Quote:
Originally Posted by Generalstark
x2. Hot model you got there :biggrin:.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh Conway
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Generalstark
x2. Hot model you got there :biggrin:.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh Conway
My wife calls it evaporator porn.:D Nothing like a room full of stainless steel.Quote:
Originally Posted by From_the_NEK
I think I see some sanitary triclamps there .. sexy:fmicon:Quote:
Originally Posted by Generalstark
Wood burning sugaring operations also make for good nighttime photography subjects...
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7453/...660edbdb_c.jpg
Finished wood for the year with 13 cords in shed should be enough for 3 years
That photo is terrifying. No chimney should look like that. Ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by From_the_NEK
What if it is a really short chimney? In boyscouts, it wasnt a good fire in our stove until we had flames coming out the top. Bugs the shit out of me i cant think of what those little cooking stoves were called.Quote:
Originally Posted by glademaster
Edit - Sheepherder
Totally normal with a wood evaporator. Wouldn't be a bad idea to have a spark arrestor, but notice the metal roofing. Essential on a sugarhouse. VT isn't the desert southwest.Quote:
Originally Posted by glademaster
There's no baffle in the top of them to prevent flame impingement into the chimney? Why the fuck not? That's insane. Not saying I don't believe you, I am however saying that there has to be a better, safer way to design an evaporator. Do you run thermocouples in the stack to monitor flue gas temps? You must have to replace that Class A chimney every season after exposing it to heat like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Generalstark
We're getting into that rabbit hole. I can't speak for From The NEK's neighbors setup, but with a traditional naturally aspirated wood evap., people generally use a single wall pipe, or maybe metalbestos, through a "roof jack" and are careful with their install and clearances. It is typical to see flames out the pipe. This system was developed by New England subsistence farmers in the late 1800s and has carried on through the generations, but sugarhouses burning down is, let's just say, not unusual in historical record. I suspect a hobby rig like the one shown by NEK is not reaching the high temps like a larger commercial rig, until they put a blower on it. Remember, we are trying to boil water off as fast as possible here.Quote:
Originally Posted by glademaster
My rig, pictured above, however is state of the art and instead keeps the heat under the pans instead of out the pipe. We do monitor flue gas temps, which reach 1800F under the pans, but only 800-900 in the stack. With an air tight fire box, AOF (air over fire) and AUF (air under fire), a high cfm blower and serious insulation, we achieve pretty high efficiency and a very clean burn. Notice the difference in wood consumption noted above. We can actually gasify with this rig if we tune the air flow correctly, but it won't boil as hard. We use a single wall stainless stack through a roof jack with safe clearances from combustibles in the roof, and a little ceramic blanket to be safe.
We do still get sparks out the stack but we do use a spark arrestor, and it is primarily a result of the blower, especially when we turn it up at the end of a load of wood to max the flue gas temps.
Evaporators are not wood stoves, and basically follow a different set of "rules".
My neighbor's setup is very basic. It is pretty much an unrestricted fire that you want to put out as much heat as possible to boil off the water as fast a possible. With the flat bottom boiling pan, the amount of heat transferred to the sap is rather low and a lot of heat goes up the chimney. The old setup using a homemade arch (two 55 gallon barrels) used a 8" stovepipe and the stovepipe got extremely hot. There was typically a 1.5' tall flame coming out of the top of the 16' chimney. There are a lot of fire proofing measures taken to keep from catching the building on fire. http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...psbf256dcf.jpg
He doesn't have a way to monitor flue temps. However, he did have a stove top thermometer stuck on the stovepipe that would peg out past 900 degrees. We figured the temperatures were well over 1000 degrees.
The current (newer) setup with a real commercially produced hobby arch uses a 10" stovepipe. And the arch design pushes more heat into the pan due to the tapering of the back of the firebox to the stovepipe is a much better design than the homemade barrel setup. This reduces the stovepipe temperature some and the flame coming out of the stack is not nearly as common as it was with the old setup. There are still a lot of sparks as seen in my original picture above. This is all pretty standard for real backyard hobby operations. The fancy stainless contraptions like GeneralStarks are very expensive and the amount of taps it takes to feed them is more work than a hobbyist typically wants to put in. Whatever "efficiency" lost by burning a bunch of garbage softwood/crap hardwood in one of these hobby setups is acceptable to produce enough syrup for family and a few friends.
For next year my neighbor is getting a fancier hobby rig similar to this
https://www.leaderevaporator.com/ima.../large/wse.jpg.
The flue pan in this new rig, greatly increases the surface area of the pan exposed to the fire allowing a lot more heat to be transferred into the sap rather than letting it go up the pipe.
