# Burning Sawdust



## wooduser (Dec 1, 2018)

So.... what do you do with your sawdust?



This youtube video suggests a couple of ways of burning sawdust.  I've tried burning bags of sawdust with a regular wood fire,  and that seems to work well.

I'd be glad to hear about other methods.

And I'm sure there are those who would be glad to rant against the barbaric practice of burning sawdust.  You guys are invited too!

A hundred years ago, Seattle used to be a big sawmill town,  and quite a few people burned sawdust as their main source of heating fue.  That's gone by the wayside though,  with oil conversions after WWII and gas conversions after 1972.


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## SpaceBus (Dec 1, 2018)

I wish I had a practical means of collecting it from my chain saw.


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## firefighterjake (Dec 1, 2018)

I consider sawdust to be future fertilizer for the trees, grass, etc. and don't bother collecting it.


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## SpaceBus (Dec 1, 2018)

firefighterjake said:


> I consider sawdust to be future fertilizer for the trees, grass, etc. and don't bother collecting it.



Do you know the love barn dude in Orland? A friend of mine was showing me an antique stove she bought from, as she says, "a guy in Orland with a barn".


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## firefighterjake (Dec 1, 2018)

SpaceBus said:


> Do you know the love barn dude in Orland? A friend of mine was showing me an antique stove she bought from, as she says, "a guy in Orland with a barn".



Nope . . . unless she was referencing the H.O.M.E. Co-op that is based there. My co-worker, John, lives down the hill from the Co-op, next to the river on Rt. 1.


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## TedyOH (Dec 1, 2018)

Saw dust is a byproduct of cutting wood.....urine is a byproduct of drinking water.....two examples of byproducts i dont bother handling or collecting.

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## wooduser (Dec 2, 2018)

TedyOH said:


> Saw dust is a byproduct of cutting wood.....urine is a byproduct of drinking water.....two examples of byproducts i dont bother handling or collecting.




Burning wood is a byproduct of cutting wood.  Urine is a byproduct of drinking water.

I presume that you don;t burn wood either?


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## pjohnson (Dec 2, 2018)

Years ago I had an old fisher wood stove in my wood shop. I’d generate sawdust from the planer by the pickup truck load. Once I had a fire going I’d shovel it in, it would burn for half hour or so. Got rid of sawdust and heated the shop.


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## TedyOH (Dec 2, 2018)

wooduser said:


> Burning wood is a byproduct of cutting wood.  Urine is a byproduct of drinking water.
> 
> I presume that you don;t burn wood either?


You presume wrong....i burn split cordwood not sawdust...i flush urine down the toilet...not drink it......you'd probably need a 13 gallon garbage bag of sawdust to get the BTU's from one average split of hickory......i just manage my time better than bagging and stacking sawdust.



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## Woodsplitter67 (Dec 2, 2018)

wooduser said:


> Burning wood is a byproduct of cutting wood.  Urine is a byproduct of drinking water.
> 
> I presume that you don;t burn wood either?



Actually you couldn't be more wrong.. burning wood is the direct product of cutting the wood. Your cutting the wood with the intent of burning it, so the wood is the product, and the intent is to burn it
The byproduct of cutting the wood is all of the mess created by your wood processing, chips, sawdust ,bark pieces,ect.

Please look up the definition of byproduct... and you will see your not even close

A by-product is a secondary or incidental product made in the manufacturer of something


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## Woodsplitter67 (Dec 2, 2018)

Heres another thought. Why would i want to burn sawdust after processing. I usually process about 2 to 4 cords a shot. Im stiiting on 9 cord CSS what use do i have for sawdust, none. Burning sawdust is not how an EPA stove is supposed to be run. Alot of people on here are EPA stove users and suggesting something like this is misleading and suggests poor burning practices.

