Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

I am looking for an efficient woodburning stove for my lounge. I have
come across industrial looking wood burning boilers that gasify the
wood in a top chamber with the flames created underneath in a second
chamber.

Is anybody aware of a high-tech design of cosmetically acceptable wood
stove that perhaps burns the wood in such a way as to increase
efficiency and reduce waste product?

Ideally I would like it to be thermostatically controlled.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Top of the range stoves (rather than woodburners) are Jotul and Morso.
Jotul claim that their stoves are able to burn methanes in the flue gas
particularly efficently - and that the effect is to release less
greenhouse gases than if the wood was left to rot. A friend showed me a
scheme the French governent was running to subsidise this type of stove
because of it's green credentials.

There is one brand of stoves from the US that uses a catalyst (can't
remember the name), but more than one person has told me they're
problematic.

I've got a Jotul F600 and recommend it - though with hindsight I would
have paid a little extra for the enamel finish.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Thanks for those leads. This was the one I would choose to fit my
fireplace
http://www.jotul.us/content/products...e____3098.aspx

It also led me to the Log Pile site which had quite a lot of
information on wood burner efficiencies:
http://www.nef.org.uk/logpile/faqs.htm

Plus pellet burners, they work like this:
http://www.buildingforafuture.co.uk/...ets_page_2.php

Particularly interesting was that they can be automated, which is what
I want. They claim to work at optimal burn efficiency and that the
the ash tray requires emptying only once a month. That is very nice! I
have an abundance of wood but I would want to make the pellets myself.
If that isn't possible I guess I should go for a standard log burner.

The other high tech approach was using gasification of the wood, where
the flames burn underneath the logs. Can't quite fgure how that works
but their site is here fopr interest:
http://www.woodboilers.com/wood-gasification.asp

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Tim wrote:
Thanks for those leads. This was the one I would choose to fit my
fireplace
http://www.jotul.us/content/products...e____3098.aspx

It also led me to the Log Pile site which had quite a lot of
information on wood burner efficiencies:
http://www.nef.org.uk/logpile/faqs.htm

Plus pellet burners, they work like this:
http://www.buildingforafuture.co.uk/...ets_page_2.php

Particularly interesting was that they can be automated, which is what
I want. They claim to work at optimal burn efficiency and that the
the ash tray requires emptying only once a month. That is very nice! I
have an abundance of wood but I would want to make the pellets myself.
If that isn't possible I guess I should go for a standard log burner.

The other high tech approach was using gasification of the wood, where
the flames burn underneath the logs. Can't quite fgure how that works
but their site is here fopr interest:
http://www.woodboilers.com/wood-gasification.asp

hi Tim,
I am a great advocate of the wood burning stove and have one in my
living room.
A few points to observe.
Forget about thermostats etc. Its impossible to be so precise as the
heat output is dictated entirely by the amount of wood and the quality
of the wood you burn. Obviously well seasoned timber will burn better
than fresh timber which will leave much more ash behind. Ash logs will
burn quicker than most others etc etc. Apple trees will give off a
lovely aroma. Alder wood is almost impossible to burn. Oak is difficult
also. You may have lots of dead elms which are great firewood. So you
cant control these with instruments eventhough some will bull**** you
that they can.
If you mix the different types of wood they will burn much better.
Also once you get a fire going, put a big log on and it will burn for
many hours.
At bedtime select a large log and close the doors and damper and in the
morning you will come down to a warm room and a small fire still going
on the bed of hot ash.
Naturally it all depends on the weather how much heat you want and how
large your room is.
It is also dictated by how much you close the doors and open or close
the damper.
To start a fire, leave one door open a little and this produces a great
draught to get it started.
Once the fire gets going leave both doors open fully and its like
sitting at an open fire.
If it smokes, close one or both doors enough to cure it.
We clean out the ashes about every three or four weeks.
Burn the fire on the floor of the stove on a bed of ash rather than on
a metal grid.

The most important thing to realise about that stove you showed in the
pic is that it is free standing and not set into a fireplace. That
maximises the heat output in the room.
If you set it into the fireplace, you will lose a great deal of heat
straight up the chimney.
Put a sheet of metal in front of the opening, just set back from the
edge and make a hole in the tin to run the flue horizontally into that
sheet, thereby ensuring your burner is actually sitting in the room
rather than in the fireplace. This keeps all the heat in the room.

There is a metal plate in mine just in front of the flue and this
deflects the heat outwards and the fumes drift over it to the flue.

