OT: Firewood splitting/burning qualities questions

[Tim+]

Eejit.

Eejit.

Nonsense. I?ve split all my wood with an axe and hatchet up till now. It?s therapeutic. ;-)

Calor gas isn?t (nearly) free.

You have no soul. ;-)

Tim

[Tim+]

Yeah, I guess that?s almost certainly the case. Prefer to work it out

*before* sawing the stuff up though. ;-)

Tim

[Tim+]

Every one I?ve seen on YouTube has been so fecking slow though! An axe is way quicker.

Tim

[Tim+]

Interesting. This might be the excuse I?ve been looking for for an SDS drill. ;-)

Tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ive not found ash to be a problem really. Are you *sure* it is ash and not poplar?

Its great firewood

Most softwoods ttha are evergreens also have resinous sap to prevent winter freezing. That smells resinous.

Most softwoods burn the resins out real quick and with a double skinned chimney liner not much condenses.

[AJH]

Freshly felled green wood is generally easier to split green, it makes sense too as then there is immediately more surface area to lose moisture from. Bark is an impediment to moisture removal so logs in the round have to lose it through the ends.

Much as I don't trust those resistance meters it is about right for ash, it has the lowest moisture content of any of our woods.

Crotches and limbs under a lot of tension have reaction wood laid down too counter the stress, this is denser and stronger than "normal" growth wood, crotches also have interlocked grain to resist spitting.

Elm and eucalyptus are two woods that are hard to split.

Not only is ash low moisture content it also splits easily but moisture reduces the temperature in the fire and this leads to incomplete burning. This is why it is recommended only to burn wood of less than

20% moisture content (in an English winter cut and split wood in a dry place with good airflow will settle out at about 17% moisture content). In fact this is really only and indicator and as long as the firebox temperature is high the wood will burn relatively cleanly, industrial plants take wood in at 45% moisture content because the size and insulation of the firebox and air control ensures a high temperature.

A stack freshly cut and split by June in a covered area with good airflow will dry to 20% by September although current weather may prove an exception

In fact for a similar moisture content softwoods tend to have a higher calorific value but they are also less dense and burn quicker, so they actually require a higher air supply than the same volume of hardwood logs which burn for longer. People often fail to keep a good flame burning and hence the partially burned species driven off become smoke, some of which settles in the chimney.

Thus we have a strange culture here whereby UK retailers of stoves made in Scandinavian countries which burn a lot of softwood (as well as birch a hardwood) are advising not to burn softwood. As I burn wood from tree work I do it tends to be 50% softwood.

My experience is the latest stoves designed to meet the 2021 ecodesign standard are a vast improvement on the simple metal box stoves like my (now retired) Jotul from the 80s.

There are ways to distinguish the structure of hard from softwoods because the water carrying cells are different but mostly it's just smell and experience.

AJH

[John Rumm]

Enough of a cut to make a bit of sawdust is enough - no need to log the whole thing!

[Brian Gaff]

I'm getting a little fed up with folk fitting wood burners. So often these days I'm walking down the road and the smell is awful and the eyes sting as some clueless person sticks any old junk on their wood burner. Its almost getting back to the 50s when coal was king and there were pea soup fogs happening.

I strongly suspect it won't be long before councils start fining people for this kind of indiscriminate burning. Brian

[T i m]

Funnily enough, I suffered some of this the other night (I say 'I' rather than 'we' as I have a more acute sense of smell than her, although she could smell it and did see the smoke etc [1]).

We were walking the dogs by the river one cold evening and many of the narrow boats had their stoves going and the smell, fumes and hanging smoke was exactly like you say, like it was back in the old days. ;-(

Much of the wood they burn is salvaged and I'm not sure how fussy they are how clean it is (old painted pallets, treated timber etc).

We are in a smoke free zone so don't generally have to suffer any of that but I can always smell if someone has a log burner going, even if it is one of the 'approved' ones (and I know one that isn't).

