Hello I bought a home last year that was formerly owned by an arborist. Not only did he leave a cord of cut/stacked oak, the home has an Oneida wood furnace that heats warm air into the ducting used by the central air. The wood furnace is in a back room behind the fireplace. It has automatic air control of some kind. Can anyone tell me more about it, and how to use it most effectively? David
Welcome aboard David! While I can't give you specifics on your model of stove, I'm betting someone will be along eventually that can. As for general burning practices, I can help you some there. The single biggest thing we preach is seasoning your wood.....and REAL seasoned wood is wood that's had anywhere from 1 to 3 or more years, split and stacked. As a rule, woods like oak require more seasoning, I give all my oak three years. But stuff like soft maple, ash, beech, walnut and many others are usually good to go in a year or so. The KEY is to not even consider it "seasoning" until it's split and stacked. Lots of people let big rounds of wood sit for years thinking it's seasoning, only to split it right before winter and find its sopping wet inside...... Creosote isn't cause by species, even though popular rumor says so. The fact is that creosote is caused by wet wood.....plain and simple. Make sure your flue is clean and properly installed, as well as safe to use. You and your families life depends on it. Might pay you to have a qualified person come and inspect your setup, being you are a first time woodburner. Lots of others will chime in, I'm sure......again, welcome to FHC. Glad to have you!
+1 Scotty, very well said. Welcome to the FHC dgeesaman. And as Scotty said, I don't have any background in your system either but there will be a few who do.
Hello David welcome to the forum! The resident expert on wood seasoning should be along anytime now.. Backwoods Savage has written a good article on firewood seasoning etc. Ray
Thanks I'm aware of the requirement for seasoning and I'm not about to believe it's as simple as the "cut this year, burn next year" line. I've been reading a bit about burning wood in cycles, one load at a time, but in my furnace I'm not sure that will work well. The drop holes for the ash are at the front of the furnace box and so I'm tending to push coals back before loading more wood. Then each night when the fire is almost fully burned out to ash, I pull forward all of the ash into the holes and into the collection pan. We add a piece of wood or two every few hours since the furnace is on a thermostat and the extra heat would just get dumped anyway. David
Welcome David! Another Dave here …. I don't have a clue about your setup If is safe, functioning correctly, and working, I'm sure you'll get a handle on it . Troll the site, someone soon enough will be able to discuss your Oneida. This place is a factory for learning! Everyone has something unique to contribute. Best of luck, I just stopped to say Welcome
We did have a local HVAC company out to check the chimney and make sure the system was set up correctly. There are blockoff plates and stuff that have to be changed from summer AC to winter heating. The fellow who built this place was an arborist and set up the wood furnace really well. 3 of my neighbors have woodlots that never get harvested so once I get more experienced felling/limbing/cleaning up I'd like to see if they'll let me collect some wood from their sites. I have a few wooded acres but it's dense and wet and aside from a couple of massive old sycamores that deserve to stay there, not much worth harvesting.
That is a sweet setup. Just pickup one of these Moisture Meters at Lowes, some wood is ready in a year or less. It depends on how and where it is put up for seasoning.