Best buy I ever made.
It made my home livable because before that during the winter I had to
retire to a smaller room because of the cold.
Every home should have a wood burning stove, especially if you have a
really large room.
Its clean, its natural, its green, its cheap, its independant of oil or
gas which may someday be turned off and its basically a brick lined
metal box with two doors and a hole for the flue.
the one you show is probably expensive because it is elaborate in
design.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The message . com
from contains these words:

Its clean, its natural, its green, its cheap,

While woodstoves are many things, clean isn't one of them. They put out
quite a bit of pollution, including some really narsty chemicals,
compared to a gas fire. That said, they're still rather nice.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Huge wrote:
On 2006-08-14, wrote:

Oak is difficult
also.

Hmm. This rather casts doubt on the remainder of your posting, since
I have burned little else for the last couple of years.

--
"Other people are not your property."
[email me at huge [at] huge [dot] org [dot] uk]



Since you have experienced little else only oak, then you would not be
in a position to cast doubt, would you?
Do you use a wood burning stove?

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

On 14 Aug 2006 13:24:13 -0700, wrote:

Alder wood is almost impossible to burn.

Umm not so, the phobia about burnign alder wood is that it attracts the
occult (allegedly), it does however burn well.

Oak is difficult also.

Bull****.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Guy King wrote:

While woodstoves are many things, clean isn't one of them. They put out
quite a bit of pollution, including some really narsty chemicals,
compared to a gas fire. That said, they're still rather nice.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Some American states are likely to bring in pollution laws specifically
to control wood burners. They chuck out huge amounts of pollution, are
hugely inefficient and there's been a big increase in their use because
of oil price rises. Lots of people have them , but formerly relied on
oil when they realised the amount of work involved in feeding them.
Bookmarked this recently;
http://www.fbcgroup.co.uk/

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

While woodstoves are many things, clean isn't one of them. They put out
quite a bit of pollution, including some really narsty chemicals,
compared to a gas fire. That said, they're still rather nice.

http://www.nef.org.uk/logpile/faqs.htm

Can I burn wood in a smokeless zone?

Wood can be burned in a smokeless zone if the appliance (i.e. the
stove or boiler) has an Exemption Certificate. Companies which
manufacture stoves with Exemption Certificates include Clearview,
Vermont Castings, Dovre, Dunsley Yorkshire Stoves, Morso and Jotul.

A full list can be found at
http://www.uksmokecontrolareas.co.uk....php?country=e.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Aidan wrote:
Some American states are likely to bring in pollution laws
specifically
to control wood burners. They chuck out huge amounts of pollution, are
hugely inefficient and there's been a big increase in their use because
of oil price rises. Lots of people have them , but formerly relied on
oil when they realised the amount of work involved in feeding them.


wood burning is the most natural fuel on the planet. In a wood burning
stove, the fire is controlled so that it doesnt burn up too quickly.
You say they chuck out huge amounts of pollution. Care to explain the
pollutants?
Surely oil fumes are a much greater pollutant.
Actually to illustrate that, I once started a small petrol engine
generator inside a house forgetting to site it outside the door and
went upstairs for a few minutes.
To my horror the house filled up in minutes with terrible fumes and
that brought home to me the terrible pollution of millions of cars that
pollute the heavens every minute of every day all over the planet.
It was some time before the house was clear of the choking smell from
the three or four minutes of that small engine. Is it any wonder then
that the atmosphere is so polluted?

You say also that they are ineffieient. That perhaps is because they
are stuck in someones chimney place rather than outside it and perhaps
the users dont know how to control them, which takes a little thought,
and once mastered leaves life with a wood burning stove very
comfortable indeed.
Dont knock it if you havent experienced one. I wouldnt trade it for all
the oil in Arabia.
As for feeding them, dont you have to feed every fire?
Close the doors and they last for hours while an open fire would be
dying in half an hour.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Tim wrote:
Thanks for those leads. This was the one I would choose to fit my
fireplace
http://www.jotul.us/content/products...e____3098.aspx

It also led me to the Log Pile site which had quite a lot of
information on wood burner efficiencies:
http://www.nef.org.uk/logpile/faqs.htm

Plus pellet burners, they work like this:
http://www.buildingforafuture.co.uk/...ets_page_2.php

Particularly interesting was that they can be automated, which is what
I want. They claim to work at optimal burn efficiency and that the
the ash tray requires emptying only once a month. That is very nice!

It's also ********..to generate any sort of heat is about a cubic meter
of ash a month, in my experience.


I
have an abundance of wood but I would want to make the pellets myself.
If that isn't possible I guess I should go for a standard log burner.


Not a lot wrong with that - we use a couple of open fires and a
'highwayman' stove here..only one open fire is used consistently though.

