Do you burn wood?

The EPA is proposing restrictions on wood smoke.
Of course it only covers new wood heating devices.
For now...
Article

I just skimmed through it. Are they talking about only selling wood gasification units? I didn't see where it said that,but one has to assume. To be honest with you,I thought that went in to effect a few years ago. Not that I'm in to gubmint intervention,but from a common sense point of view,yes,they're more expensive,but WAY more efficient. I don't know why a person would buy anything but a gasification stove or boiler,except the price. You'll make it up in savings though.

This little unit is so efficient that the temp of the stove pipe right where it comes out of the stove is only 50c.

We are on our second gasification boiler, first was a TARM that rusted through and began to leak at 19 years old. We bought an Alternate Heating System Wood Gun boiler in summer 2012 when the TARM died and it is great, it will burn really big chunks and also sawdust, shavings, pine and whatever comes out of the shop dust collector. Also the door latch is a lot better than the TARM. AHS says they have some boilers over 25 years old and still going, so I am hoping this one will last a while too. I like the gasification method a lot, it is much cleaner and more efficient.
Zach

What brand do you have there if you don't mind me asking.

Also, while I'm being nosy, does it heat the whole house? How much wood do you use per month or whatever to heat your house if you do?

Thanks.

Because it's so much worse to release all that carbon. Carbon that's been in a tree for up to 100 years as opposed to fossil fuel in whatever form that's been in the ground forever.

I can grow another tree!

Actually fossil fuel has not been there forever and it comes from old trees not dinosaur bones.
Walt

That one's not mine. It belongs to a friend in Sweden. It's a Nibe. He says he uses about three sticks of wood every twelve hours. He uses less than two cords a year. It stores the hot water in the insulated tanks behind it along with water heated from solar panels. Needless to say the panels don't do much this time of year,but from April til October they heat the house and all the domestic hot water.
Nibe heating and cooling systems

So whats the difference if you burn a tree or it gasses out laying on the forest floor ?

wonder why the DNR is allowed to do "controlled burns" of hundreds of acres each year? Why not take a chance it will fall and rot before the lightning "mother natures smog" gets it ? It's about control, not saving the atmosphere. Oh almost forgot...control = money. Explains a lot.

Why don't these people go out and get a real job? I think they have done enough damage to our country all ready. Stan

i heat with wood, most of the time, and i burn anything that will fit in the thing, but one thing i do make sure of is that its all seasoned, 8 months to a year usually since i cut my own i know when i did it, i havent noticed much smoke unledd i let the wood smolder or it got wet somehow, the only restrictions i use is having a spark screen on the chiminey which is common sence anyway

I'd be curious about the particulate matter, air quality is important for good health, especially those with respiratory ailments, and those who don't have these problems yet, but will (younger people, still in the "invincible stage").

Its reasonable to say that burning wood is not the cleanest method of creating heat for ones home or elsewhere, its also reasonable to say that not everyone conforms to standards that make the combustion process as clean as it can be. Its plainly obvious to me, that your wood must be well seasoned and have as low of a moisture content that is possible, which will provide the most btu's out of what you burn. Dry wood certainly does not create a lot of smoke or visible by products, it would be interesting to see an analysis of the gaseous effluent coming out of ones chimney, under varying conditions, types of wood etc. Take it to the next level, wood gasification, not as simple or as cheap as a regular wood stove, but I'd certainly want to do that here, I have a nice supply of wood surrounding my home, its a resource that should be utilized, as efficiently as possible.

Some people do not manage a firebox well, don't use seasoned wood or how many variants thereof, seems a lot of the outside wood boilers are or in the past were tended by people who would toss anything in there, and smoke areas out, that would be highly annoying as a neighbor. I have someone nearby that burns garbage, it is the most annoying smoke, during nice weather, or when you are able to sit outside or have windows open, another burns coal, its nasty, reeks like heck and its always bad when there is no air moving, but still warm enough to be outside and or have windows open, people don't get it, so theres always someone going to be miffed at someone elses fire. I try to ignore it, but if I know who it is, I try and explain it, one neighbor agreed, and its much better, they still burn, but not the smoldering and annoying smoke like it was.

