Smoky operation

[Greenie]

I've burned firewood for almost 50 years and this year has been hands down the worst for generating huge amounts of smoke... Shoulder seasons are tough. The woodstove (Sierra 8000 TEC/catalyst) is lit early in the season (October 15 (+/-) ) and then ashes are raked late afternoon to expose coals (ashes drop through grate with raking)... Then small split firewood is added until the stove is over 400 degrees when the catalyst starts burning the smoke better. The air in the late afternoon tends to hold smoke close to the ground while this restarting process occurs. When the fire department rig rolled into our yard last week I knew it was bad. The FD didn't stop to talk to us but turned in our yard and left. 
Luckily we are at least 500' from our nearest neighbor on 21 acres of land. Living in a subdivision with closely spaced homes burning wood in this manner would never fly. Our neighbors still talk to us and wave...
My firewood (white birch) was cut, split and stacked in early March to air dry. The 2023 spring/summer/fall was a very wet year. Firewood is only mildly checked. Firewood enough for the season is stacked in a shed now. White birch rounds I only recently got around to splitting were punky - even beech rounds were starting to show signs of rot. In hindsight I should have at least covered the top of the firewood to keep rain from percolating through - but I always thought the weather would improve. It never did. 
Once the weather gets cold enough to warrant keeping the stove more actively burning during daylight hours this problem should get better.

[beenthere]

Cut in March and burned that winter, it is not very dry wood and will not burn so well.
Better to be split and seasoned for the following winter to have good firewood.
Oak better if seasoned at least three years (2½ minimum).

[SwampDonkey]

Mines always a full year ahead. I burn mostly aspen, fir and spruce. Very little ash and maple big enough to bother, except I do cut trail wood and junk out. But not much volume to it. Mine cut in October-November and is piled over winter, but stacked under cover in April. 12-16% MC by the time it burns. White birch, like aspen, has to be under cover. Even red maple will spoil quicker than sugar maple. Then there is all the wood bugs in firewood of any kind out in the open to the weather, they help the stuff that does the rotting.

[Andries]

I'll park six cages of three year old split oak next to the workshop.

If the wood isn't dry, expect problems and not much heat.

[SwampDonkey]

Overwintering pile for context. ;D



5 cord of this will be stacked inside the basement and the rest in those framed areas on pallets under the porch, this coming April. There's about 8 cord, maybe 2 SxS buggy loads shy. I have capacity to store 11-1/2 cords, well 12 if I want to push it. ;) I've got more than 2 years worth of wood.

Meter reading on the dry stuff.

Stuff under the porch.


Basement wood



Readings taken from fresh split surfaces.

Best wood there is for someone with a furnace as far as I'm concerned. Grows 2-3 times as fast, splits easy, heats just as well. May not be a bed of coals in the morning, but that doesn't do any good anyway if the fan isn't tripped. It won't be hot enough unless you have 4 inch deep coals after 12 hrs. What you'll have is an inch or less. I've burnt denser woods for years, so I know. May work for a stove because you rely on radiant heat, a furnace has to supply the heat with a blower unless you want to sit in front of the furnace door. With aspen I've had coals enough in the early morning to set wood onto to build a fire many mornings. But your talking an ash shovel full or so. And good dry seasoned wood to build it. I've never used kindling wood for years, no more than news print if required.

Early morning coal bed of aspen, makes a quick fire. Furnace blower is tripped at 6:30 mins.

Quick furnace fire with minimal coals in my Napolean model 150 wood fired furnace - YouTube

[peakbagger]

It was wet year to dry in New England, even covered stacks took a long time to dry. A catalyst really does not help a lot with wet wood, it drops the combustion temperature for CO but if the flue gas is loaded with water vapor its just never gets up to temperature. 

Sad to say I have a neighbor with an OWB, that is located way to close to my house. It was an illegal install but he had a buddy who was the building inspector. He did have to install a 30 foot stack and phone pole to hold it up. He buys log length in the spring and burns it that winter, with no top cover on the stacks.  Luckily, he has gotten lazy and burns more oil these days. 

[Greenie]

Very helpful information from all. In a typical March-October drying season the white birch is checked and reasonably dry when it's put under cover in late October. Possibly reasonably dry isn't dry enough but usually I need to clean the metalbestos chimney 1-2 times during the winter. Once cold weather sets in fires are predictable and evenly matched for heating this home. 2023 in this part of Maine was anything but typical.
Maybe a partial solution would be to cut/split/air dry more in March and cover just the top of the stacked firewood so air can circulate through.
Due to soil conditions and equipment I have I'm limited to skidding tree length once the ground is frozen with some snow cover.
Thanks again for the advice!!

[peakbagger]

 

 


I use this method to top cover, I use deck screws to screw in the scrap wood into the ends of the logs. I used an old PVC sign on top but anything waterproof will work. The key is to leave some space at the top to let moisture vent out the top. If you cover the top too tight it will condense on the bottom of the roof and drip down. I normally do a two 1/2 row stack where I space out the bottom logs and leave a 10" gap in between. Once I start stacking, I thrown the odd stuff loosely in the middle and then taper the pile so the top logs are almost touching. Lately I have been using a clear corrugated PVC called Palruf from Home Deppot for the roof, it lets in sun on the top and seems to be quite durable. 

[beenthere]

Very helpful information from all. In a typical March-October drying season the white birch is checked and reasonably dry when it's put under cover in late October. Possibly reasonably dry isn't dry enough but usually I need to clean the metalbestos chimney 1-2 times during the winter. Once cold weather sets in fires are predictable and evenly matched for heating this home. 2023 in this part of Maine was anything but typical.
Maybe a partial solution would be to cut/split/air dry more in March and cover just the top of the stacked firewood so air can circulate through.
Due to soil conditions and equipment I have I'm limited to skidding tree length once the ground is frozen with some snow cover.
Thanks again for the advice!!

You are on the right track. Once you have good dry wood to burn, you won't want to go back to "reasonably dry".
I stack split-wood on pallets and move the pallets to a drying area. Only drape used rubber roofing over the split wood, with a few splits tossed on top to keep it from blowing off. Have not found any moisture collecting under the rubber as it is black and absorbs heat from the sun.
After 40 years of heating my home with an indoor wood boiler for the only heat source, learned a lot what to do and what not to do. Most important was to have dry wood which meant splitting it at least two years in advance of burning (3 for oak).
I did learn that having screws and nails and pallets involved in stacking wood to dry, became an ongoing nuisance when bringing in the wood during the winter and more "cleanup" in the spring. Pallets break up and become a "flat tire" hazard. The 5x5 rubber roofing pieces were less onerous as they could be easily moved about and stacked even at below zero temperatures. Boards with nails and screws, not so much when under the snow.



 

[ButchC]

We have a large old farmhouse and burn a  Jotul Rockland insert that is non catalytic but does have secondary air up at the top. Currently burning a mix of 4 year old hickory sawmill slab and 3 year old elm and cherry mixed.  All was stored outside until put under cover last spring
 We get a wiff of smoke for 10 minutes when when we add a but have a clear stack other than that. Burning wood that is actually dry  is a pleasure that everyone should experiance, they will never go back to kinda dry, or might be dry.  Now on certain overcast rainy days when the outside temps are above 40F or so we will have a bit of smoke come down behind the house.  Also glad that closest neighbor is 3/4 mike away,,,😀 Get futher ahead on your wood and enjoy easier firing, less smoke and butn less.