Does about a 1/2 a cord a week sound like too much to be burning??

[Battenkiller]

Let's stick with the OP and take the spelling bee to the ash can.

:red:

I assumed the question was settled. Turns out he was using about 1/3 of a cord/week with the stove full out. That seems perfectly normal in any large stove.

Anyway, sorry for any etiquette breach. I'm new here, and every board is different. I'll pay better attention in the future.

 

[karri0n]

Let's stick with the OP and take the spelling bee to the ash can.

:red:

I assumed the question was settled. Turns out he was using about 1/3 of a cord/week with the stove full out. That seems perfectly normal in any large stove.

Anyway, sorry for any etiquette breach. I'm new here, and every board is different. I'll pay better attention in the future.

Actually, I believe he's gathering data to answer the long list of questions I posed to him. There is likely an issue with fuel, draft, or operation if he's burning with the stove wide open 75% of the time.

As a quick recap to the OP, Your best bet right now is to try filling the stove with a couple kiln-dried firewood bundles from the grocery store or home improvement store, letting it burn wide open for 15-30 minutes, and closing the air mostly down to see what your result is.

 

[Battenkiller]

As a quick recap to the OP, Your best bet right now is to try filling the stove with a couple kiln-dried firewood bundles from the grocery store or home improvement store, letting it burn wide open for 15-30 minutes, and closing the air mostly down to see what your result is.

I'm not sure I'd trust that as a completely accurate test.

I have a friend who runs three firewood kilns for bagged wood. He told me that they get it down to 6% or less, but then it climbs right back up once exposed to the ambient relative humidity.

Sounds reasonable since we all know that happens, but then he told me that it gets condensation in the bags and gets moldy in storage.

Not truly kiln dried.

I haven't seen his operation, but I know from 30 years experience as a woodworker that you can leave real kiln dried lumber in plastic until the cows come home and it won't get moldy on you.

He won't listen to me because he makes money on the operation (he runs a sheltered workshop for retarded folks), but I know he's not doing it right. He says he uses a moisture meter on the end grain, but that won't tell you anything. I told him to split some chunks and get a reading that way, but he just changes the subject.

The moral for me is that maybe you can't trust kiln dried firewood to be any drier than you make it by leaving green wood in the stove room for a couple of weeks. His stuff is probably getting case hardened by raising the heat without leaving the humidity up there in the beginning. That will trap much of the moisture inside and it will dissipate inside the bags. It has to be a fast operation in order to be profitable for producing firewood, and real kiln drying (as in for furniture grade wood) takes time.

They use they same kilns for their pallet making operation, and I used to get all of their scrap I wanted for free. Sure, it burned fine because it is cut thin compared to firewood, but it always had a damp feel when I first got a load. Not like kiln dried hardwood you'd buy at a lumberyard, and not as dry as a well used pallet either.

Maybe other operations are better, but after reading a few posts about folks going out to get store bought wood and still having a problem, I suspect this may be the norm rather than the exception.

 

[Lanningjw]

<<<The jury is out on if we will use any less wood with the King. I doubt it is substantially more efficient than the last stove, just has a much bigger firebox. Right now, it is 2F and blowing pretty good. I put a full load, 24x15x18, of well seasoned locust and hard maple in before I left this morning and left it about as high as I run it with the blowers on. Stopped home for lunch and it looks like it will burn for 8 hours before I can reload if I open up the air for the rest of the burn. That rate is a cord every 3 weeks or somewhere around 50K per hour on average. Granted, it would take some work and planning to keep up that rate, but cold is a good motivator.>

SAW,
I agree its the wind that sucks the heat out of a house, more so than the cold. I noticed that with my 1931 story and a half, sits on a hill on the edge of the western suburbs of Minneapolis. The wind can really blow around here.
Kinda of of bummer that the BKK didnt lower the amount of wood your using. In my case it has proven to be a great insert. My gas bill was around $20/month and half of that is the monthly hook up charge and tax. The other half is the water heater using the gas. I am guessing, but I think that I have burned alittle a cord of wood, starting in late Oct.