Threads like this add absolutely no value to this community


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## TedyOH (Dec 2, 2018)

Woodsplitter67 said:


> Actually you couldn't be more wrong.. burning wood is the direct product of cutting the wood. Your cutting the wood with the intent of burning it, so the wood is the product, and the intent is to burn it
> The byproduct of cutting the wood is all of the mess created by your wood processing, chips, sawdust ,bark pieces,ect.
> 
> Please look up the definition of byproduct... and you will see your not even close
> ...


I was gonna go down this road but felt it wasnt worth the effort in typing....thanks.

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## bholler (Dec 2, 2018)

Sawdust can also be very explosive when burnt.  Yes there are specialized sawdust burners.  But doing it in a stove designed for chord wood is asking for trouble.


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## iLoveWood (Dec 2, 2018)

I use my sawdust to level out my bumpy processing area. If I have extra I smear it into low spots in my yard.


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## wooduser (Dec 3, 2018)

Woodsplitter67 said:


> Please look up the definition of byproduct... and you will see your not even close
> 
> A by-product is a secondary or incidental product made in the manufacturer of something




Heh, heh!  I wont pursue this amusing line of reasoning any further!


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## wooduser (Dec 3, 2018)

Woodsplitter67 said:


> Heres another thought. Why would i want to burn sawdust after processing. I usually process about 2 to 4 cords a shot. Im stiiting on 9 cord CSS what use do i have for sawdust, none. Burning sawdust is not how an EPA stove is supposed to be run. Alot of people on here are EPA stove users and suggesting something like this is misleading and suggests poor burning practices.
> 
> Threads like this add absolutely no value to this community




One of the attractions of wood stoves for me is that I am free to develop my own style of using it.  Others will have their own style that is different from me.  It's amazing and amusing to see the emotional claims that "my" way of doing something is the only way and "your" way is wrong and stupid.

I was pretty sure a thread on burning sawdust would invite that kind of reply,  which it has.  

Still,  I'm glad to see the variety of ways people use and don't use the sawdust they produce in the course of using a wood stove.

<<Sawdust can also be very explosive when burnt. Yes there are specialized sawdust burners. But doing it in a stove designed for chord wood is asking for trouble.  Bholler's remark here seems like the best reply yet to my way of thinking.  I don't doubt that an abundance of loose sawdust could cause a hazard,  and I hadn't considered that as a possibility.

Still,  packing sawdust in a bag and putting it on an established fire doesn't create a powder of dust particles that I've noticed.    The flames just burn up the bag and then consumer the sawdust mauch like a stick of wood.  Of course,  that doesn't make it a stick of wood.


And of course it's always safe to recommend a manufacturer's recommendation to use cord wood,

I cut up scrap wood to length on my table saw in my basement,  which leaves sawdust behind.  I appreciate the comments and remarks of those who explain how they manage this byproduct.


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## wooduser (Dec 3, 2018)

bholler said:


> Sawdust can also be very explosive when burnt.  Yes there are specialized sawdust burners.  But doing it in a stove designed for chord wood is asking for trouble.





I was inspired by bholler's post to do some Google searches on the subject of "sawdust fire hazards"  and such.

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ideas/beware-hidden-home-fire-hazards


Most warnings dealt not so much with the rather coarse sawdust from a saw,  but rather wood that is powdered and can accumulate on many surfaces pretty easily.  Dust explosions are a hazard in flour mills and in many places where potentially flammable powders can be released. .

Also,  I saw many warnings about the possible hazards of breathing in wood dust,  again mostly powdered wood or off gassing of wood in various forms.

Spontaneous combustion of wood powder was also described,  but from issues like finishing wood floors where fine powders are developed.

I didn't find anything describing a hazard of burning relatively coarse sawdust confined to a wood stove.  Still recommending that only sticks of wood be burned in a wood stove as recommended by manufactures is safe and conservative advice.  

However,  it's plain that accumulations of sawdust around my table saw is a mistake and that needs to be cleaned up.  That seems like the biggest potential hazard.


