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Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: Eyehi] #7989818
11/08/23 09:36 PM
11/08/23 09:36 PM
Joined: Nov 2014
east central WI
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Dirty D Offline
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Dirty D  Offline
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east central WI
Originally Posted by Eyehi

I’m interested in masonry heaters, did you build yours or have it professionally installed ? Any information about these is appreciated…..


Had it professional built. Its unique to the house.
Our house has a basement so there is a block foundation that goes up to the first floor.
The main heater part is there. I have a heated bench as a hearth and a oven on the backside which is in the kitchen.


It does a great job of heating the house. The brick is about 120 degrees approx 18 hrs after a fire. It does not loose heat very fast.
The heat is very even. burns very clean. You have to use dry wood tho, no wet stuff. No creosote.
The house design is important. Open is better. Our 2nd story is about 5 degrees warmer.
Also a well insulated house helps alot as the heat is held in and allowed to even out in the whole house.
There is a main floor bathroom that is the coldest room in the house. Its about 2-4 degrees cooler than the rest.
The heat has to travel down a hall, thru a bedroom then into the bathroom.
All other room are pretty much the same temps.
As long as you leave the doors open.
The ceiling above the living room is insulated between the 1st and 2nd story.
That allows us to close off the guest bedroom which is above it when not in use.
It'll get maybe 10 degrees cooler with no heat getting in there.


Some of the downsides.
I wish I would of made it so the ash could fall down into a decent sized container in the basement. It would allow more time between cleaning out ash.
Right now there is a square ash container in the bottom of the firebox that holds about 4 days worth of ash.
So before the next fire I scrape the ash into a grate that allows the ash to fall into the container.

As the heat as very even you can't adjust the heat output easily. Its about a day behind what you do.
Because the house is very energy efficient a sudden swing in temps. doesn't mean the house will get cold, it means at worse case I may have to burn 2 fires in a day on the day the temp drops.
But for most times when the temp is in the teens or above one fire a day is plenty.

Obvious downside is the cost, ours was about 20K 6 years ago.


But it is a big improvement over a wood stove, fireplace or outside wood boiler.
No maintenance is really required, maybe check the flue once every 5-6 years thats it.
You get some fly ash but because it burns hot and fast no deposits in the flue.
It should last the lifetime of the house otherwise.
any more question just ask.









[Linked Image]
Firebox/living room side on 1st floor, the hearth is heated, the flue winds up, down, horizontal thru the heated bench, then up again, horizontal, up again, horizontal around the heated bench on the second floor then finally up into the stove pipe.
All that time in the masonry allows the hot gasses to be adsorbed and stored.

[Linked Image]
Kitchen side on 1st floor, back side of firebox, oven gets to 325-375 a couple of hrs after starting a fire.


[Linked Image]
2nd story.

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7989823
11/08/23 09:40 PM
11/08/23 09:40 PM
Joined: Apr 2022
Wisconsin
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Guss Offline
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Wisconsin
Don't let that scare you on buying wood. I put my own outside boiler in and ran the pex under ground. The only hard part was unrolling 50 feet of 1" pex when it was cold out.

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990190
11/09/23 11:02 AM
11/09/23 11:02 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
WI
T-Rex Offline
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Joined: Dec 2006
WI
Thank you Dirty D. Great tutorial. I also did a bit of research on my own.

I love the concept. Unfortunately, I don't think I am up to the task. Because of the time lag of control/planning I see no way of keeping the wife happy. That doesn't even take into consideration the times when I am gone and she needs to step up.


Man who mistake shillelagh for fairy wand; see pixie dust, also.
Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990206
11/09/23 11:19 AM
11/09/23 11:19 AM
Joined: Jan 2023
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania
Just started burning wood 3 years ago now I just buy a log truck load delivered to the house i cut an hand split at the house 900 bucks a load that's dead wood last me 2 winters ...definitely agree on having to restart the fire but I enjoy the work kinda guy that can't sit still anyway so always doing something

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: Dirty D] #7990218
11/09/23 11:32 AM
11/09/23 11:32 AM
P
Posco
Unregistered
Posco
Unregistered
P


Originally Posted by Dirty D
Originally Posted by Eyehi

I’m interested in masonry heaters, did you build yours or have it professionally installed ? Any information about these is appreciated…..


