Must be loosing it

[bandmiller2]

I'am running low on good dry fire wood so I started mixing in half dry pieces and it seems i'am getting more heat from my outside furnace,that shouldn't be.My OWB is a water tube furnace with a masonry firebox.Has anyone noticed that with semi dry wood.?? Frank C.

[Don_Papenburg]

AW shucks , Frank you are making steam heat with that wetwood added in.  everybody knows steam heat is the best.

[r.man]

What make and model is your furnace Frank? My first thought is that if your furnace is an afterburner style then maybe the more green wood is burning less clean and producing more burnable gases.??

[bandmiller2]

r.guy,my furnace is of my own maufacture a 3'x5' masonry firebox with a steel plate on top and 180' of 3/4" copper tube ontop of that.After traveling the legnth of the plate the gasses just pass up a 20' stack.Mayby as you suspect the moisture has extended the outgassing stage of burning.

[bandmiller2]

Don,yup I love steam heat just wish it wasen't so hard to regulate with a wood fire.Had a neighbor that was kinda a crude dude he had oil fired steam heat in his big old farm house.Went over one day when oil prices spiked and he had a 30' tree stuffed in the boiler with the end sticking out his bulkhead.Says he just keeps feeding it in and watches the gauge glass if its diddling up and down he knows he's making steam.Don I used to have a JD 830 two cyl. diesel used it in the woods to haul out saw logs,my woodlot locomotive,downsized to a JD 70 diesel. Frank C.

[sharkey]

Bandmiller,
Does the fire itself travel through the portion of your furnace that has the copper lines, meaning are there holes in that plate?

[bandmiller2]

Sharky,no the plate is solid.When I first built the furnace for about eight years the copper tubeing was covered with dry sand.After that I had to replace the 1/4" steel plate as it burned through and sand dribbled into the firebox.When I replaced the plate didn't put the sand back and it works better,more responsive.Theirs the steel plate, gap of about 2", copper tube and reflective aluminum flashing then about 12" of fiberglass insulation. Frank C.