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## wooduser (Dec 3, 2018)

I found several good anecdotes about explosions from tossing in sawdust on a fire burning in a wood stove,  just as warned by bholler:

http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Burning_Sawdust_in_a_Wood_Stove.html


<<About 40 years ago I was sharing a shop with four other guys in Fayetteville AR, which we heated with an old wood stove. It had a heavy cast iron top for loading. One cold morning, a young fellow poured a big scoop of sawdust down on top of the hot bed of coals from the night before. All four of us were standing around that thing when the loud BOOM launched that big cast iron lid into the rafters of that old warehouse. It didn't happen instantly, but took a while for the gas to build up, and an ignition spark. I'm sure none of us have ever heaped dust onto coals since that day. We were all lucky that day. It is not something I will ever forget. 

 


<<Be careful with this. I had a friend who was doing some serious sanding in his small steel Craftsman shed/shop and when he opened his wood stove and tossed a handful of sawdust into it, the shed blew-up! He was found unconscious and only slightly injured about 50' from his shop! 

 


<<I use to burn sawdust the same way 25 years ago. One day I filled my shop with panels that I had just finished and stoked up the stove with sawdust just like you describe. Just as I started to walk out the door the stove door burst open and burning sawdust flew 40 feet to the other side of the shop. And that was the end of my sawdust burning. I have done some dumb things in my day and that one was right at the top of the list. Sawdust doesn't just burn it explodes.


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## peakbagger (Dec 3, 2018)

I used to save the wax coated milk cartons and stuff them with sawdust and throw them in my Fisher. Never had any issues. 

On the other hand Myth busters had some very impressive demonstrations of powder explosions and I have seen some impressive pictures of the destruction that can occur. My former employer made cellulose floc which was finely ground paper. The entire plant was set up with blowout panels on the ducts so when the powder ignited (it wasn't if it was when) the panels would blow out to keep the ductwork from being damaged.


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## bholler (Dec 3, 2018)

peakbagger said:


> I used to save the wax coated milk cartons and stuff them with sawdust and throw them in my Fisher. Never had any issues.
> 
> On the other hand Myth busters had some very impressive demonstrations of powder explosions and I have seen some impressive pictures of the destruction that can occur. My former employer made cellulose floc which was finely ground paper. The entire plant was set up with blowout panels on the ducts so when the powder ignited (it wasn't if it was when) the panels would blow out to keep the ductwork from being damaged.


We have lots of large cabimet factories here and they occasionally have fires in thier dust collestion systems.  They have fire suppression systems to take care of them.  But about 15 years ago it didnt work in one and it blew the top off of their dust silo and crushed a couple cars in a parking lot a few hundred feet away


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## SpaceBus (Dec 3, 2018)

Some soldiers on Fort Bragg in NC died from using organic blast media in a blast cabinet without a grounding strap. All it took was a tiny bit of static to detonate the steel cabinet and dust collection systems. This was many years ago, but I think all of the cabinets made by that company now have windows like the duct work mentioned earlier.


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## maple1 (Dec 3, 2018)

Just simply not worth it IMO. 

Spend time gathering up a bag. Then weigh it. Then consider how much a similarly sized volume of wood weighs. Then consider how much moisture is in that sawdust. Meh.....


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## Woodsplitter67 (Dec 3, 2018)

wooduser said:


> Heh, heh!  I wont pursue this amusing line of reasoning any further!


Of corse you wouldn't.. because you have no clue... its obvious...


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## maple1 (Dec 3, 2018)

maple1 said:


> Just simply not worth it IMO.
> 
> Spend time gathering up a bag. Then weigh it. Then consider how much a similarly sized volume of wood weighs. Then consider how much moisture is in that sawdust. Meh.....


 
On the other hand, if the sawdust is a byproduct of something else beside processing firewood (say, woodworking), needs to be cleaned up anyway, and would otherwise just be walked past something that could burn it only to be dumped somewhere else - I might pick away at burning it, a small bag at a time. But then you might be into explosion potential stuff...