Had it professional built. Its unique to the house.


Obvious downside is the cost, ours was about 20K 6 years ago.





I used to build them for living. I put this one in an 1850s farmhouse and the fellow used it as his primary heatsource. When I finished this one I went across the road and put one in for his mother-in-law. Then the sister-in'-law wanted one. I never intended on specializing in them but you go where the work takes you. This one was a see-through.
[Linked Image]

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990221
11/09/23 11:35 AM
11/09/23 11:35 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
SEPA
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Lugnut Offline
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SEPA
Dirty D that was an excellent explanation and pictorial/tutorial. Also, that is a very interesting concept that seems to be working quite well for you.

I think the downside for me would be building a fire everyday. Over the past three or four decades of heating with wood I've come to really dislike the gathering of twigs, splitting down small kindling and tending to a newly lit fire. As mentioned above; I much prefer to light a fire in early-November and just keep it going until late-March or early-April. Even if that means chocking it down and keeping the windows open on warmer days.

An upside to the masonry heater would be not having to haul in a day's worth of firewood and stack it by the stove every twenty-four hours.

So you just build the one fire daily unless it's really cold correct? How long do you continue to feed it before letting it go out?


Eh...wot?

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: Keystonekiller] #7990292
11/09/23 12:46 PM
11/09/23 12:46 PM
Joined: Dec 2010
Armpit, ak
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Dirt Offline
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Armpit, ak
Originally Posted by Keystonekiller
Just started burning wood 3 years ago now I just buy a log truck load delivered to the house i cut an hand split at the house 900 bucks a load that's dead wood last me 2 winters ...definitely agree on having to restart the fire but I enjoy the work kinda guy that can't sit still anyway so always doing something



This changes once you get to your 300th cord.

Last edited by Dirt; 11/09/23 12:46 PM.

Who is John Galt?
Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: EdP] #7990294
11/09/23 12:48 PM
11/09/23 12:48 PM
P
Posco
Unregistered
Posco
Unregistered
P


Originally Posted by EdP
I don't think wood is carbon neutral. Don't get me wrong, I don't care a bit about "carbon," but there have been a lot of restrictions placed on wood burners by the EPA over the past 4 or 5 decades.

BTW, I heat with wood.

I heat with coal and wood pellets. All good things will come to an end if government has its way. Until then, it's carbon for me. Just had a ton of coal delivered this morning.
[Linked Image]

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990316
11/09/23 01:26 PM
11/09/23 01:26 PM
Joined: Jun 2007
Tennessee
Scuba1 Offline
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Joined: Jun 2007
Tennessee
To the original question. I guess chipping the stuff and turning it into OSB boards pays better than selling it as firewood.

As to the carbon neutral BS. I have said this more than once before. It would be beneficial to have more CO2 in the atmosphere as it promotes plant growth. All the fertilizer in the world does little good if there is not enough carbon for the plant to use in its structure / photosynthesis is based on having enough CO2 to work as it is the primary building block. Take that away and a plant won't live and grow. During the time when the cabin layers were deposited that are now mined as coal, the CO2 concentration in the air was more than 10 times it is at present. Thats how ferns the size of fur trees could grow then. The planet was pretty much covered in huge plants .... they were needed to feed the large animals that roamed the planet in abundance then.
So declaring carbon the bad bogeyman is nothing more than a political stunt of the powers that bee to squeeze more taxes out of the un informed. If we had more CO2 in the air, we would have petter plant growth, better harvests and enough food to feed the people without resorting to grinding down bugs and put those into our food as some are promoting.


Let's go Brandon

"Shall not comply" with morons who don't understand "shall not infringe."
Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: Lugnut] #7990470
11/09/23 05:47 PM
11/09/23 05:47 PM
Joined: Nov 2014
east central WI
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east central WI
Originally Posted by Lugnut
Dirty D that was an excellent explanation and pictorial/tutorial. Also, that is a very interesting concept that seems to be working quite well for you.