The highwayman is definitely less draught inducing and more efficient
than the open fire..we have it in our bedroom for days when we have the
'flu...its brilliant.

A good wood burner kicks out an easy kilowatt, and can be persuaded up
to about 2-3. Our huge open fire is about 10KW, but a lot goes up the
chimney..it takes ages to warm the room as mostly the first three hours
its warming the brickwork around it. However it keeps the room hot all
night afterwards. We tend to light it about 2pm in the winter, so that
by 5pm its really well set up. It dies around 11pm which is a couple of
hours before we hit the sack.



The other high tech approach was using gasification of the wood, where
the flames burn underneath the logs. Can't quite fgure how that works
but their site is here fopr interest:
http://www.woodboilers.com/wood-gasification.asp

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Guy King wrote:
The message . com
from contains these words:

Its clean, its natural, its green, its cheap,

While woodstoves are many things, clean isn't one of them. They put out
quite a bit of pollution, including some really narsty chemicals,
compared to a gas fire. That said, they're still rather nice.

Yes, but they don't put out CO2 that hasn't already been taken out of
the air..recently.

Otherwise, I totally agree.

However I LIKE the smell.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Steve Firth wrote:
On 14 Aug 2006 13:24:13 -0700, wrote:

Alder wood is almost impossible to burn.

Umm not so, the phobia about burnign alder wood is that it attracts the
occult (allegedly), it does however burn well.

Must try some. We could do with a few local spirits to liven up the dull
winters.

Oak is difficult also.

Bull****.

Both burn well if dry.

Never burn MDF if you can help it though..never mind te occult..it
stinks and is probably laced with a cocktail of chemicals that Saddam
Hussein would have wet dreams over.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Yes, but they don't put out CO2 that hasn't already been taken out of
the air..recently.

Oh, I'm not knocking that bit, but there's a good deal of
misunderstanding about how clean they are. Some modern stoves are very
good at burning the flue gases but older/simpler stoves pour out
hydrocarbons and things like...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

The stoves which are best at reducing this are those with the tightest
control over airflow etc - so no more doors open while burning and the
like. The content of the flue gas varies enormously with what the
stove's doing. Burning fiercly will produce very different outputs to
smouldering overnight, for example.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The message .com
from contains these words:

Surely oil fumes are a much greater pollutant.
Actually to illustrate that, I once started a small petrol engine
generator inside a house forgetting to site it outside the door and
went upstairs for a few minutes.
To my horror the house filled up in minutes with terrible fumes and
that brought home to me the terrible pollution of millions of cars that
pollute the heavens every minute of every day all over the planet.
It was some time before the house was clear of the choking smell from
the three or four minutes of that small engine. Is it any wonder then
that the atmosphere is so polluted?

That's not really a fair comparison. You're trying to equate a small
petrol engine with a total-loss lubrication system which is exhausting
/into/ the house with a stove that's exhausting up a chimney. Anyway, I
don't think anyone would say that small petrol engines are good either.

Wood smoke contains an amazing array of chemicals, many of them
extremely nasty. It's one of the reasons people smoke food to preserve
it, the bugs are killed by the heat but are prevented from reinfecting
by the toxins on the surface.

Have a google for "woodburning stove" + pollution.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Steve Firth wrote:
On 14 Aug 2006 13:24:13 -0700, wrote:

Alder wood is almost impossible to burn.

Umm not so, the phobia about burnign alder wood is that it attracts the
occult (allegedly), it does however burn well.

It could be that there is a confusion between Elder and Alder, totally
different trees. Elder (usually only a small bush, biggest logs
you'll get are only three or four inches diameter) really doesn't burn
very well.


Oak is difficult also.

Bull****.

It needs a good hot fire to burn well but that's all.

--
Chris Green

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

wrote:

wood burning is the most natural fuel on the planet. In a wood burning
stove, the fire is controlled so that it doesnt burn up too quickly.
You say they chuck out huge amounts of pollution. Care to explain the
pollutants?

Unburnt fuel, smoke, CO. Many woodburners are simply a steel container
for a fire. Few have an thermal efficiency of above, or approaching,
50%. They work most efficiently if the wood is burned fast and the heat
stored in a thermal store, by which I mean a water content of 1000+
litres. Reducing the air supply to control the burn rate will increase
the amount of smoke produced. They cannot be compared with modern
condensing oil or gas boilers in terms of efficiency.

