Does Burning Green Wood In Broiler Work?

[gary s]

I delivered a cord of red oak to an OWB user on Friday afternoon. He called me Saturday mid morning, kinda mad. When he woke up at 6 his house was waaaaayyyy too warm in there. I explained to him the differences between green wood and dry wood.
You can tell some one a hundred times how it is better to burn dry vs. wet. But when they load the stove the same (with dry ) as they do with wet wood, they will not only be able to see the difference, but feel it! lol I am willing to bet he loaded a bit differently last night!

Ted

On less he has an unregulated heat exchanger that just wouldn't happen! Regardless of what wood is in the OWB the most it can do is heat the water quicker, the inside thermostat controls indoor heat. The wood either makes the water hot or it doesn't.

 

[flyboy553]

Only reporting what he told me. No need to shoot the messenger! lol

Ted

 

[NSMaple1]

Gary,

Home made unit. It is what it is.

Have experimented with higher temps but this seemed to be the happy medium for off/on in subzero temps.

End result water temp has been a non issue between floor heat in shop/house garage, air to water heat exchanger for house heat, and hot water heater in house.

Do I have this right - you keep your boiler temps between 115 & 125?

If so, I don't understand how you're getting much heat at all out of a W-A HX in your house - let alone getting much heat out of your wood, or everything not being a big creosote mess. Thinking I must be missing something. Is there more info about your boiler & setup in another thread? Curious...

 

[Cheesecutter]

Ted, I wonder if the guy normally burns the whole load of wood during the night but your dry wood brought the OWB up to temp and held it there longer so it was still producing heat in the morning like it was supposed to be.

 

[gary s]

Ted, I wonder if the guy normally burns the whole load of wood during the night but your dry wood brought the OWB up to temp and held it there longer so it was still producing heat in the morning like it was supposed to be.

It still doesn't matter with a OWB, either your thermostat is calling for heat or it isn't. If your house gets too hot then you have a mechanical problem running a circ pump when it shouldn't, the same could happen burning oil or propane.

 

[NSMaple1]

Not always - kind of depends on what he has for heat distribution & controls & how cold it is out.

I know if my water temps are on the hot side, and it's not real cold out, the room will get warmer than usual after the thermostat stops calling for heat because the water that has stopped flowing in my rads has more BTUs to give up as it cools. If he has cast iron rads, that could be pretty significant - but we don't know anything about his system.

 

[flyboy553]

Next time I talk to him I will see if I can find out. This guy is a friend of mine so I do see him on occasion.

The irony of all this is that he drives truck for a living and hauls logs to mills! lol They won't sell him any logs because the mills are paying big bucks for the wood.

Ted

 

[H-Ranch]

I delivered a cord of red oak to an OWB user on Friday afternoon. He called me Saturday mid morning, kinda mad. When he woke up at 6 his house was waaaaayyyy too warm in there. I explained to him the differences between green wood and dry wood.
You can tell some one a hundred times how it is better to burn dry vs. wet. But when they load the stove the same (with dry ) as they do with wet wood, they will not only be able to see the difference, but feel it! lol I am willing to bet he loaded a bit differently last night!

I've read through some of the threads about complaints wood sellers get from customers and I don't remember seeing that one before. "The wood you sold me puts out too much heat!" LOL

Maybe if you sold Hedge to somebody that filled the stove like they normally would with lesser species and melted it you might hear about it...

 

[gary s]

Not always - kind of depends on what he has for heat distribution & controls & how cold it is out.

I know if my water temps are on the hot side, and it's not real cold out, the room will get warmer than usual after the thermostat stops calling for heat because the water that has stopped flowing in my rads has more BTUs to give up as it cools. If he has cast iron rads, that could be pretty significant - but we don't know anything about his system.

It still has nothing to do with the wood, I have cast iron rads in my man cave and in a rental house, you adjust the thermostat accordingly.

 

[benp]

Do I have this right - you keep your boiler temps between 115 & 125?

If so, I don't understand how you're getting much heat at all out of a W-A HX in your house - let alone getting much heat out of your wood, or everything not being a big creosote mess. Thinking I must be missing something. Is there more info about your boiler & setup in another thread? Curious...