The other one is the stink of firelighters as soon as there is a mild evening, soon followed by the smell of burning animal flesh. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[1] The narrow boat chimneys are only 3' higher than the tops of the boats and so often not much above ground level. ;-(

p.s. The burning of clean prepared timber should be banned for several reasons.

1) The pollution (smoke / fumes) 2) It could be used. 3) It should be used as then it would continue to retain the captured carbon. 4) Worst case, it should be turned into chipboard.

[T i m]

<snip>

Sure, an axe might be quicker to start with, but how long can you do it for?

How safe is using an axe?

The problem with an axe (apart from safety and keeping everything together and dealing with the knotty bits) is that you need to maintain a minimum swing / hit or risk not splitting it the first go so you end up lifting the axe and chog and down several times or freeing the axe from the chog.

With the hydraulic ones, you lay the chog on the splitter (mine is the horizontal one), use the fast handle a few pumps till you make contact and often the fast handle will also split the chog. If it doesn't (because it's large or knobbly) you go to the slow handle and pretty well nothing will stop that. ;-)

Once split, you just release the valve to allow the piston to return to the required length, lift / roll the chog the few inches back onto the splitter and go again.

I've split the best part of a whole ash tree on my own over an afternoon and the biggest issue is dealing with all the chogs (thank goodness for several 1 tonne bags). ;-)

I do have a reasonable log splitting maul and a felling axe and neither was as 'controlled' or efficient as the log splitter (in my hands anyway).

Cheers, T i m

p.s. Daughter had an electric / hydraulic log splitter that was probably quicker but then you hardly get any exercise at all (and part of the point for me).

[Brian Reay]

The smell of a wood fire is a delight.

The is a village nearish us and the first thing you always smell is the faint whiff of a wood fire. It is wonderful.

[T i m]

<snip>

And without some fairly good hearing protection, tinnitus. ;-(

Another advantage of the hydraulic log splitter is that it's nearly silent, not even as noisy of the constant / annoying noise of someone splitting wood with an axe (especially if you have tinnitus). ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[nothanks]

+1

[T i m]

<snip>

Depending if you are considering the bigger picture or not I guess?

NIMBY though? Is that 'wonderful' as in the smell of creosote, petrol, Redex in 2/ or any other carcinogens? ;-(

We know how inefficient external combustion is.

I understand that domestic log burning is known to produce a disproportionately high level of pollution.

Much of the 'rubbish' that people burn could probably be disposed of in a less polluting, more useful way (like done in an incinerator for energy recovery).

Most big cities have been 'smokeless' for many years and for good reason.

Do you have a pine air freshener tree hanging from your car interior mirror and does it smell of fresh or burning pine? ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Spike]

Yes, the collections of carcinogens and particulate matter in wood smoke delight the lungs no end. Your friend Alexa will tell you this, if you ask her nicely.

[T i m]

1) It wasn't a 'bonfire'. It was 3-4 logs of clean seasoned wood burning very hot. 2) The entire process only lasted about 5 mins and would have taken longer had I used a blowlamp or been 'dirtier had I used chemicals. 3) I didn't suggest I or anyone else might like the 'smell' (not that there was any).

Left brainer.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

Bingo.

Also, I wonder if the people who try to heat the outside world with 'Patio heaters' or chimera would equally leave their double glazed windows and doors open in the middle of the winter?

It's 'outdoors', that's what it's like (supposed to be). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Jonathan]

I mostly burn two year-old willow because that is what we have. On the advice of my sweep, I also burn smokeless fuel (Homewarm) to keep the chimney in good condition (it's three stories high). The sweep always says that the chimney is doing well. So softwood shouldn't be a problem, if you dry it well.

Jonathan

[Tim+]

Interesting. How is that supposed to work?

Tim

[Tim+]

I think wood usually splits easily when fresh cut, or when it pretty well dried. I think this wood has naturally part dried and is going through a ?difficult? age. ;-)

Tim