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## Woodsplitter67 (Dec 3, 2018)

wooduser said:


> One of the attractions of wood stoves for me is that I am free to develop my own style of using it.  Others will have their own style that is different from me.  It's amazing and amusing to see the emotional claims that "my" way of doing something is the only way and "your" way is wrong and stupid.
> 
> I was pretty sure a thread on burning sawdust would invite that kind of reply,  which it has.


 Again you couldent bee more wrong... none of the responses were emotional all of the responses were factual and you asked for people's opinions in which that is what you got. 
Putting threads looking for emotional response is not what this community is about.. threads like that add no value, the only value is that i can see form this is the you need it to occupy your time because your lonely. 
You onvited me to share what i do, and i did.

 my" way of doing something is the only way and "your" way is wrong and stupid.

Your even more wrong with what is listed above.. many stove owners here have EPA stoves.. the manufacturer suggested nothing but cord wood.. so its not my way.. its how they want it run. I get a certain amount of satisfaction knowing that with my stove and how i operate it that i am carbon neutral. My footprint on this earth is smaller, and unlike your neighbors.. mine dont have poor air quality to breathe because of what i am burning. You have been on this site for like a month.. you have added nothing positive to this community at all.. you post but actually have nothing worth while to contribute.. your the lonely kid on the Block that needs attention.. sad isnt it..


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## peakbagger (Dec 3, 2018)

By the way, there are commercial sawdust boilers out there. I have not worked on them but they have have forced draft fan and feed system that  adds a steady stream of sawdust into the boiler. The air flow is matched to the fuel flow. I expect they use a gas pilot to light them off but once its burning I expect no need for pilot. The tough part with those are probably particulate carryover . I expect they would need a baghouse or an ESP to clean things up. 

I also used to see references to sawdust burners used at sawmill to get rid of the stuff. They looked like a big Tipi (Teepee to some). 

Stacked up sawdust can spontaneous combust so most sawmills have to dispose of sawdust somehow.


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## bholler (Dec 3, 2018)

peakbagger said:


> By the way, there are commercial sawdust boilers out there. I have not worked on them but they have have forced draft fan and feed system that  adds a steady stream of sawdust into the boiler. The air flow is matched to the fuel flow. I expect they use a gas pilot to light them off but once its burning I expect no need for pilot. The tough part with those are probably particulate carryover . I expect they would need a baghouse or an ESP to clean things up.
> 
> I also used to see references to sawdust burners used at sawmill to get rid of the stuff. They looked like a big Tipi (Teepee to some).
> 
> Stacked up sawdust can spontaneous combust so most sawmills have to dispose of sawdust somehow.


Yeah as i said before there are units specially designed for burning sawdust.  Some even blow it into the firebox similar to an oil burner.


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## wooduser (Dec 3, 2018)

Woodsplitter67 said:


> Your even more wrong with what is listed above.. many stove owners here have EPA stoves.. the manufacturer suggested nothing but cord wood.. so its not my way.. its how they want it run. I get a certain amount of satisfaction knowing that with my stove and how i operate it that i am carbon neutral. My footprint on this earth is smaller, and unlike your neighbors.. mine dont have poor air quality to breathe because of what i am burning. You have been on this site for like a month.. you have added nothing positive to this community at all.. you post but actually have nothing worth while to contribute.. your the lonely kid on the Block that needs attention.. sad isnt it..




Tell me again how you don't let your emotions get involved in how you use your wood stove!

FAR better to perpetually describe the advantages of burning white oak versus red oak,  and rubbish those who might dare to burn poplar or pine!


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## Woodsplitter67 (Dec 3, 2018)

Again.. you havent added any value here.. you have nothing to offer this community..


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## bholler (Dec 3, 2018)

Enough of this nonsense


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