To follow up on the replacing of stovepipe above, the original 8" pipe was used for 3 years before going to the 10" pipe. It was still in pretty good shape. Keep in mind that this setup was only used for maybe 50-60 hours per year.
A true sugaring pan has deep Vs on the bottom to get sap down into the arch (not a flat bottom). It holds much more sap as a result.
Fun to see some sugaring talk on here. I grew up making syrup in the NEK also. Started around 2400 taps for a while, topped out at 5000 or so before I moved west. Since then my dad and a friend, went in on a 12000 tap operation. I have been going back east for a few weeks the past few springs, to lend a hand. And bringing syrup west to Jackson to sell. It has been a fun project.
Oh and I have been cutting firewood too! But not too much, just enough for supplementary heat when we are home.
What exactly is a "true" sugaring pan :confused:?Quote:
Originally Posted by Peruvian
I suppose you mean evaporation units that are owned by commercial and semi-commercial operations that sell the finished syrup.
Like I said there are a lot of hobbyist and backyard operations that are only interested in producing enough syrup for family and friends. The raised and drop flue evaporator pans (pans with "deep Vs on the bottom) are rather expensive and need a lot of sap to be worthwhile to operate. I would peg the break over point of syrup production between 20 and 25 gallons/year of finished syrup before moving up to a flued pan. My neighbor could easily be producing 40-50 gallons, which he would gladly do, but his pan is holding him back. Hence the reason he is moving toward a more professional unit.
Below you can see the interior of an arch firebox with a drop flue pan sitting on top. The "drop flues" are the rows of shiny rectangular objects that are filled with sap. You can see that the surface area exposed to the fire is increased a huge amount over a flat bottom pan.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...g/U3101009.jpg
And to get myself back closer to the topic of this thread, last weekend I cut up three black cherry trees that had either up rooted or died and got the round stacked up, covered, and ready to split in the spring to put in the shed. I probably got 2/3rds of a cord out of the 3 trees as none of them were very large. However, they were down (or close to falling down) across the hiking/biking trails that are behind my house. So I got them out of the way and added to next winter's wood supply. Next up is a rather large 14' long Sugar Maple trunk that is going to be very difficult to even try get rounds on the splitter. My dad already got the smaller branches that he could handle. He's left the big stuff to the young guy to wrestle with :).
Attachment 159140
Attachment 159141
This thing's got ants in it partway up. I was planning to just leave it in logs for now since I'm so far ahead with soft wood, but I'm thinking I should cut and split the infested logs now and try to kill the ants. I've been told if you wrap in black plastic it can cook 'em out.
The ants (really most insects that infest wood) will leave once it has been split and stacked and the moisture content really begins to drop. I've processed a lot of buggy wood, and within 4-6 weeks of splitting and stacking it, they've moved on to moister pastures.Quote:
Originally Posted by telemike
Beetles or ants still in my split and stacked lodgepole 2 years after it was cut. It's dry but something's still eating it. Found a bunch of sawdust munchings in the shed when I went to move stuff to the house. Same thing with for the fir with the perfect little bore holes I took down last year. You could hear them munching on it when it was quiet.
Hmm, it would make sense that the advise I dispensed above is pretty climate/region specific. Disregard accordingly.Quote:
Originally Posted by telemike
In that case, get yourself a 5 gallon bucket of diesel fuel, and while you're splitting, dunk each one in diesel prior to stacking. I wouldn't do that, but I bet it will solve your bug issues. Lots of people on some of the wood heat forums I read do treat their stacks with pesticides to minimize infestations, you may want to consider going that route, particularly if it is going to be stacked reasonably close to your house.
I'm not going to do that.
why not you wouldn't need kindling?? though probably wouldn't have any eye brows:DQuote:
Originally Posted by telemike
I just split the hellout of it if it has ants and leave out to the side in sun in little tee-pees. Seemed to have worked so far.
He said diesel, not gasoline. The shit isn't that flamable, especially once the logs dry up.Quote:
Originally Posted by DougW
Yeah that would smell great in the house.
Quote:
Originally Posted by telemike
I'm pretty sure it would evaporate over the course of a few months/years stacked outside, so no smell in the house, but a small hole in the ozone layer above it.
a buddy here lets his chicken onto the pile of ant infested wood for a few days, & another couple once the wood has been split.
Diesel probably goes better into the tank of the Euro spec Audi AWD wagon with the 6 speed standard :cool:
Chickens.
Brilliant.
