bark on or bark off

for some reason i have this thing about wanting to get as much bark off during splitting,, if i am cutting wood like red oak i am not to worried about it since the bark is thin,, but like the hickory i have been working on it has 1" or thicker bark on it,, what i am getting at does it make a whole lot of difference whether or not you burn a lot of wood with heavy bark?? i am referring to creosote buildup,, ok,,lets put it this way,, is it better to have all the bark off when burning,,, hey,, i am freaking tired so i can't type straight,, my brain is not working right,, any input would be greatly appreciated

I dont think the bark has gave me any problems yet. I even save the bark that falls off for kindling.

We leave the bark on, regardless of species. Sometimes, when the rounds lay out in the sun for a long time the bark becomes loose or fall off. That goes in the "starter" pile. We've never had a creosote issue.

o8f150 said:

for some reason i have this thing about wanting to get as much bark off during splitting,, if i am cutting wood like red oak i am not to worried about it since the bark is thin,, but like the hickory i have been working on it has 1" or thicker bark on it,, what i am getting at does it make a whole lot of difference whether or not you burn a lot of wood with heavy bark?? i am referring to creosote buildup,, ok,,lets put it this way,, is it better to have all the bark off when burning,,, hey,, i am freaking tired so i can't type straight,, my brain is not working right,, any input would be greatly appreciated

Click to expand...

well as far as it goes for me... and this is just me..... i dont worry bout the bark that much. creosote is from the wood moisture content.... though bark can hold mositure as well, if you cover your wood the bark dries quickly... its the mositure in the wood that will create the creosote.
the only thing i know bark really does is make more ash to haul out.

My wife likes to see as much bark as possible next to the splitter. She has a valid point, there is not as much to fall off on the carpet on its way to the stove. Guess I can do my share at keeping house clean.

I have noticed that more bark = more ash in the stove. As long as the bark is dry I do not think it will soot the chimney up.

Yep, the only thing I notice about heavy bark is a bit more ash. As long as its dry no more creosote. I go out of my way to burn everything I bring home, including bark. I also burn a bit of slab wood which has a higher bark/wood ratio. I pick up all the bark that falls off and I use it to start fires. I do notice that a whole stove full of bark smokes a bit more initially than barkless wood, but once the fire gets going there is no difference. I clean my chimney only in the spring and I don't get more than a sandwich bag of creosote and it is mostly just ash.

Back in the pre PC days when I was in Boy Scouts we used to collect "squaw wood" that was used in evening awards ceremonies. It was hardwood twigs between pinky and thumb sized 1' long. It was supposed to be dead wood that was off the ground that had lost its bark. They would use it for ceremonial fires and the idea was that it would burn quick, hot, clean, and leave little ash to clean up. Each scout was supposed to come to camp with a cubic foot. The woods around the campground had been picked pretty clean.

I'm sure the call it something different today.

all of my wood is under room with no sides so it gets good air circulation,,, for some stupid reason i was thinking that the bark would cause more creosote,, i burn a lot of bark in my shop stove since its an old stove,,

Dude, your avatar is just creepy.

stihly dan said:

Dude, your avatar is just creepy.

Click to expand...

SHHHHH! He may bring back Barney. :msp_scared:

I have never had a problem with bark in any of my stoves. I will agree on the ash but no more creosote that I could tell.

I leave as much bark laying in the woodlot as possible... especially thick bark.

I cut a lot of Bur Oak that has thick bark, up to 3-inces thick on some big trees. I figure the more bark on the wood, the less wood I can stuff in the firebox... and the wood is where the heat is. Normally I do all felling and bucking I plan on for the season before I fire up the splitter, which gives the rounds some time to sit and "age" just a bit. Usually that's just enough time so the bark comes off easily using the splitter wedge... just a touch and it "pops" right off. I don't get annal about it, if it's clinging tight then it stays; but after it's been stacked a couple years and as I'm loading to haul to the house I pull any off any I can (which is most of it) and give it a flip into the woodlot.

Besides making less heat and displacing potential wood volume in a given space, bark makes a lot of ash and holds most of the dirt and bugs... especially thick bark. Personally, the more of it I can leave for Mother Nature to dispose of, the better. Bark, or the lack of it, is one of the reasons I like working "big" wood... lots of clean, bark-less, slab-sided, square splits that maximize the potential volume in a given space... whether it be the stack or the firebox.

o8f150 said:

does it make a whole lot of difference whether or not you burn a lot of wood with heavy bark?? i am referring to creosote buildup,, ok,,lets put it this way,, is it better to have all the bark off when burning,,,

Click to expand...

I am glad you asked, I was wondering the same thing! :msp_biggrin:

No more creo in dry bark than dry wood as mentioned above it all relates to moisture content. Bark burns so I burn it but if it is coming off I help it along. It would be nice to have stacks of barkless wood due to better use of space but I am not running out space for more wood stacks here. I would never go out of my way to remove it.

