The Chimney and the Beyond EPA Standards Stove

[slowp]

I just had my chimney cleaned for the first time. It has been four years since it was installed. My woodstove is a Warshington State certified stove so it has stricter requirements than the national ones.

Here's the verdict. It needed a brushing but wasn't very bad. I am apparently burning the right stuff. I burn Doug-fir, alder, maple, and a bit of hemlock.

When I bought the stove, the sales guy said it would burn clean, and I guess it is. That's a good thing.

 

[Rookie1]

That's refreshing to hear a salesman tell the truth.

 

[stihly dan]

What kind of stove is it?

 

[slowp]

A Quadrafire something. Second up from the smallest.

 

[flotek]

That can't be right everyone knows if you burn pine wood in your stove you'll get so much creosote and pitch that it'll smoke out the neighborhood and burn your house down !

 

[Chris-PA]

I like to throw a pine split in on a hot fire with coals and watch the secondary combustion go nuts. It's like an afterburner.

 

[slowp]

That can't be right everyone knows if you burn pine wood in your stove you'll get so much creosote and pitch that it'll smoke out the neighborhood and burn your house down !

I am not burning pine. Doug-fir and Western hemlock yes, pine no.

 

[slowp]

I'd probably burn pine but it wasn't logged. The wood I am burning now is mostly culls from a logging operation. Western White Pine and Lodgepole Pine grow at higher elevations.

 

[slowp]

I do think this stove is sized correctly for a colder climate. One fire in the morning and then another in the evening keeps the house warm. When we have a cold spell, which the predictors are saying will arrive tomorrow, it keeps the house just right if I feed it during the day. We are supposed to have a low of 20 tomorrow night which is not that unusual here.

 

[CTYank]

I like to throw a pine split in on a hot fire with coals and watch the secondary combustion go nuts. It's like an afterburner.

Yup. A really "pitchy" one. Lights up the room.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

I just had my chimney cleaned for the first time. It has been four years since it was installed. My woodstove is a Warshington State certified stove so it has stricter requirements than the national ones.

Here's the verdict. It needed a brushing but wasn't very bad. I am apparently burning the right stuff. I burn Doug-fir, alder, maple, and a bit of hemlock.

When I bought the stove, the sales guy said it would burn clean, and I guess it is. That's a good thing.

Last year my friend down the road from me borrowed my 4 piece chimney cleaning brush and handle set up to give his flue a good running through. Now, since his stove was installed probably 6 years ago he had never done it. So here I am thinking: "okay buddy, break out the 5 gallon bucket because we're gonna need it for all that soot". After the sweep, he had barely enough dry creosote to fill up 2 small coffee mugs. His stove was an EPA Harman.

 

[slowp]

That's good to hear. I do remember the stove salesman saying "You'll probably never have to clean the chimney." and then "I shouldn't have said that." The chimney sweep also put some sealant around a seam on top. This year, I've had little puddles of water on the stove top 3 times. Oddly enough that has only happened during foggy drizzly weather--not during the downpours.

 

[Locust Cutter]

I had the chimney for my T6 cleaned out last year after three hard years of burning Hedge, Oak, Locust and a bit of piss elm and Cedar. They pulled out less than a small coffee can of soot. I would still like to replace my T6 with either a Jotul or a Woodstock Soap Stone, but for now it heats decently and burns VERY clean.

 

[flotek]

I posted about the dangers of burning pine as a joke . ..Seems Everyone thinks you'll burn your house down if you burn a non deciduous tree . They don't realize that's all that's available for a great deal of the west and north of our continent

 

[blacklocst]

This is what I brushed out having burned about 4 to 5 cord last season.
.

 

[regulate34]

I live in Canada. I bet more people are wood heat north of the 49th then all the hardwood burners of the south. All we have in most of western Canada is Pine and Fir. That sap riddled- creosoting-chimney fire- house burning softwood.

everyone who burns wood here burns pine and fir. I get upto 10hr burns with pine and 12hrs with fir.

end of a season I have 0 creosote build up and maybe a 1/2 gal pale of soot.

just my 2 pennys ( or 1.85 pennys USD)

 

[Whitespider]

...had my chimney cleaned... woodstove is a Warshington State certified...
Here's the verdict. ...wasn't very bad. ...apparently burning the right stuff.
...sales guy said it would burn clean, and I guess it is. That's a good thing.