A few years back, I was doing some work in my fathers house at the other place, during winter, getting used to the fireplace insert air tight stove. The woodshed is attached to the den or family room and the split wood was seasoned for years, as it had not been used too often for a number of years. Wood burns very clean, maple, ash, apple, elm, black cherry, and ignites instantly on a bed of coals, you could damper it down, and limit the oxygen and really control the fire, heated the area quite well, stack shows some vapor when real cold, smoke on a cold start up, but effectively as efficient as you can get, that wood was super dry. When he moved in there, later he'd fire up that stove and would choke it off too much, the darned smoke would get into and around the barns and it was so darned annoying. You have to let enough oxygen in, and you have to leave enough opening in the damper, maintain a certain flame with what you are burning. This was like I said, the driest wood you could have, so you could dial it in so it burns longer, but without choking it, that's the part he does not get, he thinks choking it right off, and the longer smolder is getting max heat, I disagree, lower flue temp equals more creosote as well. I am sure he's not the only one out there smoldering the stove.

I sometimes have wood with some moisture,not green, but say at the bottom of my single stacks, not on the ground, I lay runners down. Other times a tarp will blow off or, what was quite dry gets wet, most will dry before I burn it as I can haul a cord inside if I need to, right near the stove to dry down. You'll get a little sizzle for a little while, I'll try and mix drier wood with it, and adjust the fire accordingly, check the stack, flame and its clear once that flame is right. My set up just does not create much creosote, no matter how use it. Only the top 2 flue tiles get any coating, lower is gray soot color, I keep my flue temperatures up, not over fired, but hot enough to not have any problems. I just inspected the flue, it has not changed, and I've burned 2/3 of a cord (size of my single stacks) of elm that was cut and split at the end of September, started that stack about a month ago, some sizzle at times, mostly not, single stack up on this hill dried down well in a short time, the rest is exactly one year seasoned. I will be starting on next years shortly. 6" pipe leads to a 8x12 flue. I check the stack frequently, its mostly vapor, though I can see black soot at times, and or blueish smoke at start up, once up and going the only visible gas is vapor, when the fire is hot and its cold, like 20 deg F or lower. One of the things that makes a lot of this soot is bark, much of the elm I burn is debarked as it falls off, and or I do clean it to eliminate places for bark beetles to live that spread the D.E.D. fungus. Burn that bark in a burn barrel and its plainly clear where a lot of soot comes from, and yes its paper dry when I burn it, I cover the pile til I can burn it.

I agree that for example with global warming, something is changing, is it man made or is it not, that is the question. If man made and it has consequences, then we should be doing something about it, as best and as feasible as can be done. Same with these wood burning devices, appliances and or what have you. You go back and look at the pollution, I posted some old rail footage years back from the nearby city, those olde coal fired locos and even the diesel ones created quite a bit, the buildings, where people lived nearby, were all subject to this, we've come a long way since. I'd lean towards, G. Carlins humorous take on enviro nuts, "Save the Earth...." his take was that the earth has been fixing itself for a very long time, but to be completely ignorant of what we do, is foolish, all things said, EPA can't come down like a dictator, but wouldn't all appreciate cleaner air, done reasonably and with commons sense, not politically motivated fervor or some corrupt self serving agenda that some group lobby's for ?

I suppose wood smoke is causing global warming??

your last two sentences are the brunt of the problem. Too many people on the public payroll trying to justify their jobs with BS programs.

New York State posed a ban on OWBs about 4 years back. Older boilers were grandfathered, but if there was a complaint from a neighbor, first the boiler owner could raise the chimney up higher to solve the problem and all new installations required a 15' chimney. If the problem presisted, the owner could be required to stop using the OWB. All new boilers had to pass EPA phase 2 emission standards as far as particulate emissions. This ment that the OWBs had to be gassification units. The OWB also has to be 150' from any neighbors property line. This regulation was for OWBs only. A boiler installed in a garage, or celler and all other appliances installed inside a dwelling don't have to meet the phase 2 now 3? emission guidlines. The law is still in effect, and most code enforcement jurisdictions, require permits and inspections.
To clarify a bit more, solid fuel appliances and new chimneys require a permit and inspection. and comply with all W-H requirements clearly visable on every appliance, for clearances, from combustable surfaces, walls, furniture , curtains etc.
Loren, the Acg.

RR,
How many gals do your buffer tanks hold? They sure help the efficiency and burn intervals considerably.
Loren, the Acg.

(quoted from post at 11:53:59 01/07/14) So whats the difference if you burn a tree or it gasses out laying on the forest floor ?

Click to expand...

utcome is the same but the one you see and the other you don't.
Gubmint only focus on what they can see and can ban with fine attached or tax.
Its all about the money.

I use wood as a back up heat source (small wood burning stove). Saved my bacon today because the electric went out for about 6 hours. Was able to keep the house in the low 60s even tho it was minus 13 when the power went out. This afternoon the power is back on and the temp has climbed up to 25!

