I've noticed that my planer and jointer tend to produce copious quantities of dry wood. I happen to have a wood burning stove. Is there any problem with using sawdust as fuel for the stove? I do not deal with treated woods, just kiln dried pine, oak, and mahogany.
Michael
Burning pine in a device that has a chimney is a bad idea. The build-up can cause a great chimbly far. ,-)
Dave in Fairfax
Sawdust is problematic - remember, you need heat, fuel and oxygen, and the packed dust allows little of the third. Shavings from the planer or jointer, on the other hand, are pretty easily burned. Problem is, they're awful tough to get into the stove without making a mess.
We make big doobies with shavings and full sheets of newsprint for fire lighting, and sometimes, when the shop's just too dirty, we use them as quick flame over a bed of coals, which, BTW, is the only way to reliably do _dust_ that I know of.
It makes poor fuel. It just burns up quickly and produces little heat - if, that is, you don't snuff the fire with the sawdust. I've burned a lot of it in my stove simply to get rid of it but I sure would not count on it as a fuel source.
Sawdust does not make good fuel for a wood stove. Make a compost pile and mix grass clippings (or other green stuff) with the sawdust. In six months you'll have rich humus for flower beds, vegetable garden, or shrubs.
Sawdust is fine, but it tends to burn very slowly. It compacts into a solid pile and smoulders from the bottom. Good for keeping a stove in overnight, but it doesn't produce much heat for the size of grate. Many woodworkers burn lump offcuts for heat, then fill up with sawdust last thing at night.
Resinous timber makes for a lot of soot - you'll need to sweep the flue more often.
Ever see "Pres-to", a 'manufactured" fireplace log? Nothing but compressed sawdust with some 'binder' material.
There's a "log roller" for making fireplace logs out of excess newspapers. Relatively inexpensive gadget. Spreading a bunch of sawdust and/or shavings into the paper, before rolling, results in a better-burning, longer-lasting, newspaper 'log'.
longer-lasting,
True, but there is a huge difference between a compressed log and a pig pile of sawdust. The pile will sit and smolder. Hardwood sawdust is used for smoke curing meats that way. You put a pan of sawdust on a hotplate. You can see this on my web page. Smolders and gives off smoke, does not burn and flame up.
Just sprinkling sawdust into a stove or fireplace does little good also. Flares up and is gone in seconds. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net
"Edwin Pawlowski" . Hardwood sawdust is used for
One of the real old refrigerators that is all metal inside makes a great smoker. I added extra shelves to smoke fish. I was visiting a friend on the coast in N. C. and he wanted to give me some of his smoked bluefish. I told him I wouldn't give 2 cents for ever blue fish in the ocean. He said you haven't tried mine. They were great. He gave me his recipe for soaking the fish so I wound up with a smoker. If you are interested in the recipe drop me an e-mail Virgle
Sat, Apr 10, 2004, 10:33pm (EDT+4) snipped-for-privacy@snet.net (Edwin=A0Pawlowski) says: True, but there is a huge difference between a compressed log and a pig pile of sawdust. Just sprinkling sawdust into a stove or fireplace does little good also. Flares up and is gone in seconds.
Sawmills use "Dutch ovens" to burn sawdust. A bit more complex then just putting a steady stream of sawdust in. Interesting. Smaller scale, inexpensive:
Loads more info on google.
JOAT Don't e-mail me while I'm breathing.
Bluefish hell, even suckers taste good when they're smoked to a "T."
I use the shavings from the chainsaw. Seems there's always a cherry log in the stack somewhere. If not, aspen.
Michael, years ago I saw an article on using sawdust for fuel. I do not recall exactly how it worked. A piece of pipe is inserted vertically into the homemade furnace. Sawdust is packed down tightly around the pipe, then the pipe is removed leaving a flue. Try a search, maybe there's something on the web that can further explain this. mike
When I was a kid I remember seeing huge piles of saw dust burning from the top. Hardly any flame at all, only reason you knew it was burning is from all the smoke. Don't remember how long my grandfather said it took a 20 foot tall pile of saw dust to burn up but "seems like" it was measured in months. 6 months?
Actually I was thinking the other way around the sawdust tends to insulate the interior so it doesn't burn so good. At least that's what I see. :/
Alvin in AZ
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