What the heck IS an EPA stove

[laynes69]

I don't buy your numbers spider. Like mentioned above, not everyone will reduce the air to the lowest settings, especially when its cold. I can load 50 pounds of locust in our furnace, at around 3 cuft, maybe a little less, and have that load reduced to coals in 6 to 7 hours when its below zero, keeping our house at 70-72. If its in the teens, see 10 hours or more and in the 20-30's who knows.

 

[Whitespider]

...a EPA unit will burn longer and cleaner on the same firebox you can twist it around however you like but it's reality. Sorry but that means superior performance by most anyone with a brain

Anyone with a brain? Even someone with blue lips, goose bumps and uncontrollable shivers?? I beg to differ with you.

Spidey the real issue is most of the time a stove is burnt with the air shut down in the slo mo mode.

Says who?? You?? Nobody I know runs 'em that way.
That's a very inefficient way to run any wood-fired appliance... especially a (so-called) smoke dragon. If ya' take the time to study it, that was the justification for the original EPA regulations on wood stoves... because there's idiot operators out there. Yeah, like how many?? One out'a hundred?? Maybe one out'a fifty?? And now the rest of us that understood how to get the most from our boxes have to live under consequences enacted because of a handful of idiots. Sorry, that's flat wrong.
I don't run mine that way. I use smaller fuel loads when less heat is required, and a deep(er) coal bed for longer cycles. I burn (relatively) fast during "flame" to rapidly break the fuel down to large, long-burning coals, then maintain temperature with the coals... I get longer heating cycles (burn times), little to no smoke and constant even heat throughout the heating cycle. "Slo mo mode" is only used during the coal stage (when EPA secondary burn is meaningless). With the draft blower I don't even need to adjust anything, it does it for me... the trick is simply knowing when and how much fuel to put in the box. Basically, unless it's a friggin' extremely cold day (like windy and below zero all day), the box gets fueled just twice a day... in the morning, and in the evening. I'd be willing to bet I'm getting something over my "hypothetical" (your word, not mine) 60% efficiency more than I'm getting less.

Point being, if and when I install secondaries inside of my dragon, will it be able to get hot enough to ignite them without all of the insulation? Should it be able to be shut down and have secondaries burn the "smolder"?

Yes, you'll get secondary ignition without the insulation... or at least I do. I took the firebrick out of the sides and back of my PE and the secondary is a regular firestorm still... I haven't noticed any difference. Probably the only difference would be the overall combustion "efficiency"... you may lose 1% or 2%

None of them will burn smoke at "smolder"... at least not what you think of as "smolder". The EPA type secondary burn stove accomplish that secondary burn by adding air, making the smoke ignite easier and burn more completely, which also makes more heat. You should know, as a "smoke dragon" user, that a "smolder" ain't possible under those condition. What these guys are calling a "smolder" is what you and I call a medium-slow, hot burn. Think about it... when the secondary adds air and flame to the box, what's gonna' happen to your "smolder"? What you and I consider a "smolder" is the total lack of flame; so in that sense you can't have flame and "smolder"... can you?
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[Whitespider]

I don't buy your numbers spider. Like mentioned above, not everyone will reduce the air to the lowest settings, especially when its cold. I can load 50 pounds of locust in our furnace, at around 3 cuft, maybe a little less, and have that load reduced to coals in 6 to 7 hours when its below zero, keeping our house at 70-72. If its in the teens, see 10 hours or more and in the 20-30's who knows.

C'mon man... that's a silly argument... that in know way means I'd get the same results in my house, under my conditions, I could easily get only ½ that performance.
My numbers were comparing one box to another... not comparing your house to mine.
Try and stay on the same page...
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[Bushmans]

True on the smolder thing. Probably a bad choice of a word on my part. I just keep hearing how they can shut it completely down and burn all day with no smoke. I can't do that without smoking on loads only an hour or so old. Coals yes..wood no.
Sometimes I do it just because I have gotten the house too hot and need to "kill" it.
I still want to put secondaries in. It can't hurt. I just won't be able to see them is all.
I wish I had some glass in my doors.

 

[laynes69]

Your house has zero to do with it. I'm saying I can reduce a load in 6 to 7 hours on some of the hardest woods to produce a high number of btus. Change your scenario to an equal burn time and see the difference. I'll also add I see more heat output off a coalbed now than with the old furnace, thanks to my heat exchanger.

 

[Whitespider]

I love it when some one dismisses peoples results.
Spidey's numbers look realistic to me.
He never makes a claim that the old stoves will burn as long or as clean as the new stoves.
Did you read the post?