Absolutely on the hickory, slab that bark off. Get it dry, the slabs, and it will knock the bugs down. Hickory just gets eat up bad unless it is real dry. Ive just noticed, hickory with bark on is still good wood but gets really just rank with those..whatever they are bugs. Around here anyway. Got some old stacks, every piece with bark has bug sawdust crap on it, and that drops down to the piece below, and so on. Messy. What is dry with no bark is still nice, no sawdust crap.

I just started this winter slabbing off all my bark outside pieces whenever the round is large enough to do this easy. Separate stacks with the slabs, and the heartwood all goes on other stacks. Slabwood with bark on is now the grade two wood in my stash.

I also think all the wood, bark on or off, dries better then. I try to make the outside slabs thick enough to have some good wood there, but not real thick, say an inch or two max. Makes it easier to split, too, off the large rounds.

I generally split the "edges" of the rounds off trying to achieve a "block" from my round. Those thin outer splits with the bark get stacked with the rest of the fire wood blocks.
Moisture content and low flu temps create creosote,,not the bark. If the bark is loose I peel it off, otherwise it gets burnt.

If the bark pulls off easily, then I toss it in a pile while splitting or stacking. If not, it stays on.

Throw the pile in the chipper and make some nice compost in early spring.

"Creosote" is the result of incomplete combustion. That results from low (<1000 F) firebox temp, insufficient air and mixing; lots of moisture doesn't help. (Thank the EPA for promoting clean, efficient stoves.)

Firebrick lining of combustion chamber is your friend. And, don't let the secondaries go out, period, ever.

If you see smoke outside, some of that schmutz has already accumulated in the pipe. It's THAT simple.

Yep bark will add to the ash accumulation but there's no harm in burning it as far as I can tell. And like the guys say, bark will usually fall off well dried splits anyway.

Debarking fresh splits will speed up drying; bark holds moisture in. And it holds those little white worms or caterpillars ~ I'm not sure what they're called. Whatever they are they eat little tunnels between the wood and bark.

So when you load your stoves with pieces with bark on them do you put them in bark up or down. :monkey:

CTYank said:

(Thank the EPA for promoting clean, efficient stoves.)

Click to expand...

Clean… yes.
Efficient… not so much.

Going from an old smoke dragon last year to an EPA certified (non-cat) firebox this year, I’ve noticed as temperatures drop so does the efficiency. During warmer periods this EPA box uses far less wood than the old box, but during colder periods it uses at least as much, if not more wood than the old box… and when it gets down-right arctic out it definitely uses more wood, a lot more! Overall, my total wood consumption hasn’t really changed… but we’re not as warm inside during extreme cold. And, the longer the cold weather lasts the worse the disparity gets.

Now some of y’all have argued that my problem is a bad install, or bad draft, or my modifications, or I’m using a firebox too small, or whatever. But none of that made any sense to me; the firebox is damn close to the same size as the old smoke dragon, and installed/modified in the same fashion… there just had to be more to it than that. I’ve experimented and tried dozens of things to improve performance, the best result has been to leave the intake air wide open and control the fire with a flue damper… better, but far from perfect. I’ve contended that the EPA design was simply a poor design, and in some ways I still think that… but the real problem is the EPA and how they require testing.

The EPA requires testing to be done under conditions they believe would result in the highest emissions rate (i.e. warmish weather) using a 15 foot stack height (measured from the floor the stove is sitting on). And the stove must perform, without the fire going out, while remaining within regulations, at minimum draft setting using dimensional lumber rather than cordwood. Well, that’s far from “real world” for many of us… my firebox is in the basement, resulting in an overall chimney height approaching 40 feet. What happens is, as the temperatures drop and the wind increases, the “heating efficiency” of my EPA box falls below that of the old smoke dragon… yet, because of design, the “combustion efficiency” remains. In other words, compared to the old smoke dragon much more of my heat is exiting the flue, which explains the excessive coaling and why the flue damper works best for me. Simply, the EPA regulations are all about combustion efficiency (emissions)… they have nothing to do with heating efficiency. In reality, in my home, during extreme cold, an old smoke dragon will use less wood and be a far more efficient “heater”… and yes, produce more emissions. During warmer weather the EPA box would be a better choice, but that ain’t when I need the heat the most.

Now, y’all can argue with me if ya’ want… but I’ve studied this at length. The other day I came across this article written in the 2006 WETT newsletter that not only confirmed what I was suspecting… but does a darn good job of explaining it. He calls it the “Florida Bungalow Syndrome"…

Florida Bungalow Syndrome

…and it also explains very well why some of us have problems similar to mine, while others of us don’t. Basically, the closer conditions are to test conditions the better these EPA stoves will work, but as conditions move away from test conditions the worse they will work… and the degradation in performance ain’t linear. If my fire box was sitting on the main floor of a single story, ranch-style home, in a slightly less cold and windy area of the country I’d likely be singing its praises… but living where I do, in the type home I do, I’ll never get close to the performance I need when January rolls around. It-is-what-it-is… it’s all about having the correct tool for the task at hand.


addendum; Sorry, I'm not meaning to hijack this thread, upon hindsight I should have started a new thread with it.
Which I've done, find it here...

http://www.arboristsite.com/firewood-heating-wood-burning-equipment/230141.htm#post4182465