Wood burning - Lime
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Jacob
What goes around comes around.
A point about light weight woods - it's good to have the biggest stove you can sensibly fit into the space i.e. much higher rated output than the room calculations say is needed. Then you can burn smaller fires but hotter, including getting heat from "light" woods.
Also the bigger the stove has a bigger surface area radiating heat and the faster the room heats up. You can control it with the dampers of course, to tone it down as necessary.
Ours is rated at 12kw and fuelled with small stuff and cardboard etc goes like a rocket, and heats a room in minutes!
Also avoid cast iron and fire bricks. Steel fabrication is much superior and maintenance free.
WoodyWoodpecker
Member
I use a Roughneck wood grenade (Screwfix) and the back of the maul to drive it in for tough to split stuff. Once you have the first split the maul usually works well on its own.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
All stove fitters and suppliers will tell you the opposite - work out the output needed then go one smaller. This is so you don't end up with small fires in a large stove for much of the season.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Small fires in a large stove are much more efficient than the opposite, for the reasons stated above.
I've found this out over many years with a variety of stoves - starting with a Turtle stove in our first house about 50 years ago - a variation on this below, designed for cheap good quality high energy coal but hopeless with low energy wood
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I would take it too, chop it into smaller chunks and mix it in with other woods, by the end of the night its gone. and that heat was free.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
So major stove suppliers and qualified stove fitters are all wrong?
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Yes. If that's what they all say, but I don't suppose they do.
"...work out the output needed then go one smaller...." doesn't make any sense anyway.
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Yes, that is what they say, but they obviously haven't consulted you. It makes perfect sense, as they explained. A hot fire in a small stove is far more efficient and much cleaner and better for pollution than a small fire in a large stove. For a handful of days a year you might wish you had a bigger stove but for the rest of the year it's better. This subject has arisen before and others have been told the same.
As a matter of interest - why would the person trying to sell you a stove try to sell you a cheaper one?
As a matter of interest - why would the person trying to sell you a stove try to sell you a cheaper one?
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Exactly the opposite. Small fire, big stove, means more air to the fire for hotter cleaner burning, and also larger radiant surface area of stove itself.
Exactly. Especially if you want a rapid warm up almost any time of year.
No it's worse.
Nobody trying sell me a stove, I make my own mind up. I've been at it for some time and made a few mistakes. Worst was Morso Squirrel which was too small and needed frequent maintenance, bricks, baffle, etc.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
As usual, Jacob knows more that people who do something for a living.
We had a very large Lime branch come down last year, burns well now, but very hard to split, used a hydraulic log splitter, it tears more than splits.
Good luck with a maul.
Good luck with a maul.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Yes it would seem so.
Except I don't believe that anybody says "work out the output needed then go one smaller" . It doesn't make any sense - you are on your own with that one! One what anyway? KW?
I think you may have misread something. "Work out the output needed then go one larger" would make a tiny bit more sense.
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bansobaby
Accustomly titled
So you think that the laws of thermodynamics have no relevance.......
Did it occur to you that the bigger the stove, the more steel to be heated...........??
According to your logic every radiator ever made should be the size of the wall its fitted to.......
Bonkers.....
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Yes but a tiny amount of heat compared to the throughput and it all finds its way back into the room when the fire goes out - so zero sum.
Masonry stoves make use of this as a heat store HOME | CMS Masonry Stoves
A modern version of the trad Russian stove
No connection or resemblance at all to a wood stove.
Yes you are! Don't worry about it you are not alone!
But do carry on with your study of thermodynamics, it might help you understand these things a little better.
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Krome10
Established Member
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Dowling. Dowling Stoves - Home
Ours is the Sumo model and the roughly pyramid shape is perfect for burning sawdust too. Also had a "Firebug". Not cheap to buy but maintenance free after years of use except when I broke the glass, my fault. Some strange shapes!
I have had a few wood burning stoves and IMO the best one I have had is a Jotul, has an air wash down to keep the glass clean, still in use over ten years later, only one control and that is the air inlet, easy to use and keep in overnight.
I have had a load of lime tree (Linden) wood that I've used for both milling in to boards and for burning. Splitting with a wedge and maul is not too difficult. Chopping wood in general is good exercise. As the saying goes, chop your own wood, it will warm you twice! As for burning; it may not be the best but if its free then use it. That's better for the planet than burning fossil fuels anyway! The timber; nice pale colour with darker stripes, very light and soft
Eh? That's daft. Why wouldn't you just worj out the output needed then get a stove with the output needed? Rather than more or less?
If you get one smaller, you needed less surely?
That's like knowing you'll need a car with an 80 litre fuel tank to undertake a journey but getting one with a 60 litre tank so you have to stop on the way.