Surely oil fumes are a much greater pollutant.
Yes. But you would have difficulty in finding a smoke plume from even
one oil or gas boiler in your neighbourhood. Most wood/coal fire can
usually be smelt or seen. If a large percentage of households suddenly
start lighting wood burners, that they hadn't used in years, then you
may have a problem.

Actually to illustrate that, I once started a small petrol engine
generator inside a house forgetting to site it outside the door and
went upstairs for a few minutes.
To my horror the house filled up in minutes with terrible fumes and

Of course it did. If you'd lit a small wood fire in the middle of your
kitchen, that would have filled the house with smoke and fumes as well.



Dont knock it if you havent experienced one. I wouldnt trade it for all
the oil in Arabia.

I have There isn't as much oil left in Alaska as there once was.

As for feeding them, dont you have to feed every fire?
OIl and gas are automatic, no effort involved. You don't have to go and
fetch oil in buckets or hand pump it out of a well.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

It's also ********..to generate any sort of heat is about a cubic meter
of ash a month, in my experience.

There is something seriously flawed with your stove or more likely
the way you use it.
Mine has a plastic shopping bag full of ash which will have become
almost rigid and that is about once a month with a fire on day and
night.
Perhaps you are burning fresh timber or more likely you have a grate.
Its best to burn the fire on the floor of the stove with no grate. That
way you always have a hot bed of ash under it.



A good wood burner kicks out an easy kilowatt, and can be persuaded up
to about 2-3. Our huge open fire is about 10KW, but a lot goes up the
chimney..it takes ages to warm the room as mostly the first three hours
its warming the brickwork around it. However it keeps the room hot all
night afterwards. We tend to light it about 2pm in the winter, so that
by 5pm its really well set up. It dies around 11pm which is a couple of
hours before we hit the sack.



you use the traditional fireplace for your living room so perhaps you
should not talk so knowledgably about wood burning stoves when you
clearly have limited experience of them.
That scenario would be much improved if you installed a wood burning
stove in your living room. You could get 10 kw and lose very little up
the chimney if you did what I said earlier.
You would probably burn much less timber in the stove and get far
better heat output and therefore put less of those pollutants you refer
to into the atmosphere.
You dont know what you are missing.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Guy King wrote:
Wood smoke contains an amazing array of chemicals, many of them
extremely nasty. It's one of the reasons people smoke food to preserve
it, the bugs are killed by the heat but are prevented from reinfecting
by the toxins on the surface.


Perhaps I'm very green but what could be more natural than a wood fire?
Just because you see a plume of smoke coming off it is not evidence of
pollution.
The oil burners where you cant see a plume of smoke may contain much
more toxic chemicals that are invisible.
I am not a scientist but you cant go too far wrong if you stick to the
natural way.

I would guess that the smoke from coal is much more toxic than a wood
fire.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

On 15 Aug 2006 08:02:36 GMT, wrote:

It could be that there is a confusion between Elder and Alder, totally
different trees. Elder (usually only a small bush, biggest logs
you'll get are only three or four inches diameter) really doesn't burn
very well.

Yes, that sounds likely. Similarly, but not a problem in the UK, we have
locust bean trees on our farmland. The logs from that won't burn at all,
even if baked in the sun until they are bone dry. All they do is smoulder
and stink.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

A good wood burner kicks out an easy kilowatt, and can be persuaded up
to about 2-3.

Our good woodburner kicks out about 8KW according to the specs. It's
Stovax unit, and although it's relatively new to us (and therefore we
haven't use it that much - it's still summertime in Devon ;-) when we
have run it up, we've been more than impressed with it.

http://www.stovax.com/products.htm?cid=4&sid=9&pid=216

Gordon

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The message .com
from contains these words:

Perhaps I'm very green but what could be more natural than a wood fire?
Just because you see a plume of smoke coming off it is not evidence of
pollution.

No, it's not evidence. That comes from people who know how to do it
analysing the flue gases. Burning wood produces all sorts of really
nasty chemicals.

Woodsmoke emissions contain things like carbon monoxide, various
irritant gases such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrochloric
acid, and formaldehyde and chemicals known or suspected to be
carcinogens, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and
dioxin.

Then there's all the tar and stuff. And the particulates - more from
stoves in some areas than from diesel engines.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

On 2006-08-15 10:35:07 +0100, said:


Guy King wrote:
Wood smoke contains an amazing array of chemicals, many of them
extremely nasty. It's one of the reasons people smoke food to preserve
it, the bugs are killed by the heat but are prevented from reinfecting
by the toxins on the surface.


Perhaps I'm very green but what could be more natural than a wood fire?

Do you mean green as in "eco" or green as in naive?