Yep. It works. I have no idea.

Shop is at 65 degrees with floor heat give or take, floor heat in house garage is 60 degrees, house is about 75 from the heat exchanger plumbed into the duct work, and the hot water will scald your a*s upon initial turning on of the hot water if it has been sitting a while. Basement itself is also about 75 from the other water to air heat exchanger thats open to the basement.

The creosote during the longer idle times in warm-er weather is on par or better than my friends Central Boiler during the dead winter. Right now just little flakes here and there, not the tar.

This is about the extent of it right now. This is what's on the door.

Like I mentioned before the forced air is an absolute blast furnace and I bet it would melt a commercially made fire box. We can run a full load of Tamarac (Swamp Pine, really hot) with zero issues. As I mentioned the firebox and add on heat exchanger in the firebox is 5/8 steel. So, heat transfer is much slower than what I have seen with my friends CB.

This how far the run is from the stove to the house. I am standing at the entry to the stove house when I took the picture.

I think there are 5 Taco Model 0011 pumps in the whole circulation mix. 2 in stove house, 2 in the house, and 1 in the shop. So needless to say, circulation is not an issue. They are big pumps.

I have a few theories for the reason for the little heat loss from the stove to ultimately back.

One is that the tubing is insulated well. Not CB Thermo-plex insulated but bear with me here.

The tubing for the shop sits on top of 4 feet of sand fill. A good insulator once equalized. There is also foam insulation 4 feet down along the sides of the shop foundation. The shop is also completely spray foam insulated.

The run to the house was not dug in but directional drilled. My neighbor said that he was, if I recall right, 10 feet deep from stove house to main house and then came up into the utility room in the house and connected in. The basement is also spray foamed. over the bare concrete. The garage floor heat is also on top of sand and the sides insulated similarly.

So basically, I really have no idea why it does half way decent, just theories.

 

[John R]

It still doesn't matter with a OWB, either your thermostat is calling for heat or it isn't. If your house gets too hot then you have a mechanical problem running a circ pump when it shouldn't, the same could happen burning oil or propane.

I agree, something is wrong.

 

[benp]

I agree, something is wrong.

My thought of what possibly happened. (I am on a theory roll tonite....)

Because of the green or unseasoned wood the btu's were not being put out. Heat in the house was jacked up for some reason to possibly try and compensate for unseasoned wood. Unfortunately, even though the house was set at xx , air temp was actually xx (colder) because the stove was not able to accommodate that set temp.

Good seasoned wood was introduced, now the asking temp was met.

Translation, hot house.

 

[flyboy553]

You got it Benp! I had to call him and find out what was the deal. He had the thermostat set as high as it would go because of the wood he was burning. lol We both enjoyed a good laugh.

Ted

 

[benp]

You got it Benp! I had to call him and find out what was the deal. He had the thermostat set as high as it would go because of the wood he was burning. lol We both enjoyed a good laugh.

Ted

Good deal. Nice that it was a simple fix!

 

[flyboy553]

The part I didn't tell ya was that he knew it was much drier wood, but he might have been out and about and had a beer or twenty so when he got home he forgot to turn the thing down. lol

Ted

 

[Cheesecutter]

My thought of what possibly happened. (I am on a theory roll tonite....)

Because of the green or unseasoned wood the btu's were not being put out. Heat in the house was jacked up for some reason to possibly try and compensate for unseasoned wood. Unfortunately, even though the house was set at xx , air temp was actually xx (colder) because the stove was not able to accommodate that set temp.

Good seasoned wood was introduced, now the asking temp was met.

Translation, hot house.

This is sort of what I was getting at only worded differently. I was figuring his overnight load of wood was struggling to get his OWB up to temp. It probably ran low on wood causing the OWB temp to drop, thus his house was cold in the morning because there was no heat available. Either way, he wasn't utilizing the BTUs he needed.

 

[StihlRockin']

It still doesn't matter with a OWB, either your thermostat is calling for heat or it isn't. If your house gets too hot then you have a mechanical problem running a circ pump when it shouldn't, the same could happen burning oil or propane.

Not somewhere in my area of knowledge, but that sounds right to me.

StihlRockin'