Thanks... and you're one of only a few here that understand I'm not making unrealistic claims... I'm simply pointing out how unrealistic some other claims are.
Ya' flat can't burn at a few points more efficiently and gain significant heat output and significant burn times... it ain't possible unless you were really screwin'-up before. Just think of it on a long term basis, such as this sort of claim...

"I only burned half as much wood all last winter, and my house was much warmer."

Really?? No kidding??
So your burning your firewood at 20%, maybe up to 30% more efficiently... yet you used 50% less wood... and got a bunch more heat??
Magic I say... friggin' magic‼ (or you were srewin'-up big-azz-time with the old box... and I mean stupid big-azz-time)
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[Whitespider]

Your house has zero to do with it. I'm saying I can reduce a load in 6 to 7 hours on some of the hardest woods to produce a high number of btus. Change your scenario to an equal burn time and see the difference. I'll also add I see more heat output off a coalbed now than with the old furnace, thanks to my heat exchanger.

I'm callin' BS again‼
You specifically said, "...and have that load reduced to coals in 6 to 7 hours when its below zero, keeping our house at 70-72."
You specifically indicated you were keeping up with your heat demand (your house, your conditions) in those examples... and now you're claiming the opposite??
Besides, my examples included reducing the coal bed to ash, not just reducing the wood to coals... go back and read it again.
And try and stay on the same page...

 

[laynes69]

Well half my load in the morning is ash...Sorry I missed that didn't know I had to get technical. My old furnace put out more btus at a single given time, but that was short lived. Once the load dropped to coals, so did the house. Like I say, play fair and plug in the correct numbers to get the real story. For those who saved 50% in wood, they had stoves that were either terribly inefficient, or oversized for the house. You seem like the bigger is better man? Not me.

Our old house had a 150,000 btu natural gas furnace that was maybe 60% at most efficient. I replaced it with a 90% 60,000 btu furnace. So according to you, the old one was better because it produced more btus? After the installation, the first two months I didnt recieve a bill because they estimated without knowing I replaced the furnace. After things leveled out, my gas bill dropped from 350.00 a month at 70* to 130.00 a month at 72*. That and our comfort level increased a bit.

Say what you will, Ive seen the benefits. Smoke and mirrors I guess, Nothing wrong with a little magic. If your happy with your daka that's great, But I wont cry when furnace's like those are off the market.

 

[stihl sawing]

opcorn:

 

[oldspark]

oldspark didnt you tell me a long time ago that you have tall open ceiling and big windows. Plus sounds like you went with too small of stove.

No wonder you have issues. Issues with the stove I mean

Did you miss where I said the old stove was very rarely loaded full, I probably used about the area of the firebox (or less) of the new stove 95% of the time so a smaller stove with a 3.1 cubic foot firebox made sense to me. The new stove will not put out the heat period and its not just the size of the stove either.
I had older windows and some areas not insulated plus I was heating the whole house at that time and still kept this place at 70.
I still think the stove is not working right but the numbers I am coming up with are not good, the average BTU's over an 8 hour period seem rather low to me for the Summit.

 

[oldspark]

If your wood is wet alot of your heat btu's in the wood are wasted boiling water out of the wood plus if your trying to use that wood in a high efficiency stove the stove will not operate properly and will actually burn worse performance than the older type stoves. As you will have to keep the input air open most likely all the way and if the stove doesnt get into the secondary mode of burning smoke these stoves do not produce very good heat trying to burn them like an old fashioned stove. So you basically have alot less heat because of the poor quality wood then alot of that heat you do have is getting flush up the flue so its a double whammy on ya.

I have seen videos of a guy with a nc30 trying to build heat up in it using green wood with the door wide open.

I hope you are not saying I have wet wood, I have 5 year old Oak and 2 or 3 year old ash and all is below 20 percent. The flue gets hot in just a coupe of minutes some days and I can turn the air all the way down at times, how dry do want the wood to be?
Hell I think its the secondary's that keep the flue temp high.
And another thing the chimney hardly ever smokes, the most impressive aspect of the stove.

 

[oldspark]

"Spidey the real issue is most of the time a stove is burnt with the air shut down in the slo mo mode. Trying to get a long burn while your at work or you sleeping"
That's because they did not know how to operate a wood stove, no wonder there are chimney fires, any one who burns like that needs a check up from the neck up.

 

[naturelover]

I'll have to see if I can get a picture of the 30 burning just the smoke. Problem is that its kinda hard to take a picture of it, though a flash does produce a neat flameless picture.

 

[Whitespider]

Our old house had a 150,000 btu natural gas furnace that was maybe 60% at most efficient. I replaced it with a 90% 60,000 btu furnace. So according to you, the old one was better because it produced more btus?

