OK, let’s just forget all that technical mumbo-jumbo and go directly back to original post by
Dalmatian90 and assume he’s correct in his linear calculation, and use his numbers…
- A cord of White Oak equals 27 million BTU’s.
- 2200 pounds of water in green White Oak.
- 2.5 million BTU’s to convert the water to steam.
- 2.5 million / 27 million = 9.25%
EXCEPT that’s based on 100% of the BTU’s… and no wood-burning appliance is 100% efficient.
Dalmatian90 then goes on to say that the newer high-efficiency stoves don’t do well with green wood… it’s the older 30-50 percent efficiency stoves that burn it well (or well enough). Now understand, a 50 percent efficiency stove will only do 50 percent efficiency under ideal conditions (supposedly), and wet wood ain’t ideal… is it? But anyway, let’s rerun the numbers using 50% efficiency…
- A cord of White Oak equals 27 million BTU’s.
- 50% efficiency equals only 13.5 million BTU’s available.
- 2200 pounds of water in green White Oak.
- 2.5 million BTU’s to convert the water to steam.
- 2.5 million / 13.5 million = 18.5%
Well now, by just allowing for the stove efficiency and none of the technical mumbo-jumbo, that 10% number doubles… So the best we can expect, if
Dalmatian90 is correct in his linear calculation, is a heat loss of 18.5%... not 9.25%.
Now, let’s rerun the numbers using 30% efficiency…
- A cord of White Oak equals 27 million BTU’s.
- 30% efficiency equals only 8.1 million BTU’s available.
- 2200 pounds of water in green White Oak.
- 2.5 million BTU’s to convert the water to steam.
- 2.5 million / 8.1 million = 30.8%
HOLY CRAP!… If I burn green wood in my old pre-1980’s stove I’m gonna’ be losing near 31% of the heat available to me! And that’s
best case according to
Dalmatian90, figuring his stated 30% efficiency. I thought those old stoves were supposed to do the best with green wood? And WTF happened to that 10% number!
OK now, let’s just pretend that only one-quarter of the technical mumbo-jumbo I’m talking about is true… What do suppose the percentage of heat loss from burning green wood is?... 35%?... 40%?... More?