smaller these days. Easier to sell, load, light, and fill the box.
I've only burned my BK 40 for one winter, and that's what I found as well. To really pack it full, smaller is better. Most of my wood is split in the 4"-5" range. With the stat, it's so easy to control the burn. I didn't feel it burned any faster. Looking forward to starting my second burn season with the stove.
My stove is not cat actually its a secondary tube style stove that I've modified into a smoke dragon. But I have experimented a lot with split size. Here is my conclusions. With big splits I believe you can usually fit more pounds of wood in but you have more air gaps. With smaller splits you get less overall weight of a load but you can make a much tighter firebox. In my particular stove I find a load of small splits to be a much more even burn (steadier temps for longer) while big splits seem to spike more. I also find I get less creosote if I run small splits. I still have some very big splits from previous years that I'll burn that way, but as I spilt for future years it's all getting split smalll
You learned faster than me. I think a mix of sizes is ideal to get some big splits in there and then fill the spaces with smaller ones. The big 40 allows even more room in the box to fiddle with load density and the resulting benefits. It should go without saying that all wood, large and small, has been dried to somewhere in the teens of MC%.
I agree 100%. MC is everything! My wood is 3 years seasoned under cover. I burned such a small amount last winter, it blows my mind. I like to randomly split open pieces during the winter and see where the MC is running. Usually it falls 11-15%. As efficiently as the BK 40 burned last winter, I kinda hate to change a thing!