I posted nothing of the sort... you really need to read what I post, not read into it what you want it to say.
I actually compared two new furnaces that produced the (known) same per hour output, which ain't even in the same county as your example. Heck, you're just guessing on the efficiency of your old one... guessing at "maybe 60% at most efficient"...
Here, let me quote it for you...

"Take two furnaces...
#1) rated 110,000 BTU/hr at 73% efficiency produces 80,000 BTU's of heat per running hour.
#2) rated 90,000 BTU's/hr at 89% efficiency produces 80,000 BTU's of heat per running hour.
Both are equally "heating efficient" (they produce the same heat per unit of time), but furnace #2 is more fuel efficient."

Funny... no matter how many times I read that, I am unable to find where I even used the word "better", let alone stated one was "better" than the other.
But I did go on to say...

"Now if both furnaces were sold for the same money the choice would be a no-brainer. But if #2 sold for three times as much... well... I'd have to weigh the cost of fuel and expected lifespan of the appliance before making my purchase."

Still not finding the word "better" though... just finding a bunch of good ol' common sense.
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[pin oak]

I don't have a government approved wood burning appliance but here is my story. We bought our 4000+ sq. ft. house on 3 wooded acres in this frozen place called Minnesota 18 years ago. House built in 1980. House came with a Rheem oil furnace and a Jack add on wood furnace installed when the house was built. Tag on the wood burner says The JACK LINE, Warrens Wisconsin. Now the current Jack furnaces are made here in Minnesota by Yucon/Eagle. As far as I can tell same company, different location.

Well that 34 year old Jack wood furnace can heat this large house like eggs on a frying pan, and I ain't smoking up the planet doing it. I am on pace to burn close to 12 cords but, we have had 40 some days with below zero temps, and I am heating a large house. I burn dry hardwood, give the fire enough air so no smoldering, regulate how much heat I need by how much wood I throw into what some of you would call a smoke dragon POS that should be banned for the good of who the hell knows what!

That Jack REALLY throws the heat, even at minus 20F I can get this house too hot if I try! Show me a wood furnace that meets EPA rules that can heet this house in this climate to the same degree of warmth. This old so called camp fire in a box will keep my house warm all night in sub zero temps. Fill the firebox before bed, eight hrs later still 70 and enough coals to start a fire. No smoldering involved. And I do not have a Super Jack that i believe is larger, tag just says Jack.

So here is the deal, I burn clean, no smoke, Jack keeps the house toasty in frigid temps, very little creosote after a winter of burning, as far as I can tell there is not an EPA compliant wood furnace big enough to heat this 4000 sq ft in MN, to the degree of comfort I want without using other fuels also, SO WHY THE HELL SHOULD I BE FORCED TO BUY ONE WHEN I NEED TO REPLACE MY EXISTING ONE? ANSWER THAT!!!

Spidey, your math makes sense to me.

 

[Whitespider]

Spidey, your math makes sense to me.

And your reasoning (common sense) makes even more sense to me‼ Hands friggin' down‼
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[Chris-PA]

I just did... but you can't, or refuse to see it. And yes, gas furnace fuel efficiency is rated by input BTU's per (unit) hour (using the stack loss method), allowing the calculation of heating efficiency for application... whether or not you choose to believe it or not. Stack loss is compared to input over a unit of time, and then both input and fuel efficiency is listed by the hour (a unit of time) on the label.

Take two furnaces...
#1) rated 110,000 BTU/hr at 73% efficiency produces 80,000 BTU's of heat per running hour.
#2) rated 90,000 BTU's/hr at 89% efficiency produces 80,000 BTU's of heat per running hour.
Both are equally "heating efficient" (they produce the same heat per unit of time), but furnace #2 is more fuel efficient. Now if both furnaces were sold for the same money the choice would be a no-brainer. But if #2 sold for three times as much... well... I'd have to weigh the cost of fuel and expected lifespan of the appliance before making my purchase. You can't make the determination of heating efficiency with a wood-fired appliance all you get is a bunch of vague numbers like up to x-hours burn time, and x-BTU peak, and then there's the valuables of wood type, moisture content and such... heck, even the manufacturer and EPA test facilities don't agree on any of it.

Any other heating appliance gives you the rate of output as a per hour value (relative to the per hour input) so you can choose the appliance that can efficiently heat your home. If your home requires 80,000 BTU per hour to stay warm on the coldest day... even a 70,000 BTU furnace at 100% combustion efficiency will not efficiently heat your home. In fact, your home will steadily get colder.

