Those were some big rounds. What if not seasoned? Are they efficient like a stove or require lots of wood?
ya I'm sure they weren't properly seasoned. unseasoned wood does have less btu's and makes for creosote issues. but chimney fires aren't a problem in an owb and the bigger chunks are less work. so its a trade off.
I sold a half cord to a young couple back around Thanksgiving. They just bought the house and it had an OWB. He was just starting it up and wasnt familiar with it (neither was I). The prior home owner had built a nice high roof over it in the back yard and had a log deck on the hill above it with several logs still there from what i saw. It was getting dark. Im dropping 16" long splits for him to burn right next to it under cover and it seemed like he would burn through my load in no time. Told him i have more if he needed it, but didnt hear back. First time ive ever seen one in person. I cant imagine throwing a wheelbarrow full of wood in one loading!
my first year burning in an owb. I burned the exact same amount of wood as my wood stove. only difference was, the house was a consistent temp and I didn't have to load 4x per day. side note I could also burn in 40-70* weather. I built it big enough that i could do once a day fills. I usually filled it twice a day though. its better with twice a day fills.
Felter, never dreamed I would see a guy burn a big log round like that into that boiler, that's wild! Sheesh, that'll burn for days, it seems. Unless he's heating the commune.
ya its wild what some ppl burn. it seems like a lot of ppl with owb's have a lot of square feet to heat, and/or multiple buildings.
I bought a pick up full of that from our dump. It would not wet. Ended up amending it like 2-1 with peat, but still did not wet well. Too bad I would have bought a lot more.
Yeah, I make my own and if it bakes in the sun and dries out it can be a bear to get it going sucking up moisture again. I find I have to use drip on it with auto timers because all I have to do is miss one of two waterings a day with 5 gallon buckets and I have a dead plant in a brick. Closest I can get to hydroponics fast growing lettuce without doing hydroponics. I've also started adding a shovel full of regular soil to it because there is something in regular soil that some plants need. Like a bacterial kick-starter of some sort.
