I hope I didn't mess anything up!!

[slickschoppers]

I was questioning the quality of my firewood so i decided to purchase a box of manufactured wood when i saw it at walmart. I figured.. what the heck, lets see how well the englander 30 heats with a "known good" heat source.

I picked up a box of Pine Mountain Fire logs.

I did exactly what the box said.

started the bag on fire, put it on the coals that were already in the wood stove.

HOLY COW... they really do burn amazingly well.. no noticible smoke. the flame lasted for hours, a really hot flame, the stove was going at about 520 degrees with a chimney temp initially at 325, then burned a couple hours at 300, then dropped as the log started to get consumed. and it did burn for damn near 3 hours..........

it really really cranked out some serious heat. no,,, not super HIGH temperatures. but it kept the stove in the 4 and 5 hundred degree range for almost 3 hours.

so,, I threw another one in and decided to check out the website....

and then I saw it...

THEY DO NOT RECOMMEND BURNING THEM IN FREE STANDING WOOD STOVES.

now I have to wonder WHY?

it says they are basically made of compressed sawdust with a wax binding agent.
they claim that they burn CLEANER with less emmissions or by products than real wood.....

so,, I have to wonder,, did I hurt my stove? and why do they only recommend them in fireplaces, but not wood stoves?????

maybe it's because they aren't tested in them?

or is it going to mess something up?

I have 4 more of them.. and to be honest, they aren't something I would buy again because of the cost... but i kinda hate to just throw 4 of them away....

 

[blacktail]

Just off the top of my head, maybe they're likely to cause an overfire if people packed their stove full of them. Or maybe something in them could damage a cat stove.

 

[Simonkenton]

Could be that the wax will mess up the guts of the stove. But I would take them at their word you don't want to damage your stove.

 

[bcrtops]

Most manuals will say to burn only 100% wood products, if they mention compressed wood products at all. Paraffin & other additives will mess up a cat & are not good for tubes/baffle stoves either. One time likely didn't hurt your tube stove, but I sure wouldn't make a practice of it -- stick with the 100% wood compressed bricks/logs -- these products will usually say on the packaging if they are safe to use in wood stoves. Also.........start with just one or two bricks/logs to find out how hot they burn first, before loading a stove full of them.

(Without sufficient oxygen, these paraffin/additive products build up gases in a wood stove, that can explode, causing a big blowback/blowout. Some of us oldtimers have made the mistake of throwing a chunk of particle board in our old pre-epa Fisher's or similar -- nearly blows the stovepipe off the stove!! Not to mention filling the house with smoke. And......scaring us half to death. )

(Incidentally, wood with too much pitch will cause the same thing to often happen, even in the epa stoves -- i.e., create a blowback/ blowout. A little bit of pitch goes a long ways -- use carefully just to start a fire -- voice of experience speaking here.)