I think the downside for me would be building a fire everyday. Over the past three or four decades of heating with wood I've come to really dislike the gathering of twigs, splitting down small kindling and tending to a newly lit fire. As mentioned above; I much prefer to light a fire in early-November and just keep it going until late-March or early-April. Even if that means chocking it down and keeping the windows open on warmer days.

An upside to the masonry heater would be not having to haul in a day's worth of firewood and stack it by the stove every twenty-four hours.

So you just build the one fire daily unless it's really cold correct? How long do you continue to feed it before letting it go out?


Starting a fire is for me is easy. I get approx 2) 5 gallon buckets of split wood which is about 10-12 pieces. I scrape the ash into the container below the grate. I load the logs in Lincoln log style, alternating back and forth.
On top of that I pile up my kindling Lincoln log style again. My kindling gets generated from my wood shop scraps mostly. I like stuff that is about 6-8" long about 1/2-3/4 square. About 3-4 layers of this and I find a piece of thin
wood that is easy to light with a match. Again usually I have off cuts from wood working that are 1/8 thick x 3/4 that light easily with a match. I take the lit piece and put it down the center of the kindling Lincoln log pile.
Open the air supply all the way, close the door and I'm done. The next time I mess with it is when the fire has burned down and the coals are getting weak. I shut off the air completely and its done till the next day.

Starting a fire takes me no more than 5 minutes even if I have to dump the ash container.

And yes, if it gets really cold we'll go to 2 fires a day, about 12 hours a part. And we'll open the windows too at times if the weather turns abnormally warm. Thats another downside, once you get that hunk of brick heated you don't want to stop burning for a couple of days as it takes a couple of days to get it back up to heat.

Another thing that makes a difference when you burn a load and thats it is the quality of the wood makes a big difference. If I burn a poor wood like Aspen I don't get much heat. That maybe good in the warmer weather or if you want to burn 2 fires.
I burn pretty much Shag bark Hickory, Sugar Maple and Ironwood. I I have burned Ash and I find it doesn't put out as much heat as Hickory so I just leave it in the woods and take the better stuff.
And if the wood is at least bit on the punky side I can also tell that it doesn't give out as much heat.
So I'm a bit of wood snob when it comes to making firewood.

Walking by the heater is like standing in the summer sun, you get that nice warm radiant heat. Doesn't matter when, its always like that.

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: Dirt] #7990473
11/09/23 05:50 PM
11/09/23 05:50 PM
Joined: Nov 2014
east central WI
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east central WI
Originally Posted by Dirt



This changes once you get to your 300th cord.


300 cords would last me over 100 years.
Part of the trick is to make use the best wood so you don't need as much (not all firewood is equal) and have a house that doesn't leak air and has good insulation levels.

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: T-Rex] #7990480
11/09/23 05:59 PM
11/09/23 05:59 PM
Joined: Nov 2014
east central WI
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Joined: Nov 2014
east central WI
Originally Posted by T-Rex
Thank you Dirty D. Great tutorial. I also did a bit of research on my own.

I love the concept. Unfortunately, I don't think I am up to the task. Because of the time lag of control/planning I see no way of keeping the wife happy. That doesn't even take into consideration the times when I am gone and she needs to step up.



Its just an daily chore, light the daily fire, takes 5 minutes at most. There is very little planing required. I just watch the weather. If a really bad cold snap is coming, like below zero for a couple of days then I'll light 2 fires starting the first day of the snap.
If I just ignore the weather the worse that happens is the house may get a little cooler than the normal mid '70's temp. It may drop into the high 60's after a day or two..
My wife is not involved at all except on occasion she will close the air off when its time and I'm not around. My wife does like the no heating bills, knowing that no matter what happens to the power grid we'll be nice and warm.
She is very possessive of our firewood pile. Even tho we keep about 4 years worth on hand she doesn't like when I sell or give away even a small amount. grin

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: Dirty D] #7990489
11/09/23 06:05 PM
11/09/23 06:05 PM
Joined: Dec 2010
Armpit, ak
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Dirt Offline
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Armpit, ak
Originally Posted by Dirty D
Originally Posted by Dirt



This changes once you get to your 300th cord.


