How do you believe they are exaggerated?
I agree, when fed well seasoned wood they don't smoke all that bad. When fed green, bug infested, rotting wood they will smoke bad like any other wood burning device. What stops people from doing this in stoves, furnaces, and boilers? Safety. It is unsafe to burn wood like that without the risk of a future chimney fire. Whereas on the other hand people will claim that the ability to burn this wood is a "feature" of an OWB.
Here's a little anecdotal evidence from a guy who doesn't sell furnaces and is pretty easy going. One of my neighbors has an OWB and from what I can see he uses the "ability" of an OWB to burn green wood quite a bit. My home sits 1900 feet off the road and he's another couple hundred yards up the road. Sometimes when the wind is right I can smell that smoke dragon puffing away. Does it bother me? No, I like the smell. Can I see it bothering someone else? Heck yes and especially if you live close to this guy. There is no reason anyone should have to put up with someone's smoke like that on their own private property, they have a right to that.
I know I'm being a bit argumentative here and I'm sorry but I just can't get behind logic like that. Just because we can't be as efficient as a fossil fuels doesn't mean we should just give up on trying to achieve higher efficiency. That kind of logic totally ignores the fact that wood is a cheaper fuel source for heating purposes.
There are efficiency gains to be had in burning wood and to ignore them is just a cop out.
People touting the wood usage of an OWB is exagerated. I used the example of miller1. He lives in roughly the same climate and uses nowhere near 15-18 cords of wood per heating season. Other OWB owners have chimed in on this thread claimiming that they use nowhere near the amount of wood that nonOWB users are claiming......That is an exageration!
Stories of huge gut wrenching clouds of smoke pouring out of the chimneys is an exageration.
Those pics in my post are of rotted, bug infested wood burning, yet you claim that burning such wood will, and I quote "I agree, when fed well seasoned wood they don't smoke all that bad. When fed green, bug infested, rotting wood they will smoke bad like any other wood burning device."
I burn the rotted, stuff now and save the good stuff for colder weather.
People naturally want to think what they have is best.
You said..........I agree, when fed well seasoned wood they don't smoke all that bad. When fed green, bug infested, rotting wood they will smoke bad like any other wood burning device. What stops people from doing this in stoves, furnaces, and boilers? Safety. It is unsafe to burn wood like that without the risk of a future chimney fire. Whereas on the other hand people will claim that the ability to burn this wood is a "feature" of an OWB."
It is a feature. A safety feature perhaps. We don't worry about chimney fires.
Your neighbor uses his OWB to burn green wood. Thankfully you don't have a problem with the smell as others have. But you need to understand, neighbors, or just plain people in general, like to complain about what other neighbors are doing.
They complain about dogs barking, chickens crowing, property lines, ATV noise, the smell of cows or horses...etc.
We had some neighbors that recently moved here from in town (city folks). One day they approached my wife and I and wanted us to sign a petiton against our other neighbors about one guy's dogs barking and another guy's chickens crowing. We refused.
They seemed a little upset that we wouldn't sign. I told them that those sounds are part of country life and I had no problem with it. If they didn't like it, move back in town.
You see, that is the problem. neighbors just like to complain what the other guy is doing. You always hear people complaining about having neighbors with loud ATVs. Even though the ATV owners ride on their own property. They call it noise polution. Isn't it funny that the complaining neighbor's lawn mower is louder than the ATV?
I'm getting off track here.
You said....."I know I'm being a bit argumentative here and I'm sorry but I just can't get behind logic like that. Just because we can't be as efficient as a fossil fuels doesn't mean we should just give up on trying to achieve higher efficiency. That kind of logic totally ignores the fact that wood is a cheaper fuel source for heating purposes.
There are efficiency gains to be had in burning wood and to ignore them is just a cop out."
My logic is, there are those "green everything eco whacko's" that would have a problem with you. They'd say your gassifier creates polution and that you shouldn't have it.
They might advise you to switch to solar or wind technology or something like that. Heat with natural gas maybe, its more "efficient" causes less polution? Isn't that the same thing you are telling OWB owners?
Hopefully one of your neighbors will have a problem listening to your chainsaw in the back yard. Is it fair for you to create noise polution so that your neighbor can't even listen to the birds sing from his very own back porch? Why should you be allowed to disturb the whole neighborhood's peace and quiet.
I know I'm being a little too critical. I'm just trying to make the point, that neighbors just complain and are never happy unless they are complaining.
We had a neighbor complaining about another neighbor's horses smelling. Its that bad. People just like to complain.
Thank God my closest neighbor is about 600 ft away.