Wood Heating Do's and Don'ts

[Billy_Bob]

DO get a "hearth rug" to place in front of the hearth for your woodstove. Sometimes wood will pop and send an ember flying out. A hearth rug will protect your carpeting or wood floor from burn marks.

This sometimes happens when opening the woodstove door to add wood. I keep an old spray bottle filled with water near my woodstove. When an ember goes flying out, I spray the area with water.

DON'T leave the woodstove door open unattended. Because then embers could come flying out and you would not see where they landed. They could smolder and start a fire.

 

[logbutcher]

Rule #1: Don't tell other people what to do...they won't listen and will think you're an A-H .:censored:

Rule #2: Read Rule #1 above.

.....and "...we don need no more stinkin' Rules...."

 

[myzamboni]

Rule #1: Don't tell other people what to do...they won't listen and will think you're an A-H .:censored:

Rule #2: Read Rule #1 above.

.....and "...we don need no more stinkin' Rules...."

Don't look at them as rules, but rather as guidelines (or best practices). The goal is not to have the couple bad apples spoil it for the rest of us (which would result in new rules in the form of laws).

 

[Jkebxjunke]

or BMP's for short.. ( Best Management Practice)

 

[046]

talk about lucky!!! you didn't burn your house down...

really like design of my JUCA insert door. it's huge at 18.5in x 25in with three layers. wire mesh in front of tempered safety glass. then a solid metal sheet slides in for unattended burning.

when JUCA is running at full temps... I'll use a fireproof mat in front of door when loading wood. JUCA's firebox is 12 cubic feet with fire deep inside.

I've got 28 inches of non combustibles, left the door open for ambience, took a shower (foolish to leave it unattended!!!!!!!!) came back to a 1.5 inch smolder-hole throught the carpet and under pad 40 inches away!!!
God was watching!

 

[Austin1]

That also means don't burn green wood, don't make fun of your neighbor's huge fuel oil or electric heating bill if he tells you what it is, and don't brag about how low yours is. He may not like the smoke from your chimney anymore than he likes paying his fuel bill.

You do have a point WD I am lucky my neighbors come over and say that smells so good must be warm in there? I try and encourage them but they seem to think it is too much work. My sinister mind thinks they will buy a saw and splitter then find out it is some work and sell it to me for cheap lol.I would like a splitter especially for wet wood

 

[AngelofDarkness]

I burn dry hardwoods, mostly maple, cherry and oak, and my neighbors like the smell of it. I also burn pretty hot, I don't have any smoke coming out of my chimney most of the time. I used to burn trash but I realized how much smoke it made and then stopped, all I burn now is newspaper and junk mail (stuff most people have a paper shredder for)

I'll really let 'er rip about once a week for a good 15 minutes, I get some black smoke out of the chimney for maybe 5 min and then nothing, keeps everything nice and clean. I like doing it when theres snow on the ground and roof, in case an ember gets out (it has happened) it cant do much in the snow.

Also, I get some creosote like crystals on my chimney cap, sometimes if it gets really hot they break off and the draft carries them off while glowing hot. Can I wire brush those off, and will that solve the problem?

 

[Zackman1801]

when your cutting your wood make sure you know what your doing and wear your PPE! i see soo many guys who just wake up one morning and decide that they are going to start selling firewood. so they go down to the saw shop buy a used saw and start cutting, no clue, and no safety precautions taken. its a good way to get killed. ive even seen guys who drink while they are cutting, and not water either.

 

[AngelofDarkness]

I've even seen guys who drink while they are cutting, and not water either.

That would be me. I like having a few brews and juggling a pair of running Super 2's.

 

[logbutcher]

when your cutting your wood make sure you know what your doing and wear your PPE! i see soo many guys who just wake up one morning and decide that they are going to start selling firewood. so they go down to the saw shop buy a used saw and start cutting, no clue, and no safety precautions taken. its a good way to get killed. ive even seen guys who drink while they are cutting, and not water either.

OK Zack, I'm down the road. Name one.

Besides, it's no fun to cut without a buzz.

