Do we need a warm garage....

[ultrarunner]

Most people do. Most people don't know the difference.

If you are burning hard woods (notice I didn't say hardwoods) like oak, you need two years to call it properly seasoned. I used to see people say that on forums, and I scoffed at them as fanatics and woodburning elitists. My 6-12 month wood was burning just fine!

Then I had the chance to get a bunch of honestly two-year seasoned wood, and found out that I didn't know what I was talking about. The difference was amazing.

Now that I know better, I have found the same to be true even of pine. I don't get much pine, and I keep it for shoulder season, but still, I have now burned enough to know that 6 months is not enough. Pine needs at least a year in my climate (Virginia) and it's noticeably better at two years.

In terms of ease of lighting, long burns, BTUs, and less creosote buildup, 2 year wood is far superior.

The downside is that you need more room to store your wood. I only have an acre, but I manage it with 4 pallet bins that hold about 2.5 cords each, and I burn about 4-5 cords per year, so that allows me to rotate bins and keep 2 years worth on the property.

My wood stove is my only source of heat, so it matters to me!


Of course, if you live in a very dry climate, like, say, Flagstaff, your wood will dry faster.

Would a moisture meter accurately indicate level of readiness for optimum burning?

Posted before at the rent house I had splite two cords of wood... about half pine and half oak. It was neatly stacked some distance from the rent house and did this in February...

I also had some well seasoned by the house I told the renter he could use.

Anyway... about 6 months later I was down by the creed and almost all the wood was gone... tenant had been burning the green wood in stove.

When I asked him about it he said it steamed a lot but once he had hot coals it burned...

After that I took out the stoves at all the rent houses.

 

[JRobyn]

FIL burns "sorta seasoned" wood, mostly hickory that's been down a year or more, then cut and split, plus another 6mo or so of drying. So not perfect, but just ok. He's also handicapped with a really small space to heat, so if he keeps his flue temps optimal. It's 85 deg in the cabin. We did get him a flue thermometer, and he does actually try to keep the temps up. And he's handicapped with a woodstove that has been modified in unknown ways (his son) to try to "improve" its control.

 

[KennyG]

Sounds like a bad combination of too large a stove and not quite fully seasoned wood. I'm not sure what you could do other than replace the stove with a smaller one. The situation would worry me a lot. After the first chimney fire I would change something.

My stoves are relatively small compared to what they heat so I can run them at the recommended max pipe temperatures all the time. That and the ability to store two years of wood ahead keeps me out of trouble.

 

[ultrarunner]

My Grandfather had radiant heat and the entire home built in 1964 was wood heat although the boiler could operate on coal and he kept a small coal pile for years just in case... also cooked on a Wedgewood wood/electric stove.

Wood aged in the forest cut and split a minimum of 2 years and summer humidity was high there.

Beech is what he mostly used with some fir...

I wanted to know how he knew when the wood was well seasoned... one was a visual looking for checks and the other is taking to pieces of wood and slapping them together for bounce and sound...

 

[Oldpath05]

Oldpath,

Just curious why you didn't run your single wall up about two more sections of the double wall and put the transition up there. That would have saved on the cost of the double wall and put more heat into the room from the single wall. The transition at the double/single interface, with the nice shelf you made, could have been a straight transition to sweep the whole thing down to a TEE behind the stove. Just curious.

Nice looking installation.

It only took me 6 hrs. to make up my mind on how high to start with the double wall pipe, looking at it now I could of easily started 3' higher/one section/$85.00, and your right, could started 6' higher and saved $170.00, but when my said he had a 4' section of SS pipe&Tee, I measured from that and just buy the Elbow $38.29 and Cap for the TEE $23.84, but tomorrow when I light it up, if there's not enough draft might have to buy another 3' section.

 

[Oldpath05]

I like a warm pole barn when working on my truck

I need a hint what a pole barn is, for some reason I picture 4 poles and a roof making hard to keep warm on a day like tomorrow.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

Would a moisture meter accurately indicate level of readiness for optimum burning?

They are supposed to. I've never used one. I just make sure it gets a year of seasoning (covered or not, don't care) and a year covered, and it's good.

I have read that they are not very accurate, but lot of people use them.

Anyway... about 6 months later I was down by the creed and almost all the wood was gone... tenant had been burning the green wood in stove.

When I asked him about it he said it steamed a lot but once he had hot coals it burned...

Yeah, anything will burn if you get it hot enough, which is why most people don't know they are burning wet wood.

 

[Oldpath05]

Here's the one I installed in my shop: Very low price for what it is, with steel blades and will run for many years. Not fancy, but designed to be totally functional and last a long time. Low speed is enough to do the job in my 900 sq ft shop with 18' ceiling and I can't hear it running.

Westinghouse Industrial 56 In. Ceiling Fan - Mills Fleet Farm

I have to get one sometime and this is in my price range. I would thought the the big box stores would be cheaper, guess not.........

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

I need a hint what a pole barn is, for some reason I picture 4 poles and a roof making hard to keep warm on a day like tomorrow.

The man asked for a hint, so the man gets a hint!

what is a pole barn at DuckDuckGo

 

[Raspy]

I have to get one sometime and this is in my price range. I would thought the the big box stores would be cheaper, guess not.........

Not sure the big box stores even sell these. They are designed for industry and not fancy for home decor.

The controllers that come with them are old fashioned, so if you get one of these fans, get a fan speed controller switch at the big box store for about $10. They fit into a standard switch box, are silent and run cooler.

While you are at Home Depot or Lowes, look around at the ceiling and you'll probably see some of these industrial fans up there running. Most likely painted white. They most likely turned them on when they first built the store and they are still running. I noticed these and began to research what they were. That's how I found the one in the link. Perfect for shops.