He said they were 450 gallons each,but looking at the website,I think he was a little off with his English and meant 450 liters.

Maybe but for how long? Million years? That's forever to me.

If it is causing global warming its doing a pi** poor job of it.

Zack:

How much does a boiler system like yours cost (ball park figure)? Did you install it yourself? I've seen your grandpa's Hardy setup, but I imagine yours is a bit more complicated.

Thanks: Gary

Hey Gary - this is another Zach Hoyt - not my grandson - but still a pretty nice young man.

Paul

Thanks Paul! Sorry about that. Hey, If he's a Hoyt he has to be a good guy!

Sorry Zach! Had you mixed up with some good Hoyt folks here in Illinois!

Gary

I burn pallet lumber for most of my heat. Occanisly cedar posts,railroad tie pieces,lite pole pieces,oil filters,pieces of flaps out of truck tires.

Global warming, climate change, it's all a crock of crap.

Humans have been on this earth for a split second of its total existance.

We have volcanos, hot springs, underwater magma flows, etc. Forest fires, grass fires, lots of things generate heat and co2.
I was in the Rocky Mountain National Park up on the continental divide outside Estes Park and saw where the divit was from a melted glacier. They said it melted 1700years ago.
Well, what caused that? Cave men with too hot of fires in their caves??

Man is too puny to cause that much problems when you look at the whole earth, oceans, and atmosphere. And so what if we do put restrictions, taxes and rules in place???? China, India and other countries will just laugh at us as they keep on polluting.

Gene

China recently declared over 3 million acres of farmland too polluted to grow food on. They have 8 year old children getting lung cancer from the air pollution. Thank heaven we have the EPA looking after our health and best interests. That is what government is supposed to do.

I just copied and pasted this from your link!
The better quality wood stoves with secondary air should easily pass this requirement.

It's coming.

There'll be a day when you won't be allowed to strike a safety match without violating some kind of law. New York and California always lead it off - not saying it's good or bad - I'm not smart enough to know in the big scheme of things, but we can smugly think we're saving the universe, while China has air you can cut with a knife. Kinda like the global "warming" issue - we chuckle about the idea while it's 10 below zero, conveniently forgetting that conditions are miserably hot right now on the summer side of the planet. In a few months it'll be our turn. And it's a fact - no one on earth is smart enough to know if it's preventable or if we're just along for the ride. Right now it's a political issue, and that's what's saving us old folks that depend on wood heat. Thank God for Al Gore and the people who hate him. He's inflamed half of the population and that saves us from an open flame being illegal. As long as we have him to kick around, we'll be able to provide heat for our families.

Meanwhile, I'll keep stuffing wood in the heater, just like dad and his dad did, oblivious to the political winds that blow the stink of discontent and control. . .

(quoted from post at 21:08:17 01/07/14) China recently declared over 3 million acres of farmland too polluted to grow food on. They have 8 year old children getting lung cancer from the air pollution. Thank heaven we have the EPA looking after our health and best interests. That is what government is supposed to do.

I just copied and pasted this from your link!
The better quality wood stoves with secondary air should easily pass this requirement.

Click to expand...

Yup, thank goodness the gov't is there to outlaw incandescent lightbulbs and replace them with mercury laden florescents and to out law big sodas and to outlaw guns and out law pretty much any substance or item that actually works. Look around you and you can see how gov't is fixing all our problems. In fact, today is the 50th Anniversary of LBJs "War on Poverty"! Boy, we sure got rid of poverty fast, didn't we?

Once again! If you throw a CFL in the garbage when its done it will still be less mercury pollution than if you power an incandescent with a coal fired power plant! We have only had 3 fail in 10 years of usage, (we have quite a few) and we recycled those! What part of this don't you understand?

I understand how you qualify everything you defend with "if's, and's or but's". I've read the cleanup instructions for CFL's and the warnings. They aren't anything I want in my home, plus they don't save much power, plus they are expensive and plus they don't give off the heat I need when I use a bulb for keeping water drops thawed. IOW, it should be a CHOICE, a free mans CHOICE if he wants to use them. But you prefer to take choice away.

And as far as the rest of it goes, your Master is working to outlaw coal fired plants. What will your defense be when it's all "green" energy?