I've been hesitant to ask this... but, what the heck??
So what do you attribute the relatively clean burn... or more correctly, the relatively clean chimney to?? Is it because the stove is Washington certified or because of the way you use and feed it??

If you say it's because the stove is Washington certified... I'm gonna' ask you how you know that. Have you also run an EPA and a non-EPA stove connected to the exact same chimney, used and fed them the same way, for the same length of time, and then compared chimney cleaning results?? If you haven't, how can you possibly say the relatively clean chimney is due to a Washington certified stove??

If you say it's because of the way you use and feed it (i.e., your words... burning the right stuff)... I'm gonna' ask you how you know that. Have you tried feeding it the "wrong" stuff (whatever that is), for the same length of time, and then compared chimney cleaning results?? If you haven't, how can you possibly say the relatively clean chimney is due to your use and feeding??

If you say it's because of both things... I'm gonna' ask you how you know that (right after I take a deep breath). How can you possibly know that if you haven't run comparisons??

I mean... c'mon... my chimney is clean, I ain't never brushed it in near 23 years, I just shovel out a little bit of soot from the clean-out every 5 years or so. Except for one miserable season with an EPA certified POS, it's always had a smoke dragon connected to it... and I've burned near every sort of wood (wet and dry) we have in this area. Heck, I've burned old greasy rags, I've poured used oil in to get the fire started, emptied the ash tray in it, tossed in bit's of plastic and rubber, and lord knows what else the wife and kids have thrown in there. Exactly what is the "wrong" stuff??

Sorry (shrug)... but I really get tired of these "certified" stoves being so damn glorified without anything to support what's said.

If I told you that brand-Y gasoline was way better than brand-X, because I'd switched from brand-X to brand-Y and my truck got 28 MPG... wouldn't you ask me what kind of mileage I got with brand-X??
What if I answered with... don'no, never checked mileage with brand-X.

Well... sorry... but that's exactly what I see in (most of) these "certified" stove glorifications.
*

 

[Oxford]

Aw, come on, man. That's one heck of a reach to call that "glorifying." She identified her stove as certified, said it was clean, made a perfectly reasonable supposition that a clean chimney might be indicative of good firewood. After two-stroke oil debates, you educating the rest of us on your fever-dreams of America:Return to the 1700's, and pictures of wood splitters, "What is Good Firewood and What Are the Consequences of Burning Bad?" consumes the most AS bandwidth. And right after that probably comes "I like my stove."

You don't like SlowP, I get it, but I don't see that she used a comparative term anywhere in her post. And you complaining that a person isn't willing to rigorously test a system regardless of their personal beliefs? Your tongue is going to jump out of your head and run down the street in shame, if you had any shame.

Give the constant aggravation a rest, why don't you?

 

[Whitespider]

Oxford, how do you know I don't like slowp?? You can't know that, therefore you can't (or shouldn't) say that.... heck man, I've never met the girl. Admittedly some of her posts open the door and feed the fire for me... but many people I like do that.

Yeah, you're right... her post wasn't anything uncommon for AS. I let my mood get the best of me, and for that I apologize.
slowp, I'm sorry for jumpin' all over ya' that way... I wasn't necessarily aiming it at you.

But Oxford, that ain't a retraction of what I stated... I don't say things I don't mean... but I could have used better timing, wording and discretion.

Oh... and "constant aggravation"... heck man, I've only been here 4 years, I'm just gettin' warmed up
*

 

[bigbadbob]

I burn about 2 cords per year in my 3 year old osburn, get about 2 cups of soot per year from a 20ft plus chimmney that runs on the outside. A few nuggets at the cap.
Burn fir, am happy as chimney fires are not a nice thing!!
BBB