What You Need to Know About Outdoor Wood Burners

Outdoor wood burners are an affordable way to heat homes and businesses. They also reduce dependence on nonrenewable fossils fuels and contribute towards a resilient energy strategy.

To ensure efficient burning, it is important to use well-seasoned wood. Green or unseasoned wood has a higher moisture content and can create creosote accumulation, which can affect performance.

Efficient

Outdoor wood burners (OWBs) have been around for years and are an extremely green and efficient method of heating your home. The design of OWBs encourages the slowing of the fire, making it cooler which results in less efficient combustion and more smoke and creosote. These unburnt fuels can cause health issues as well as fire hazards and affect the environment around them.

Moreover, 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 public relations issue could be a significant impact on the value of your property and may even lead to your OWB being shut down.

Crown Royal Stoves offers a range of EPA Certified outdoor wood furnaces known as the Pristine Gasification Series that utilizes technology to maximize combustion efficiency for a clean, smoke-free burn. This is done by using a negative-pressure air system which pulls fresh, dry heated, filtered, and heated air from the bottom and pushes it out through the chimney faster than traditional outdoor wood boilers. This is accomplished through the unique design of a multi-pass, water-filled heat exchanger made of 409 Titanium Enhanced Stainless Steel.

Properly used properly, when properly used, the Pristine Series OWB can achieve a 99% combustion rate for a cleaner and smokeless fire. It uses less wood, and produces significantly less emissions than traditional OWBs. To enhance your OWB's performance it is essential to burn clean, seasoned, dry wood. Seasoning your large wood burning stove for six months or a year prior to burning is recommended and helps ensure a smoother and more efficient burn.

In addition to increasing the efficiency of your wood stove, you can also improve its efficiency by performing the "dry burn" every week. This method reduces creosote, increases boiler efficiency and extends the lifespan of your boiler. Lastly by putting in a creosote remover stick each when you load your stove, you can drastically cut the amount of creosote you use. This product is available from Wisconsin Wood Furnace.

Clean

A wood-burning stove can become very dirty from burnt soot particles. These are very hard to shift so if you notice any spots of soot build-up on the glass of your stove, wash them right away. Any soot that is not eliminated will begin to harden, making it even more difficult. It's important to use the right cleaners however, you must avoid damaging the glass surface with anything that may scratch it. This could result in a weak point that will break glass when exposed to high temperatures.

Be sure to let your wood stove cool completely before cleaning it. Also, ensure that the surrounding area is covered with newspaper. This will stop the ash from spilling and staining surfaces.

Depending on the quality of the wood that you select, it can take up to one year for your stove to become properly well-seasoned. The wood that is seasoned will not only burn more efficiently and will produce less creosote. This is the material that gets accumulated on your chimney, reducing effectiveness and creating the risk of fire. If you're using unseasoned wood or just starting a new fire in your outdoor wood burner the best thing you can do is open the lower back door and scoop the ashes into a non-combustible container each week.

A sediment flush should be performed on your boiler every four years. It is a simple flush of five seconds from the drain valve on your boiler. This will get rid of any sediment that has built up in the system, and will ensure that your boiler runs well.

After you have cleaned the outside Wood burners of your fireplace that is outside It is now time to clean it. Before you begin, make sure to cover the stove's area with newspaper. It is also helpful to wear gloves and protective eyewear. Also, you should have a shovel, a metal container for ash and a scraping tool. You can use a cloth as shield to protect the refractory as you take off coal and ash deposits.

Easy to Operate

Despite their popularity (they were among the 1990s' "it" trends, as were mullet haircuts) outdoor wood boilers, also known as outdoor furnaces or outdoor wood hydronic heaters are often misunderstood. These units are not like the popular EPA wood stoves, which are built to burn low temperatures and run continuously. They use a higher rate of combustion and produce more smoke. This is why some local governments regulate or ban their use.

OWBs are Best wood burning stoves used to heat homes with insulation levels that are high. Smoke that is thick and smoldering may be a nuisance to neighbors, which has led many OWBs to be shut down or sued. To allow OWBs to function properly, they must be used with dry wood with a low moisture content. Green or unseasoned wood will reduce efficiency, causing creosote build-up and reduce the life of the burner. Drying wood takes time, and an instrument to measure moisture is a must for any homeowner.

Dual-stage wood gasification (OWGB) boilers however, use a three-step process that utilizes more of the energy contained in the wood. This means less smoke. These furnaces are more efficient than traditional OWBs and are suitable for a wide range of fuels. Wood gasification boilers require dry well-seasoned and seasoned firewood. Most wood burning fires can be seasoned within a year, however oak and other species with a hardy structure can take two years or more to fully season. This is due to lower amount of water and a higher density. This lets them store heat for longer, increasing efficiency and decreasing pollution. The EPA "Burn Wise' website and Cornell Cooperative Extension are great sources for homeowners to understand how to burn wood efficiently to reduce air pollution.

Low Maintenance

Modern outdoor wood furnaces are designed with the environment in mind. Contrary to indoor corner wood burner stoves that emit significant smoke, modern outdoor furnaces burn cleanly and without the production of excessive heat or carbon monoxide. They also require less wood to produce the same amount of heat as traditional stoves.

Outdoor wood burners require less maintenance and are more forgiving of moisture content in wood than indoor wood burning stoves. Outdoor wood burners are only suitable for wood that has been properly "cured" or seasoned. Some types of wood can last for up to a year. Make use of a moisture meter prior to loading to measure the amount of water present in your wood.

During operation, it is essential to check the system regularly for the build-up of creosote. Creosote is an byproduct of combustion and can build up in the flue and chimney in the event that it is not cleaned frequently. It can be removed by pouring a creosote removing product into the fire. Regularly cleaning the flue and chimney will remove dangerous creosote accumulations, and increase efficiency.

To achieve 99% combustion efficiency, Crown Royal Stoves designed a new air flow technology known as Negative Pressure Gasification. Our EPA certified Pristine Series outdoor wood furnaces employ this technology to pull air from the bottom, directing all gasses through an insulated water-surrounded secondary combustion chamber that is easy to clean turbulators for a smokeless & pollutant-free burn.