Some European wood burners in houses and large buildings have been in place for 100+ years and still burn clean. These are the high termal mas German/Russian/Finn stoves with the undampered outside air vents for the firebox and a couple tons of rock and tile to absorb the heat before radiating it into rooms. Internal S baffled chimney path, secondary air intake inside the stove above first and second baffle above firebox means wood gas/volatiles/particulates get burned with minimal pollution discharged. Water tanks on/in the thermal mass known- a feature of the German "farm" stove. Benjamin Franklin wrote about the superior "German" stoves compared to the English fireplace and noted the English were running out of convenient firewood- and the experiments he did for retaining heat, gasification burning with a S smoke path resulted in the Franklin Stove- helped some in stretching firewood supplies and it was smaller than the big German structures. Plain firebox"s like the basic Menards/Harbor Freight are usually not external air intake, lack top baffle, lack thermo mass- but a couple years back the Mexican made model was sold for $99.95 and the guy that I bought it for did heat the whole 2 story house from a living room location during a Iowa winter while trying to save money to fix the oil stove in basement. Had to feed it every couple hours but he had lot of wood available and kids learned to take turns doing the wood feeding. It did smoke a bit from tall chimney, town was a little annoyed but he was outside actual municipal border. Norwegian Jutal or Jutul stoves are a larger looking box stove but have a upper baffle for secondary burn and a intake port stub tube that can be connected to outside air-recommended- and a fire brick inner lining that retains heat longer, uses 1/2 the wood of plain fire box for amount of heat, less wood filling required- but about 3 or 4 times the cost. Atlantic(?) Stove works had a couple of soapstone stoves- the "rock" panels replace the cast iron or heavy sheet metal of other stoves and are a good thermal mass, the Potbelly model cutaway showed a upper baffle and a intake vent with dampner tube that could have been hooked to outside wall, inner raised grate and it was the "railroad" model that wood handle wood or chunks of coal. Shipped freight, too heavy for UPS and cost some more for the larger models that had to be assembled by "Factory certified" stove installer for the warranty to be in effect- but did provide long heat before filling cycle. Korean farmhouse stove design had long under floor chimney/hypocaust and a undampered firebox outside of heated room with rock surround, water tank and cooking surface- the kitchen was sealed off from larger living room that had the under floor heat effect. All the old efficient designs have in common a open intake air-often outside air- for best fire burn, secondary "gas" burn and large thermal mass. They also required lots of labor to build from a time of cheap labor that now means a high installation cost. EPA rules add cost to the simple designs, old design has the materials and labor cost. Fisher stoves were some of better "small" designs- heavy sheet metal, some cast iron, internal baffle and both inside fire brick and often outer stone thermal mass, were clean enough until late 1990s when clean burn rules were proposed tighter. Fisher worked some to make a clean burn to meet proposed tighter codes and ended up with the water jacketed outside wood burner huts designs as best to meet building codes, fire codes and emissions code. Catalitic convertors in the stove pipes with heat exchangers getting sold now. ODB11 connected to dampners, thermostats maybe next.RN

Mountains out of mole hills. Stellar shockers. Sells news papers, truth, half truth, half lie, or lie, sells papers. Any apology is on page 13 in fine print with a bland heading, but the headlines have already sold the papers. Pfffffffffffffffft

Mark

(quoted from post at 21:35:07 01/07/14) The EPA is proposing restrictions on wood smoke.
Of course it only covers new wood heating devices.
For now...
Article

Click to expand...

I don't understand why they want to put restrictions on working folks that look out for there money... The other day I was setting at the drive thru at my bank... It over looks what use to be were the upper class lived, all those older two story houses have chimneys BUT not one had any smoke coming out of them... I take it welfare means you do not have to cut/chop are burn wood...

(quoted from post at 17:58:17 01/09/14)

(quoted from post at 21:35:07 01/07/14) The EPA is proposing restrictions on wood smoke.
Of course it only covers new wood heating devices.
For now...
Article

Click to expand...

[b:0b242f78d2]I don't understand why they want to put restrictions on working folks that look out for there money[/b:0b242f78d2]... The other day I was setting at the drive thru at my bank... It over looks what use to be were the upper class lived, all those older two story houses have chimneys BUT not one had any smoke coming out of them... I take it welfare means you do not have to cut/chop are burn wood...

Click to expand...

What makes you think they give two hoots about the working man?!! What drives them is the political agenda they are working toward. You know, Utopian Socialistic America! No rights, freedom or personal responsibility as we'd understand it. Every one getting the same, thinking the same, doing as they're told...except for the more equal pigs that are in charge of course.....

Because they want us all to be former working folks sucking up public assistance- in whatever form it might be- living the easy life, instead of working every day and barely getting by.