Firewood moisture content

[Rob Morley]

AIUI can cause problems with deposits/corrosion in the flue.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes, it can. Hence the move to insulated flues.

[Martin Brown]

Depends how much you enjoy spectacular chimney fires when the tars and oils that condense out in the flue decide to catch light. Wet wood wastes a lot of energy boiling off its water content to no good end.

Most people round here have a wood burner to heat their home not to just look pretty. It makes sense to season timber for burning at least 2 years and leave it to warm by the fireside for a while prior to burning.

[Vir Campestris]

Damp wood results in condensation in the flue. Combined with the products of the lower temperature combustion - which will include tars - this can be a bit nasty for the poor old flue.

Andy

[Martin Brown]

A wood tar chimney fire tends to burn with a pale blue flame and a moderate amount of noise. Anyone burning wet wood deserves what they get. They are likely not to bother sweeping the chimney either.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh I burn wettish wood when I have to, but I keep my chimneys clean these days. Miust have had about 4-5 chimney fires in my time

Apropos of not much I have a vivid recollection of walking down the steet at night in Belsize park and seeing the wall of the flat I was sharing growing red hot...from an open fire, burning skip rubbish..

[Marland]

Chap down the road burns quite a lot that he gathers on his daily walk through the wooded area around here, after winds like we have had this week he takes a wheel barrow and a saw. To be fair to him he has his own brushes and does the the lined flu once a month. Larger limbs and branches he does turn into logs and keeps them for two years and some of that he has bought from the landowner where it it has fallen but he reckons that the daily collection of smaller stuff amounts to about a third of his consumption with consequent savings.

Being retired he had the time and it is almost a hobby for him, before he was a delivery driver for a builders merchant and burnt a lot of pallets so their dryness counteracted some of the green branches when mixed. His moan now after being retired for 3 years is that he has now moved into the ?nobody down there knows me anymore ? category and they won?t let him have any now. So for the first time for years he got some coal product in . I always thought was the worst combination of all due to the different substances condensing out and creating quite a corrosive mix but he is not the sort of bloke to listen to things like that, and with a wife who has just had a stroke needs to keep the house warmer and has less time to gather his wood.

This is a country area so it is not too bad but the powers that be can legislate against various fuels as much as they like but if policies make electricity etc unaffordable we will see a lot more of people making homemade stoves and opening up long disused chimneys and trying to keep the use of them clandestine while they burn rubbish from skip diving etc in towns and cities. That will cause a lot of problems and fires and whatever the authorities say if they can?t stop visiting workers living in garden sheds turned into bunk houses they won?t be able to stop every illegal fireplace.

GH

[Tim Lamb]

Not advice or recommendation but my log burner has been in Winter use since 2009 without a chimney clean.

7" insulated liner. I have looked down the top and shone a camera/light up the bottom and found about 5mm of grey *fluff* attached to the walls. There seems little point in brushing this out. Mind, I have only ever burned furniture grade Oak:-)

[Dave Liquorice]

Still winters day and there is a thick pall of coal smoke sitting over Middleton-in Teesdale. No mains gas, nearly every house has a coal fire...

[Martin Brown]

That is impressive. I have seen it discolour the wallpaper in bedrooms.

Mine burns mostly dry wood and some coal. The grate is multi-fuel. I sweep it once a year before serious use. It has a 5" insulated liner. Only ever get grey fluffy stuff but if you leave it for too long one day you will get an uncontrolled collapse of the stuff down the pipe.

[Vir Campestris]

We have a thatched roof. I'll use dry wood thanks!

Andy

[harry]

It also produces a lot less heat and more air pollution. (Any water present has to be evaporated off before it can burn.) Tars up the chimney and increases chance of chimney fire.