Attachment 159399Attachment 159400Attachment 159401All you cutting mags I could use a bit of direction. I'll be burning this winter for my first time and the whole experience is pretty foreign. My wife and I moved into a log house in Bend April 1 and bought a cord of juniper for $225 for the last few cold weeks of winter/spring. Last week I bought a stihl ms271, and a fiskar x27. I split some rounds today I acquired as a gift, and I think it's lodge pole. My mentality was bigger pieces but am learning that bigger may not be better. I have 4 cord tags. A buddy of mine is taking me out to show me the ropes this Saturday but after reading through this thread I've got a few questions. I honestly don't know anything about efficient burning. Not sure how to split up my wood. Common sense would say get the fire hot then throw big pieces on to burn slower and keep the heat going all night. My unit is ancient, and the place were in is big. I honestly don't know how to use it. Keep the doors closed and open the vents? It is well insulated but I won't be getting up to feed the fire during the night if possible. Anybody got an idea with the wood in Central Oregon what kind of numbers I'd need to be set for the winter? My wife likes the house warm and I'd like to conserve wood as much as possible, especially since it's going to be a bit wet from this week. Any suggestions appreciated. I'm looking forward to the adventure and def thought splitting rounds was quite therapeutic but shit it's a ton of work. I've watched some youtube videos on cutting and splitting but some burning 101 would be cool from the frontline. Cheers.
Howdy...Quote:
Originally Posted by splitinbend
1. It's too late to fell even standing dead with the intention of burning it now. Even logs that usfs dropped years ago will need a month or 6 weeks to air out after you round and split them. If I had no wood today, I'd buy whatever I needed for this year and get a jump on next year's pile now.
2. Doesn't matter how big the pine is, it won't go all night. You'll need a source of hardwood if you want to sleep through the night and wake up to a warm house. In CO, we have to buy it. A cord of oak runs about $700 here.
3. Don't argue with your wife about the wood. Wood is cheap and easy compared to a pissed off wife. My neighborhood is nicknamed "Divorce Gulch" for a reason.
4. Doors closed. Damper controls temp and burn time. Closed, cool/long. Open, hot/short.
How much wood kind of depends on how many cubic feet of house you're hearing. Bend is not that cold from what I recall but if you're really trying to keep the place warm by fire alone you could easily go through 8 cords for a 3500 SF house with average ceiling heights.
I was able to burn bigger chunks of lodge pole for 6-8 hours with all dampers closed.
There are some books on wood heat that are interesting if you want to totally geek out.
You've gotten good advice so far. Though you might be able to find some standing dead lodgepole that would be suitable for burning this winter, especially in a burn.
To get though the night, close the damper and vents as much as you can to still get a slow burn, which leads me to my real advice: Get your flue cleaned and checked before serious burning starts. A damped down fire can produce more smoke which can cause accumulation in your flue and may eventually lead to a flue fire if it hasn't been cleaned on occasion. I assume you've recently moved in, so it may not have been checked. Greener/wetter wood=more accumulation.
And don't fret about conserving wood. Burn it efficiently.
My wife likes the house warm so I cut a metric shit ton and burn whatever I need to keep her warm.
Right on I appreciate all the helpful feedback. With our dry climate here will the dead stuff I find sun be dry enough to burn this season or is that just gonna lead to quick issues? And it was cleaned before we moved in. I'm not opposed to getting a cord but was hoping I could cut some to burn this season. It's not that cold to me in Bend but my wife grew up at the beach in LA. She hasn't accepted the winter temps yet. Gotta keep it warm. Cheers
Here's what I have now.
That stuff looks good. You could cut and burn dead wood this year. Only way to know for sure is to buy a moisture meter. I'd say get a cord of softwood and a half cord of hardwood and be ahead of the game.
1. Pretty much true, you should be spending every free, waking daylight hour splitting wood now. Stack it OFF the ground. Get some pallets, and place them on cinderblocks, you want your wood to be 10-14 inches above the ground to ensure faster drying. Also, stack in single rows, perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction to maximize airflow through your splits. And I would recommend only top covering it. See if you can find some sheets of metal or plastic roofing, or hit up a lumber yard for lumber wrap, they will usually give it to you for free. Have some bigger tarps and use them if you're going to get a windy rain storm, and batten down the hatches for that, but top covering will keep 95% of the moisture off the wood while allowing it to get better airflow. Also, buy a moisture meter. You're looking for internal moisture content under 20%. Stick the pins firmly into the face of a split, aligned with the grain, and make sure you are testing a fresh face (i.e. resplit an already split piece and test the area you just exposed).Quote:
Originally Posted by stfu&gbtw
2. This is false unless you have a very small stove. I burn primarily lodgepole and subalpine fir and have no trouble getting 8 hours of usable heat out of a stove load, and I have ample coals to re-load on for several hours after that, and I don't even have a catalytic stove. Generally though, split your wood small for this year. If you can start working on next year's stack, you can split that larger as it will have 12+ months to season, but given your short seasoning schedule for this winter, split it small. If you want a longer burn, just pack those small splits nice and tight with minimal air gaps between them.
