Wet Wood Chip Furnace
In our continuing saga involving the new insert, I have noticed how much less heat wet wood produces. Now that more of the heat remains in the house and less flies up the flue, one gets a clearer appreciation of wet v. dry.
Until now.
I stumbled upon this page describing, it seems, a complete inversion of the burn process (usually dictated by gravity):
My aim in this experiment was to explore a reversed approach to modern commercial practices and conventional wisdom. Namely trying to directly burn wet green (50% moisture content) chips in a self-sustained reaction in a small solidly packed single combustion chamber with little or no secondary air admission. I wondered if doing this in a batch-burn high-output hot water furnace would provide enough heat for a Vermont home.
Wet wood chips. Hmmm. Wouldn't that be smokey? Apparently not, given the right conditions:
If we were to build an ideal wood fire, as opposed to a natural one, we would have the embers on top. The radiant embers would gasify the wood underneath. Cool air and fuel gas would mix well in some porous insulating medium at this lower level and move upwards until they reached the embers where ignition would take place. If we could just push air through the substance of wood from underneath we'd have nearly complete combustion, a hot transparent flame, and little or no smoke.
His site is a great introductory source to a new theory of combustion. I wish him luck, and am considering a donation myself.
Until now.
I stumbled upon this page describing, it seems, a complete inversion of the burn process (usually dictated by gravity):
My aim in this experiment was to explore a reversed approach to modern commercial practices and conventional wisdom. Namely trying to directly burn wet green (50% moisture content) chips in a self-sustained reaction in a small solidly packed single combustion chamber with little or no secondary air admission. I wondered if doing this in a batch-burn high-output hot water furnace would provide enough heat for a Vermont home.
Wet wood chips. Hmmm. Wouldn't that be smokey? Apparently not, given the right conditions:
If we were to build an ideal wood fire, as opposed to a natural one, we would have the embers on top. The radiant embers would gasify the wood underneath. Cool air and fuel gas would mix well in some porous insulating medium at this lower level and move upwards until they reached the embers where ignition would take place. If we could just push air through the substance of wood from underneath we'd have nearly complete combustion, a hot transparent flame, and little or no smoke.
His site is a great introductory source to a new theory of combustion. I wish him luck, and am considering a donation myself.