Does anyone continue to burn in the warmer months?

[baroil92]

Just wondering how many of you guys and gals burn wood in the warmer months, to heat thier domestic hot water or a spa? I personally never have, I guess I was concerned with the fire danger and just the simple fact that Ive never been that far ahead of the cut, to spare the wood. Id be curious to see just how much wood it would take to heat just the hot water and spa.

 

[2rod511]

Just wondering how many of you guys and gals burn wood in the warmer months, to heat thier domestic hot water or a spa? I personally never have, I guess I was concerned with the fire danger and just the simple fact that Ive never been that far ahead of the cut, to spare the wood. Id be curious to see just how much wood it would take to heat just the hot water and spa.

I heat my domestic hot water year round. In the summer here in NC my OWB only needs to be loaded once or twice a week. Keeping the fire going keeps me splitting some wood, and the pile gets bigger than it would if I just shut down wood burning all together.

The biggest problem I have is keeping the fire lite in the summer. With the temps being so hot the blower doesn't come on often enough to keep the fire going. I drilled a small hole in the damper door to allow the fire to get air without the blower going. In the winter you can just run a screw into the hole.

 

[Gavman]

I burn all year, but its outside in the summer months, nothing like a fire pit, some cold ones, a guitar or two and some good friends over....

 

[Iska3]

We have the CB 5036 so I set up the indoor heat plumbing with a 10 plate heat exchanger (in-line) that I run direct for our hot water and a by-pass to the forced air furnace as soon as it’s warm enough outside, I’ll by-pass the furnace and keep the boiler going for the hot water all summer. You know all those ugly splits and short chunks that you don’t want to burn in your indoor stoves… Those and the dried out punky stuff will heat my water all summer.

I also have heat lines that run to the garage and in a few weeks, I’ll by-pass the garage and run the second pump to the 250 ft. of 1/2” non-insulated pex that I ran underground to the cold frame boxes by the garden. I start most of my plants from seed so the cold frame boxes work like a mini-green house. I’ll set my owb temp to 160 degrees and might need to add some wood every few days.

The key is dry, well seasond wood. The only smoke we get around here if from the fire pits down the road. My LP tanks has been on 28% for three years now..

 

[Whitespider]

I burn wood 365-days a year, but not in any sort of appliance during summer. As soon as frost leaves the ground so the fire pit in the front yard can drain we'll light a fire in it that won't go out until next Thanksgiving or so... barring a three-day rain. Near 90% of our cooking is done over, or in the fire pit; and when it's warm enough so the food don't go cold we eat outside on the front porch... we pretty much live outside between the freeze. Heck, if it wasn't for the kids I don't think we'd even turn the TV on from April through September, I'll even sleep a few nights in the hammock under the Sugar Maple.

 

[haveawoody]

In this neck of the woods most of April we are still burning to take the chill of the house, then back to early to late September before it's needed again.

I'm always burning painted or dirty pallets, bark and debris from tree work or wood that isn't useful as firewood so if it isn't cold it's just catching up with burning that.
364 1/2 days LOL

 

[haveawoody]

Whitespider,

What wood do you use for your fire pit cooking?

I always have tons of willow and other next to useless firewood here that just ends up as a constant fire with no real use.
Turning my crud wood into cooking wood seems like an idea to turn wasted wood and time into something productive.

Thoughts on cooking with that sort of low quality wood?

 

[bowtechmadman]

I have heated my DHW during the summer with my OWB but have chose not to the last couple years. Price of using fuel oil compared to running the circulating pump just too close for the extra work.

 

[Whitespider]

What wood do you use for your fire pit cooking?
Thoughts on cooking with that sort of low quality wood?

The wood used for a cooking fire directly effects the flavor of the food being cooked...
Willow and "crud wood does not lend itself to very good flavor... baking biscuits in a closed dutch oven is a different story though.

 

[sunfish]

Too hot here in summer to burn wood!

I did heat all our water with wood for a few years in a boiler I built,
but that became a pain in the ass. So put a elec water heater in...

 

[slowp]

Nope. I sometimes run an airconditioner in August. When it gets warm here, the fire danger goes up. We were pretty paranoid last year. My house sits in the woods and I'd hate to burn it up. So no campfires if things get hot and dry.

I've been planting more woods around my house too.

 

[Guswhit]

I have heated my DHW during the summer with my OWB but have chose not to the last couple years. Price of using fuel oil compared to running the circulating pump just too close for the extra work.

I am with you 100% now. I ran mine all last summer just to se how much I would burn for the hot water and have concluded that it just isn't worth it. If I filled the furnace too ful it would bridge over and the fire would nearly go out, so I finally got down to filling it once a day with just enough to get through and stiring the ashes well. Oh, and the winds change direction at our house in the summer and the smoke wafts to the back yard where the kids play and the deck is so it can get a little smokey.

I forgot to mention that I live in a subdivision that an 18 hole golf course runs around and am at the corner of a short par 3 and then the next par 4, so when I am in the yard on weekends people are constantly coming over because they think my OWB is a smoker of some king and I am cooking. I tend to burn alot of cherry they can apparently smell coming down the fairways. Some days it is fairly entertaining, other days not so much.

 

[haveawoody]

Whitespider,

Yeah I figured cooking with crud would = tasting like crud LOL
The closed oven baking idea is a goodie though, lots of tasty things can be baked and avoid the crud smoke.

 

[memory]

We burn year round since we have 2 water heaters hooked up to the OWB. That saves quite a bit of money. I think alot of people that come in and see it smoking in the middle of summer think we are crazy.

 

[doug4k]

I burn all year, but its outside in the summer months, nothing like a fire pit, some cold ones, a guitar or two and some good friends over....

how long does a guitar or 2 burn? :biggrin:

 

[savageactor7]

Very occasionally we'll touch off the stove to take the chill out...but not often.