How to Exploit a Wood Stove’s Energy Efficiency
Have you begun researching contemporary wood stoves? Started narrowing the field to a handful of stoves that suit your home? Or maybe you’re already the owner of one or more wood burning stoves, and you want to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck–generating the most radiant heat possible with the least wood. Here are some suggestions.
First, be aware that inefficiency in stoves is caused by wood burning incompletely-which often results in overly smoky fires. The good news is that by increasing efficiency, you’ll also be decreasing air pollution and waste at the same time.
Here are a few tips to get you started.
1. Feed your wood stove with seasoned wood.
This is the equivalent of eating low-fat meat or filling up with high quality gasoline. Green wood is moisture-heavy-up to 50 percent of the weight can be liquid-which means wood burning stoves have to evaporate the moisture off before heat is released. Dry wood, on the other hand, burns hot and bright, leading to fuel efficiency, cleaner air, and money savings. See also, Choosing the Best Fuel for Stoves.
2. Treat your wood burning stoves to “Indian fires.”
Back in the day, Indian fires were the solar panels of frontier heating: efficient and kind to the environment, burning small and hot. Small, hot fires burn unstable gases more quickly. That means they lower safety issues and raise air quality. You’ll spend more time tending your stove-but then, you probably won’t mind. Better heating efficiency and air quality are great dividends.
3. Give your stove the appropriate fuel.
This may seem like common sense, but it can be easy to get carried away and treat wood stoves like all-purpose burning machines. So, for example, don’t burn coal in wood-only stoves. No hunks of treated wood from your home improvement project. And no trash-especially plastics or items with chemical elements. Not only are these poor fuels, they may also damage the wood stove’s internal workings, which are designed to burn-you guessed it-wood.
Looking for more tips? See Max Efficiency Wood Stoves.
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Filed Under Wood Stoves, wood |
Tagged With Environment, fuel efficiency, wood, wood burning stoves, Wood Stoves
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