300 cords would last me over 100 years.
Part of the trick is to make use the best wood so you don't need as much (not all firewood is equal) and have a house that doesn't leak air and has good insulation levels.


Sometimes I have to burn firewood in the summer. I wish I was lying about the summer thing.


Who is John Galt?
Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990492
11/09/23 06:06 PM
11/09/23 06:06 PM
Joined: Feb 2020
Indiana
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Indiana
I guess one of the fire places in my 1830 built cabin is a masonry heater if sorts. On one side the fire place is inset inside the cabin and radiates the heart inside once warmed up on both the first and 2nd floor

The fire place in the other end if the cabin is as wide but nit as deep and is on the outside If the cabin. More for cooler weather cooking I always figured.

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: Dirty D] #7990496
11/09/23 06:12 PM
11/09/23 06:12 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
SEPA
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Originally Posted by Dirty D
Starting a fire is for me is easy. I get approx 2) 5 gallon buckets of split wood which is about 10-12 pieces. I scrape the ash into the container below the grate. I load the logs in Lincoln log style, alternating back and forth.
On top of that I pile up my kindling Lincoln log style again. My kindling gets generated from my wood shop scraps mostly. I like stuff that is about 6-8" long about 1/2-3/4 square. About 3-4 layers of this and I find a piece of thin
wood that is easy to light with a match. Again usually I have off cuts from wood working that are 1/8 thick x 3/4 that light easily with a match. I take the lit piece and put it down the center of the kindling Lincoln log pile.
Open the air supply all the way, close the door and I'm done. The next time I mess with it is when the fire has burned down and the coals are getting weak. I shut off the air completely and its done till the next day.


Interesting that you put the kindling on top, I also use woodshop scraps for kindling but lay them in over a page or two of crumbled newspaper then bigger stuff over that.

Also interesting that you can fit two five gallon buckets worth of wood in your firebox. My stove's firebox is 17" x 17" width and depth and maybe 14" tall.

What size is yours? Got pics?


Eh...wot?

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990502
11/09/23 06:16 PM
11/09/23 06:16 PM
Joined: Dec 2012
Northern WI
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Northern WI
Someone just said wood smoke causes Dementia, but I can’t remember from who or where I heard that.

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990627
11/09/23 08:29 PM
11/09/23 08:29 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Oregon
beaverpeeler Offline
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Oregon
Up at my brothers place (he’s 77) he stacks wood inside the house and has a nice oak chopping block next to his Fisher stove. Splits up kindling right there.
The joy of being a bachelor!


My fear of moving stairs is escalating!
Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990850
11/10/23 01:18 AM
11/10/23 01:18 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
East-Central Wisconsin
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East-Central Wisconsin
I don't think we should forget that mulch is a very marketable wood fiber product and it may be more profitable to cut, grind and sell mulch than to prepare the wood for furnaces. I a lot of the wealthier suburbs have lots of landscaping and mulch is a very sought after product.

Bryce

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990890
11/10/23 06:02 AM
11/10/23 06:02 AM
Joined: Apr 2015
NH
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NH
I agree with Scuba 100 percent.

Re: Why isn't wood used more? [Re: loosegoose] #7990977
11/10/23 08:30 AM
11/10/23 08:30 AM
Joined: Nov 2023
Lake Mille Lacs , MN
2poor Offline
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Lake Mille Lacs , MN
Heating with wood is far too much work for a lot of people. Myself I enjoy every minute of it ! I would far prefer to be in the woods than about anywhere. My fur shed will be 65 degrees and my waders both warm & dry this morning . The house is 72 and you could make tea out of my hot water faucet. Not a thin dime of propane is burnt. I gave 4K for the boiler 13 years ago. It would take over $2K a year to heat with propane. So minus the stove I still saved roughly $22.000. Thankfully I married a farm girl who is not afraid of work. Often fills the stove on the way to feed her chickens each morning.


It’s a lazy man who can’t find his wife a second job !
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