Wood stove ?

[Caw]

Hardwood had more BTUs per pound because it's so much more dense. It burns longer and leaves more coals giving off it's BTUs over time. Softwood tends to burn hot and fast giving off its BTUs quickly.

That's why people with access to both like softwood during shoulder season when you don't need long hot fires and hardwood in the middle of winter.

 

[bholler]

Isn't hardwood better and hotter?

Hardwood is generally more dense and has more btus per piece of wood.

 

[bholler]

Hardwood had more BTUs per pound because it's so much more dense. It burns longer and leaves more coals giving off it's BTUs over time. Softwood tends to burn hot and fast giving off its BTUs quickly.

That's why people with access to both like softwood during shoulder season when you don't need long hot fires and hardwood in the middle of winter.

Not per pound. They are pretty much the same per pound

 

[sesmith]

We used to heat with a large wood stove in our unfinished cellar. Stove was near the stairs. It was never ideal, but here's what I did to get the most out of it.

I dry laid a block wall around 3 sides of the stove up to the height of the stove about a foot or so away from it (left the front open). The floor row had the blocks turned on their sides to let air flow through. This way, the stove radiated heat at the blocks I built up rather than just out into the cellar and toward the cellar walls. This helped with creating a warm air flow up the stairs. I tried this first with just a sheet metal barrier around the stove, but think the block idea worked better. It also added to the mass of the stove. Second, the only way to get warm air through the house was to leave the furnace blower door open on the other side of the room. This gave a pretty good cold air return. Of course, then you're committed to not using the furnace.

Like I said, it was never ideal, and we went through a lot of wood. Much better would have been 2 smaller stoves located on ends of the house on the main level.

 

[earnies2]

Here are the pictures of the stove

 

[Caw]

Not per pound. They are pretty much the same per pound

You're right. I said the right and wrong right and wrong thing at the same time! Kind of the old which weighs more a ton of feathers or a ton of bricks question.

It's all about density. Same size piece (not weight) of hardwood has more BTUs than softwood.

 

[Caw]

@earnies2 You gotta figure out a way to cover that wall stain! My OCD is off the charts every time you post a pic of it lol. Im glad you're fixing it properly though GJ.

 

[earnies2]

@earnies2 You gotta figure out a way to cover that wall stain! My OCD is off the charts every time you post a pic of it lol. Im glad you're fixing it properly though GJ.

I will try to take a wire brush to it. Ita at least 8 years old. It was from the previous owner who burned pine and the pipe going into the chimney wes rotted out on the bottom so the creosote ran down the wall instead of back to the stove.

 

[earnies2]

Update yesterday and today I had it fired up and the wood burned hot and produced verry hot coals....can someone explain how and what the cat does? Here is a video of it burning. Video is to large to upload.

 

[Caw]

Update yesterday and today I had it fired up and the wood burned hot and produced verry hot coals....can someone explain how and what the cat does? Here is a video of it burning. Video is to large to upload.

You can host on YouTube and post a link here or try to shorten it and post a segment. The site doesn't like anything over 20 mb if it's hosted here.

The cat "eats" smoke. Basically smoke is unburnt combustion materials and when they pass over the cat it causes a chemical reaction that produces heat and eliminates a lot of the bad emissions. This is why people with cat stoves can run it "low and slow" because the cat eats all the smoke generated from the smoldering wood.. It's the same exact thing that a catalytic converter in your car does only in this case we're after the heat generated for warmth.

Tube stoves use a baffle to keep the smoke in the firebox longer then use pre heated air through the secondary combustion tubes to actually burn the smoke in the box. Thats what all the "secondaries" are you hear people talking about here. They cannot run "low and slow" because they need to maintain temperature in the box for secondary combustion to occur. Therefore these stoves are meant to be run hot with full loads of fuel for maximum efficiency.

So both types of stoves are trying to get minimum emissions and maximum BTUs out of the fuel they just do it in different ways. You can get big heat faster out of a tube stove but you can get more even heat longer out of a cat stove. When run under ideal conditions their efficiencies are pretty similar in the end.

I personally use a tube stove because my fireplace is oddly shaped and kind of small. I couldn't fit a big enough cat stove into it to meet the BTU demands of my house to benefit from running low and slow. It would work during shoulder season but it wouldn't be enough dec-feb here. We're debating adding on a mudroom and garage area off the side of the house. If we do that I'll certainly consider a cat freestander to supplement my insert and help that side of the house.

 

[earnies2]

Update new video

 

[stoveliker]

@Caw said it well. However, I do have to say that there are "two types" of cat stoves. Ones that uses the cat to clean up emissions (nothing wrong with that), and (more modern) ones that use the cat to really produce heat and are designed to extract that heat from the cat (in addition to that from the firebox) and put it into the room.

Also the "more even heat" is not necessarily derived from the cat. Running low does not mean more even (I mean, choking it off too much risks a deviation to zero heat - i.e. a dead firebox). Some (cat) stoves have a (bimetal) thermostat that adjusts the input air to maintain an even heat output. Combine that Tstat with a cat stove, and you can do "low and even".

My old DutchWest did extract quite a bit of heat from the cat into the room (only a thin "lid" on top of that glowing hunk of ceramic), but it was by no means "even" - I had to adjust/tinker quite a bit during the burn cycle.
My current stove is of the "cat+Tstat" variety. And that allows low (b/c cat) and "even heat".
However it can also pump out 36,000 BTU's per hour continuously for 10 hrs long (with the firebox packed with the right wood) before reloading - per mfg testing, which is of course an idealized setting, but those are the numbers one can compare between stoves. I think that for most decently insulated homes that may actually be not too bad for full heating (as an oil furnace pumps out more per minute, but cycles on and off, lowering the per hour BTU production). I have not looked into the oil number, but I know I am heating my 1700 sqft + 700 sqft (insulated) basement from that basement without needing additional heat, at least down to 10 F outside, and likely more as I was not at full blast.

In the end, it is necessary to estimate your BTU heat needs for your home, and to buy the right sized heating appliance for that, while recognizing that a stove is a space heater and needs some help to heat the house (moving the heat around). And recognizing that heating a home from the basement adds to the total BTUs needed for heating the home due to the heat losses in the basement (hence: insulation, including the floor...).