Wood Burning Tips
TIPS ON BURNING WOOD IN GENERAL
Why buy a wood burning stove
If you heat your home with wood, the following steps can be taken to
minimize expense, health and environmental effects:
1. Never burn: Plastics, painted or treated wood, particleboard,
plywood, glossy magazines or newsprint, foil or metallic-coated gift
wrapping, household garbage (diapers, plastic bags, etc.), rags or
fabric made of synthetic materials
These items release toxic chemicals into the air that can be harmful
to your health and damage your stove or fireplace.
2. Burn seasoned firewood only – cut, split and stack it in a place
sheltered from the weather. Cracks in the ends of the wood show its
been properly seasoned and ready for burning. You can also test
whether the wood is fully seasoned by striking two pieces together.
Dry wood gives a sharp ‘crack’ while unseasoned wood sounds more
like a dull ‘thud’.
3. Store wood outside, covered on top with sides open to air.
4. Store only a small amount of wood inside your home.
5. Split wood into pieces 4-6 inches in diameter. It will burn
cleaner with more surface area exposed to the flame. Only use larger
pieces of wood when the fire is well established.
6. Make sure your fire is getting enough air. This will ensure it
burns hot and clean. A properly burning fireplace is hotter,
produces less smoke and is more efficient. This means more warmth
for less money and less impact to your health.
7. Don’t stuff too much wood inside the firebox. Refuel more often
with small loads with the air inlet open wide to keep it burning
briskly.
If you collect your own wood, or prefer to buy unseasoned wood, plan
to get it a year ahead. It takes green wood at least one year to dry
out sufficiently to ensure it will be fully seasoned. Some
manufactures recommend three years seasoning.
TIPS ON STARTING A NON-CAT WOOD STOVE
Coming Soon….
TIPS ON STARTING A CATALYTIC WOOD STOVE
Most of the information about starting a non-catalytic stove applies
to starting a catalytic stove. The key differences are that the fire
has to be hot enough to start the chemical secondary burn in the
catalyst before you shut down the air and, where applicable, change
the smoke path. FlameWorks does not typically stock catalytic
stoves, but many models feature a catalytic probe thermometer to
give indication of when the catalyst has engaged. On some simpler
stove the catalyst can be visually seen and the glow will be
apparent through the window glass. Once the catalyst has engaged you
should be able to operate the stove at a broad range of levels as
long as the chimney draft is sufficient. Keep in mind that the less
heat that goes up the chimney (low fire) the less draft is available
to power the stove. Your chimney is the engine that drives your
stove and the heat is the fuel for the engine.
TIPS ON STARTING A WOOD FIREPLACE
Keep in mind there are many types of wood fireplaces. If you are
moving into a home with an existing fireplace it might take some
detective work to determine what you have. Also bear in mind that
with most of these fireplace types there may be added some type of
insert or heat exchanger separate from the fireplace it’s self.
1. Site Built masonry fireplace
2. Site Built form fireplace
3. Site built masonry heater fireplace
4. Engineered fireplace, builder grade
5. Engineered fireplace, heater grade
6. Engineered fireplace, furnace grade
The most common fireplace type in North America is a open, site
built masonry fireplace or it’s sister a site built form masonry
fireplace. These units may or may not be equipped with doors, but
are required to be equipped with operable screens. Screens are meant
to be closed when in use, but the VAST MAJORITY of doors are to be
FULLY open when in use and only closed near the very end of the burn
cycle to reduce the amount of warmed air pulled out of the house
during shutdown. Usually doors cannot be closed until the fire is at
least half way through the last stage of combustion, many times
until there are just traces of embers remaining.
The procedure for starting and operating will depend on the
fireplace type that you have.
Heater Grade Engineered Fireplaces (number 5) are similar to Builder
Grade Engineered Fireplaces (number 4) but usually have heat
exchangers and may be equipped with doors that have ceramic (rather
than tempered) glass that can be closed during operation and
therefore be used to provide some heat from the wood fuel. Many
units also have a insulated firebox and higher quality construction
as well.
Furnace Grade Engineered Fireplaces (number 6) are almost always EPA
certified or EPA equivalent certified units and essentially are
modern, high efficiency wood burning stoves and the general
instructions about stoves (available in both Non-Cat and cat
versions) apply. See above.