 

[Zackman1801]

i dont remember the names on the sides of the trucks but i have seen about 3 companies surface this year that started to sell firewood, never seen them before. im just glad i dont work with them because i see the guys with saws, but never any safety equiptment, i also sometimes see them in the morning buying some drinks for the day.

 

[LuDookie]

I bought a chimney sweep and clean my crown and pipe every year. I keep the inside of my stove clean and get it super clean in the summer.
Keep a fire extinguisher nearby.
Have a smoke and carbon monoxide detector nearby.
Don't leave the stove open, unattended.
Don't use lighter fluid, and especially don't put the fluid on the wood while in the stove and then light it!
Burning natural wood is best...mostly because you don't know what kind of chemicals are in processed wood like lumber and even pallets, plus you don't get a whole lot of yield burning that kind of stuff. I like looking at big wood piles, but piles of boards and pallets kinda look like crud.

 

[rarefish383]

when your cutting your wood make sure you know what your doing and wear your PPE! i see soo many guys who just wake up one morning and decide that they are going to start selling firewood. so they go down to the saw shop buy a used saw and start cutting, no clue, and no safety precautions taken. its a good way to get killed. ive even seen guys who drink while they are cutting, and not water either.

You weren't on vacation in MD were you? I noticed a car stopped staring at me while I was milling with my 660 on the court in front of my house. I was wearing a t shirt, shorts, and crocks. Basically the same thing I split wood in, but this time of year I wear socks with the crocks, Joe.

 

[rarefish383]

RATZ, I just noticed this is another one of those ten year old threads! The person I quoted hasn't been seen since 2010, I wonder if he was wearing his PPE? I think I vaguely remember getting my copy of the do's and don'ts. I stuffed them under my UN-natural wood, the kind made out of plastique, and lit them with my bernz-o-matic torch. Why waste 10 matches when one click of the trigger and you can melt lead. I did get a tin ash pail, after the guy down the road, burnt his house down leaving his ashes out in a paper bag, Joe.

 

[unclemoustache]

RATZ, I just noticed this is another one of those ten year old threads! The person I quoted hasn't been seen since 2010, I wonder if he was wearing his PPE? I think I vaguely remember getting my copy of the do's and don'ts. I stuffed them under my UN-natural wood, the kind made out of plastique, and lit them with my bernz-o-matic torch. Why waste 10 matches when one click of the trigger and you can melt lead. I did get a tin ash pail, after the guy down the road, burnt his house down leaving his ashes out in a paper bag, Joe.

How did you even manage to FIND a 10-year-old thread, much less not notice it was so old??

Still, it's a good one worthy of a bump, and I don't have any advice to add that hasn't been said already, except plan ahead and keep a few years worth of wood going at all times.

 

[rarefish383]

Morning Unc, I feel better now, picked up my tractor tire and got a BIG cup of coffee. Usually these old threads pop up when a newbie is searching something on the web and it matches to something here, no matter how old. The only way I caught it is I vaguely remembered someone wanting to make a 20 step ,do and don't list, a stickie, a loooong time ago, so I checked the post date. Heck, alcoholics anonymous only uses a 12 step. I don't know how the poster before me found it. But, with no coffee in me and his list of cardinal rules he never breaks, kind of pushed me over the deep edge, hence my post in "Scrounging". He also doesn't like ugly piles of pallets, I agree. But he says that pallet wood has a very low heat yield. Wrong. A close friend had a pallet factory, and I know several small mills in Western MD that build pallets. Most pallets are Oak, Beech, and Maple, the average life span of a pallet is about 5 years, so they are almost all very seasoned. As far as toxic waste on them, your groceries come on them. I just wouldn't use ones outside the chemical plant with big, gooey, goop dripping off them. Most of the guys here know I live in the Mid Atlantic area and am surrounded by Oaks, have family in the tree business, and have three farms I can cut standing dead wood, so I'm an Oak snob. I don't burn pallets, but for some one with no source of free wood, pallets are a viable source of GOOD wood. So, anyway, I've got to get up and about, get the tire on the tractor. Guess I'll pull a couple sticks out of the bucket of transformer oil I've had them soaking in, gets the fire blazing quick, Joe.