What You Need to Know About Outdoor Wood Burners
Outdoor wood burners are an affordable way to heat homes and businesses. They also help reduce the dependence on nonrenewable fossils fuels and contribute towards a resilient energy strategy.
A well-seasoned wood is vital for efficient burning. Wood that is not seasoned or green may have a higher moisture content that can create creosote and decrease performance.
Efficient
Outdoor wood burners (OWBs) have been around for many years and provide an energy efficient and environmentally friendly method to heat your home. However, the typical design of OWBs, which promotes an unsteady, cooler fire which causes poor combustion and more smoke, creosote, as well as particulates. Unburned fuels can lead to health problems as well as fire hazards and deteriorate the surrounding environment.
Furthermore the visible smoke plume that OWBs produce could cause neighbors to voice their concerns. This could lead to DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation), taking enforcement action. This type of issue can negatively impact the value of your property, and may result in your OWB being closed down.
Crown Royal Stoves has a line of outdoor wood furnaces that are EPA Certified. The Pristine Gasification Series makes use of technology to improve the efficiency of combustion and produce a smokeless, clean burn. This is achieved through a negative pressure air system that pulls fresh hot, dry clean air in from the bottom of the boiler and then pushes it out of the chimney at a much greater rate than traditional outdoor wood boilers. This is accomplished by a unique design which uses a multi-pass water-filled heat exchanger made of 409 Titanium Enhanced Stainless Steel.
When used properly when properly used, when properly used, the Pristine Gasification Series OWB can achieve a 99% combustion efficiency to create a cleaner, smokeless fire that requires less wood and produces significantly fewer emissions than traditional OWBs. To enhance the performance of your OWB, it is important to burn clean, seasoned, dry wood. It is recommended that you get your wood seasoned for a minimum of six months or one year prior to burning it. This will ensure an efficient and clean burn.
In addition to increasing the performance of your wood stove and enhancing the efficiency of your wood burner by performing an "dry burn" every week. This method lowers the amount of creosote in your home which increases the efficiency of boilers and extends the life of your boiler. Lastly, by adding a creosote remover stick every when you load your stove, you will be able to drastically cut the amount of creosote you use. This product is available from Wisconsin Wood Furnace.
Clean
A wood-burning stove can be extremely dirty due to burned soot particles. They are difficult to remove so make sure you remove any buildup from your stove's glass immediately. If the soot isn't removed, it will begin to harden and make it more difficult to remove. It is crucial to choose the right cleaner, but you should also avoid damaging the glass surface with anything that may scratch it. This could result in a weak spot that will break the glass when exposed to high temperatures.
Be sure to allow your wood burner to cool completely before cleaning it. Make sure that you protect the area around it with newspaper. This will prevent any spillage of ash which can stain and mark surfaces.
Based on the quality of the wood you choose to use, it could take up to a year for your stove to become properly and seasoned. The wood that has been treated with a seasoned finish will not only burn more efficiently, but also produce less creosote. This is the material which builds up on your fireplace, decreasing its efficiency and posing the potential for a fire hazard. If you're using unseasoned wood or you're just starting an outdoor fire fireplace, you should open the lower backdoor, and scoop out ashes into a noncombustible container every week.
You should also perform an annual sediment flush on your boiler at least once every four years. It is a simple flush that takes five seconds from the drain valve on your boiler. This will remove any sediment that has built up in the system, and ensure that your boiler is operating well.
After you have cleaned the outside of your fireplace outside it is time to clean it. Before you begin, it's crucial to cover the stove's perimeter with newspaper. Wearing protective gloves and eyewear is an excellent idea. Also, you should have an ash container, a shovel container for ash and an instrument for scraping. You can use a cloth as an insulator to shield the refractory from damage while you remove ash and coal deposits.
Easy to operate
Outdoor wood boilers (also called outdoor furnaces and outdoor wood hydronic heating systems or outdoor wood heaters) are often misunderstood in spite of their acclaim. They were one of the "it" trends of the 1990s, as were hairstyles with mullets. Contrary to the EPA's popular
large wood burner stoves that are designed to burn at low, constant temperatures, these boilers have more fire and produce more smoke when operating. Some local governments restrict or prohibit their use.
OWBs are best suited to homes with high levels of insulation. The visible, smoldering smoke can also be a source of complaint with neighbors, and has led to many OWBs being shut down or being sued in the past. For OWBs, dry wood with less moisture content is required to perform effectively. Wood that is not seasoned or green will reduce efficiency, causing creosote build-up and decrease the life of the burner. Drying wood can take time and a moisture meter is a must for any homeowner.
In contrast, very Small wood burner (
www.kaseisyoji.com) dual-stage wood gasification boilers (OWGB) employ three steps of process which makes use of the available energy in the wood, resulting in much less smoke. These types of furnaces are far more efficient than conventional OWBs and can be used with a greater variety of fuel. Wood gasification boilers need dry and seasoned wood. The majority of wood will season within a year. Oak and other tough trees could take as long as two years to mature. This is due to lower water content and denser mass. This allows them retain heat for longer, increasing efficiency and decreasing pollution. The EPA's "Burn Wise" website and Cornell Cooperative Extension can help homeowners understand how to burn wood efficiently to minimize air pollution.
Low Maintenance
Modern outdoor wood furnaces have been designed with the environment in mind. Unlike
indoor wood burner wood burners that emit significant smoke modern outdoor furnaces burn cleanly and without the release of excessive carbon monoxide or heat. They also require less wood to provide the same amount of heat as traditional stoves.
Outdoor wood burners require significantly less maintenance than
indoor wood Burner wood burners and are more accommodating in regards to the moisture content of the wood. However outdoor wood burners should only be used with properly prepared or "cured" wood. Certain kinds of wood can last for up to a year. It is essential to make use of a moisture meter to measure the amount of water of your wood prior to loading.
During operation, it is necessary to check the system regularly for the accumulation of creosote. Creosote is an byproduct of combustion that can build up in the chimney and flue if it is not cleaned frequently. It can be removed with a special creosote removal product that is poured into the flame. Regularly cleaning the flue and chimney will eliminate dangerous creosote accumulations and improve efficiency.
Crown Royal Stoves developed a new airflow technology known as Negative Pressure Gasification to attain 99% efficiency in combustion. This technology is utilized in our EPA certified Pristine Series Outdoor Wood Furnaces to draw air upwards from the bottom and force all the gases through an enclosed secondary combustion chamber that is that is surrounded by water and easy-to-clean Turbulators. The result is a smokeless & pollutant-free combustion.