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

wrote:
Guy King wrote:
Wood smoke contains an amazing array of chemicals, many of them
extremely nasty. It's one of the reasons people smoke food to preserve
it, the bugs are killed by the heat but are prevented from reinfecting
by the toxins on the surface.


Perhaps I'm very green but what could be more natural than a wood fire?

You problem is that you are equating "natural" with "environmentally
friendly".

MBQ

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

wrote:
Guy King wrote:
Wood smoke contains an amazing array of chemicals, many of them
extremely nasty. It's one of the reasons people smoke food to preserve
it, the bugs are killed by the heat but are prevented from reinfecting
by the toxins on the surface.


Perhaps I'm very green but what could be more natural than a wood fire?
Just because you see a plume of smoke coming off it is not evidence of
pollution.
The oil burners where you cant see a plume of smoke may contain much
more toxic chemicals that are invisible.
I am not a scientist but you cant go too far wrong if you stick to the
natural way.

I suggest you take your own advice and stop trying to talk so
knowledgably about things you clearly know nothing about.

MBQ

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The message .com
from contains these words:

You problem is that you are equating "natural" with "environmentally
friendly".

Here, have some of this natural herbal tonic.

I make it myself from the finest belladonna and henbane, with just a
dash of hemlock.

Can't do you any harm, it's all natural and it's got herbs in.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

On 15 Aug 2006 01:21:23 -0700, "Aidan" wrote:

Surely oil fumes are a much greater pollutant.
Yes. But you would have difficulty in finding a smoke plume from even
one oil or gas boiler in your neighbourhood. Most wood/coal fire can
usually be smelt or seen.

Certainly when pubs and restaurants have log fires you can usually
smell the fire well away from the building in the car park. Prolonged
exposure to wood smoke can cause eyes to become sensitised to it.

If a large percentage of households suddenly
start lighting wood burners, that they hadn't used in years, then you
may have a problem.


They'd all have a problem with the Council if they tried it round
here.

Actually to illustrate that, I once started a small petrol engine
generator inside a house forgetting to site it outside the door and
went upstairs for a few minutes.
To my horror the house filled up in minutes with terrible fumes and
Of course it did. If you'd lit a small wood fire in the middle of your
kitchen, that would have filled the house with smoke and fumes as well.


OTOH, I've seen a small generator set running on LPG used to power a
christmas side show on an internal balcony in Marshall Field's Dept.
Store in Chicago. It was almost 100% silent and discharged it's
exhaust straight to the atmosphere in the room. It was undetectable

DG

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:48:41 +0100, Derek Geldard
wrote:


If a large percentage of households suddenly
start lighting wood burners, that they hadn't used in years, then you
may have a problem.


They'd all have a problem with the Council if they tried it round
here.

OOPS...

Sorry to follow up to my own post.

Just to say I had in mind open wood fires, whereas the thread was
about Wood burning stoves, although the bit I replied to described
them as "wood burners".

DG

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

On 15 Aug 2006 11:09:11 GMT, Huge wrote:

"Natural" does not necessarily mean "good for you".

Do you want a nice refreshing glass of this natural Nux vomica extract?

Actually, I've just discovered that it is one of the most commonly
prescribed homeopathic remedies. Good job that they don't understand
dilution, isn't it?

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

What is more natural than an atom bomb? made from 100% natural
materials. By mother nature's natural creatures.

and to think that I thought you were not a philosopher. I take it all
back.
but we must live on planet earth in the meantime and natural has always
been a pretty good guideline.
the scientific gurus pretend to know all the answers and yet they are
always found wanting in the end. they still cant cure the common cold
so my wood burning stove will remain my pride and joy to keep me warm
in winter. Its efficient, cheap to run, clean it out once a month, it
looks fine, and what more can a person ask for?

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

What is more natural than an atom bomb? made from 100% natural
materials.

Waste of almost a whole party baloon full of helium, though.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The message . com
from contains these words:

they still cant cure the common cold so my wood burning stove will
remain my pride and joy

Cor - what a wonderful rule.

The government can't control fish so I'll not pay my taxes. That's my
new rule and I'm sticking to it.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

On 16 Aug 2006 01:55:32 -0700, wrote:

but we must live on planet earth in the meantime and natural has always
been a pretty good guideline.

Would you like some nice natural strychnine?

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

What is more natural than an atom bomb?

Only if it's made with FairTrade yellowcake.

Wood burning stoves - what is the state of the art?
 

Top of the range stoves (rather than woodburners) are Jotul and Morso.

I have looked at those ranges. Does anybody else have any other
suggestions forparticularly efficient woodburning stoves that I
should be exploring?