With a heater, fuel and/or combustion efficiency does not necessarily mean heating efficiency, that can only be determined by knowing the per hour input and comparing it to the combustion efficiency. And because the input, output and combustion efficiency of a wood fired appliance isn't a steady rate... there ain't any way to determine heating efficiency.

Oh... and I've read Bouton's book. It's a perfect example of what happens when elitists are allowed power without limits.
Which, in my mind, just strengthens my defense of Constitutional limits being ignored today.

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You can say it as many times as you want, but BTUs/hr is NOT a measure of efficiency and never will be. It is simply a measure of output power, and like most such ratings that make it into marketing literature is likely to be the PEAK output power. We all know that the rate of energy output (energy output per unit time) for a wood stove varies over time, and it's pretty clear that a secondary combustion stove and a campfire-in-a-box have different curves. The secondary combustion stove will eventually extract more energy from the fuel load. That would be efficiency measured as (energy in fuel)/(energy output of stove)*100. But without knowing how long that takes, you cannot turn that into an output power (energy output per time period).

Further, an efficiency rating does not tell you the magnitude of energy available either - the volume of the firebox gives you an idea of that.

They also don't tell you what time period is used in the BTU/hr measurement - I could measure BTU/hr (a rate) by measuring for 15min and multiplying by 4, or I could measure it over an 8hr period and divide by 8. Both are valid measurements of BTU/hr, but represent different tests. Indeed, this was your beef with your install - the peak output rate was fine but the long term average rate of energy transfer was insufficient.

So I could have an extremely efficient stove (in terms of total energy extracted from the fuel load) with a very high output power (as rated in BTUs/hr), but that has a tiny firebox and only burns for 45min. They are three different variables.

 

[Cerran]

Except none of the things you list are the purpose of burning wood in that box... the sole purpose is to heat the space that box is sitting in. None of those things you list mean diddly-squat if the space ain't sufficiently heated. Same size firebox equals the same amount of wood... it flat ain't possible to burn the same amount of wood, 25% more efficiently, over a time period twice as long (100% longer) and get the the same amount of heat per hour from it. In fact, you'll get much less heat per hour. So depending on the amount of heat loss that space has, the non-EPA type of box can easily be the the "superior" heater (given equal firebox size). Even running wide-friggin' open a box bringing air in over the top of the fire burning on brick will require much more time to complete the burn cycle (say down to just a two cups of hot coals) than a box putting air under the fire burning on a grate.

If we figure wood at 6000 BTU's per pound (it don't matter the number as long as it remains constant for each appliance) and we load both boxes with 35 pounds of wood (210,000 BTU's)...
EPA box at 80% efficiency = 168,000 BTU's, over a 10 hour burn = 16,800 BTU's per hour.
Non-EPA box at 55% efficiency = 115,500 BTU's, over a 6 hour burn = 19,250 BTU's per hour.
That's a 15% increase in the amount of heat you receive per hour... at the cost of 40% more fuel.

Now let's be a bit more realistic...
EPA box at 75% efficiency = 157,500 BTU's, over a 12 hour burn = 13,125 BTU's per hour.
Non-EPA box at 60% efficiency = 126,000 BTU's, over a 8 hour burn = 15,750 BTU's per hour.
That's a 20% increase in the amount of heat you receive per hour... at a cost of 35% more fuel.
(numbers get more favorable, don't they)

Well I'm gonna' tell ya', when my house is cold and losing heat by the buckets at a steady rate, I don't care one whit about wood usage, clean burning, and burn time... I only care about one thing, the one and only reason I burn wood... that is heat, and how fast and steady I can make it. And the non-EPA box makes heat at a vastly more steady rate than the EPA box... and that, to me, is worth a bit extra firewood... hands figgin' down.
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You have just made a bunch of unsupported assumptions that are not necessarily true.

You have automatically assumed that the non EPA stove will put out more heat per unit time and that is not necessarily true.

Also the chance that an older non-epa stove is doing 60% efficiency is very very small.

 

[oldspark]

So the old smoke dragons put out more heat and use less wood to do it.

Makes perfect sense here in bizzaro world.

You forgot the quote where that was stated.

 

[oldspark]

You have just made a bunch of unsupported assumptions that are not necessarily true.

You have automatically assumed that the non EPA stove will put out more heat per unit time and that is not necessarily true.

Also the chance that an older non-epa stove is doing 60% efficiency is very very small.

I am still looking for some other information but 54% is a figure I have found, some of the older stoves that were built well came in at 60%, once again how you burn the stove has a lot to do with its efficiency, we already see in some of the posts in this thread about smoldering old stoves.
EPA stoves wont fix stupid!