3. I like the house warm and I'm not married, so I can't help you here.
4. Doors closed for sure, wood stoves are vastly more effective than fireplaces for home heating because they do not draw nearly as much room air into the combustion chamber. Running with the doors open negates that benefit.
Is there a ~1 inch gap between that stone and the wood underneath it? If not, I think this setup is too unsafe with regard to clearances to combustibles to operate. You need an air gap for any sort of heat shield, stone has basically 0 R value. Also, what is the distance from your stove pipe to the wooden ceiling where it passes through. It looks like single wall stove pipe, which NEEDS 18 inches between it and anything combustible to be safe. I can't tell if there is a ceiling support box there or not, but given the age of this stove and the way it is set up, but if not, I think it is going to need some work before I would feel comfortable sleeping in the house with the stove running. You really need to familiarize yourself with the NFPA 211 standards, and ensure that your stove meets them. Chimney sweeps are notoriously unfamiliar with code and safe installations, at least here.
http://jotul.com/ca/home/pre-epa-air...c-clean-buring
Speaks^^ to the percieved need that people feel for a stove that will smoulder all night making a lot of smoke which goes against the modern clean burn practice, when you ask someone about their stove they say yeah its great cuz it burns all night which is apparently not cool for air qualtiy
The vermont castings cat stove I used for 5 years almost never burnt thru the night but it was very clean burning and really easy to relite so just relight in the a.m.
Burning clean is important here in a mountain valley that is almost constantly in an inversion all winter and the reason for stove buyback programs
Truth, a hot burn is a clean burn, and vice versa. With modern stoves you can't fully shut the intake air in order to limit smoldering fires. If you have a large enough stove (mine is one of the bigger ones that can be vented via a 6 inch chimney at ~3.5 cubic foot firebox), you can get enough wood in there to produce heat for most of the night with a good coal bed in the morning without choking it back too much. There's a lot of heat in 50-70 pounds of wood.Quote:
Originally Posted by XXX-er
Vermont Castings stoves, at least those made after about 1980-85 and widely considered to be pieces of shit because, well, they are. If you want a classical looking stove that will actually heat your house and require a $1000 rebuild after 4 seasons, buy a Jotul. That being said, I do find Jotul's adamant opposition of catalytic technology and lower emissions standards to be sort of slimy.
Splitinbend, if you don't have them already, you should invest in stove top and stove pipe therrmometers. They're under $30 a piece, but give you a lot of valuable information about how you're burning. I recommend Condar brand.
Regardless of stove brand A hot burn IS a clean burn and IME there was almost no creosote, I would get up on the roof to run a brush down the pipe after a season of burning hot and the pipe was clean as a whistle, I doubt my comments will be a popular in this thread but googling around on smart burn or clean burn or epa or SFT ... that is what they are sayin
I went to a Govy burn smart seminar, they would tow around an old stove and a new stove on a trailer and crank them up outside of the seminar , the old stove would be belching smoke the new stove running pretty damn clean
I was just a roomie in that house for 5 yrs, the vermont castings medium sized stove worked fine, if I got up for a piss in the middle of the night I might thro in some wood but IME it may have burned thru the night unattended once
My point about VT Castings quality wasn't really directed at the clean-burning nature of the stoves, but rather that they tend to be higher maintenance than others on the market, and have non-existent customer support. I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about burning hot and clean in a new EPA approved stove. I personally would not burn in splitinbends stove for a number of reasons, pollution being one of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by XXX-er
I run an Englander 30-NC woodstove to heat my home, which is rated as the cleanest burning 3+ cubic foot secondary burn woodstove on the market. I get smoke out of my chimney for about 10-20 minutes on start up and reloads, then nothing but a heat signature until the very end of the burn when I'm down to coals, then I may get a little wispy smoke again. I am a huge advocate for being a responsible (i.e. with minimal environmental impact) wood burner. I burn dry, properly seasoned wood, run a new, clean burning stove, and run it hot, monitoring my flue gas temps with a probe thermometer.
The new stoves are remarkable in how clean burning and efficient they can be, but they need to be operated properly to realize those benefits. It's as much about proper woodburning education as it is about the stove you're burning in.