Author Topic: Log Splitters?  (Read 3639 times)

Kingcreek

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #50 on: September 17, 2022, 09:58:21 AM »

But the true key, as you know, is making sure that your wood isn't wet.

Don't mean you don't have to be careful and you still have to clean and inspect your flue.
My big 2 sided (pass through) fireplace is not efficient and hasn’t been cleaned in 12 years. Huge flue and triple wall stainless pipe (10”?) with no elbows.
Should I be worried?
I cut and stack my wood (90% oak 10% black walnut/locust) in a woodshed for a year or more. I make sure I have a good hot blaze at least a couple times a week. I inspect it every season but there is nothing to clean. I get about a cup of black sandy grit (kreosote) when I open the damper first time in the fall and that’s it.
I called a sweep a couple years ago but he said if I can’t see any buildup top or bottom then he didn’t think I needed him.
What we have here is failure to communicate.

zxcvbob

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #51 on: September 17, 2022, 10:11:44 AM »
Good old 6010 or 6013 rod will burn through rust, paint, manure and crud.

I don't think a 6013 will, it's a shallow penetration rod often used for thin stock.  6010 or 6011 will work on dirty metal.  I can't remember the difference between 6010 and 6011; I think the coating is a little different and 6010 is better for DC.
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K Frame

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #52 on: September 17, 2022, 10:13:17 AM »
"Huge flue and triple wall stainless pipe (10”?) with no elbows."

Your open fireplace may not be efficient, but an insulated stainless steel liner? That's the absolute best thing to have, in my opinion.

Unlike a masonry chimney, which may never get up to a proper heat level that will keep creosote from forming because the stone/brick is a HUGE heat sink, an insulated (and triple wall construction gives it great insulating power) metal liner tends to get to, and stay at, proper heat levels (or even far above if you're a bonfire kind of guy).

The fact that you're burning well seasoned hardwood? Bonus.

And Locust? Excellent hardwood for fires. Burns long and hot and leaves an incredible bed of coals.


Now, that said, you really should have your chimney camera inspected every couple of years to make sure none of the joints have separated or that it hasn't developed a spontaneous split. Rare, but possible if there's an inherent flaw in the metal.
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RoadKingLarry

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #53 on: September 17, 2022, 10:16:17 AM »
At the very least I would do, or have done an inspection looking for buildup in the flu as well as material condition of the fireplace/stove.

Dry wood is the #1 preventer of flu problems. In my location (NE Oklahoma) it takes 2 years to dry dense woods like Oak to get them under a 20% moisture content. Ash, Hackberry and similar I can burn after a year of drying. I stack my firewood after it has been split in long single stacks elevated from the ground on treated 4X4 posts running N/S where the prevailing winds blows between the stacks. I will top cover the wood in mid September and begin moving wood into my shed in October.

One of the biggest problems I have with storing firewood more than 2 years is insect damage. I've seen 3-4 year old stacks of firewood nearly reduced to dust.
I'm not keen on treating my firewood with insecticides
https://howtogetridof.net/woodworm/
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Ben

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #54 on: September 17, 2022, 10:18:07 AM »
My big 2 sided (pass through) fireplace is not efficient and hasn’t been cleaned in 12 years. Huge flue and triple wall stainless pipe (10”?) with no elbows.
Should I be worried?
I cut and stack my wood (90% oak 10% black walnut/locust) in a woodshed for a year or more. I make sure I have a good hot blaze at least a couple times a week. I inspect it every season but there is nothing to clean. I get about a cup of black sandy grit (kreosote) when I open the damper first time in the fall and that’s it.
I called a sweep a couple years ago but he said if I can’t see any buildup top or bottom then he didn’t think I needed him.

My sweep seems to think that I'm a big worry wart, but I blame the interwebz. It's like 90% of the information out there all screams at you to clean the chimney once a year or else your house will burn down. If he only gets a handful of soot when he's out next week, and doesn't see any creosote buildup, I'm going to three years on the next one. And at that point it will be more about general inspection than anything else.

I would just inspect it myself except I have a steep roof and I'm too old for that *expletive deleted*it. If I'm going to break my neck I want it to be from doing something fun, not from work.  =D

Other than the steep roof, I would consider cleaning it myself too, as I always did that for my mom and dad. However they had an old Franklin stove that was pretty much a straight pass through to the stove. With these catalytic converter stoves, I don't even know how to clean all the way through without potentially breaking something where the pipe meets the stove when I'm shoving the broom down. My sweep has some nifty vacuuming contraption that blows the soot out the top of the pipe.
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Ben

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #55 on: September 17, 2022, 10:25:06 AM »
One of the biggest problems I have with storing firewood more than 2 years is insect damage. I've seen 3-4 year old stacks of firewood nearly reduced to dust.
I'm not keen on treating my firewood with insecticides
https://howtogetridof.net/woodworm/

I'm trying to figure out what I have. I don't have an infestation by any means, but random logs in my woodshed will have little piles of dust below them where something has bored into the wood. We don't have termites here, so it's something else. I don't see a lot of it, but seeing any has me keeping the wood outside the house until I burn it. I usually transfer the wood from the shed to a big plastic bin with a lid on the back porch, then from there, I transfer a half dozen logs or so at a time into the house, where they get burned that same day. It seems to all be the Russian olive. I don't think I've seen any pine logs with it.

The logs where I see the little sawdust piles get kept out and used as firepit wood.
"I'm a foolish old man that has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop."

K Frame

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #56 on: September 17, 2022, 10:34:36 AM »
I grew up in an area and at a time when (Central Pennsylvania, 1970s/1980s) when many people heated with wood stoves. The gypsy moth infestation made hardwood plentiful and cheap.

And in the area I grew up in, many of my friends lived on farmettes that had wood lots so their families had a ready supply of free firewood.

Many people were new to burning wood, and not everyone understood how to do it safely. Stoves weren't as efficient as they are now (meaning they would tend to build up a lot more creosote more easily), many people didn't season their wood properly, they didn't watch stack temperatures, etc.

Basically a lot of newbies making very newbie mistakes, and as a result there were a fair number of chimney fires. I knew two families that lost houses due to chimney fires.

The people who lived in the house behind the one I grew up in had a chimney fire that severely damaged the chimney (as in the top couple of rows of bricks basically crumbling off).

My brother and his wife at the time had a chimney fire that resulted in a cracked thimble and clay liner.

Personally, I do not believe it to be "nervous nellyism" to be fastidious in trying to make sure your house doesn't burn to the ground.

But that's just me.
Carbon Monoxide, sucking the life out of idiots, 'tards, and fools since man tamed fire.

K Frame

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #57 on: September 17, 2022, 10:36:29 AM »
Those little piles of sawdust?

Probably some kind of boring beetle.

You're smart to only bring in as much wood as you need to fuel the stove. No sense in introducing a potentially destructive pest into your home.

After all, aren't you enough? :rofl:
Carbon Monoxide, sucking the life out of idiots, 'tards, and fools since man tamed fire.

K Frame

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #58 on: September 17, 2022, 10:56:40 AM »
"My sweep has some nifty vacuuming contraption that blows the soot out the top of the pipe."

I have a fitting that allows me to put my leaf blower onto the exterior pipe on my stove and basically suck a huge amount of air through the horizontal pipe that runs from the stove to the exterior vertical stack.

I can't clean that any other way.

I use a brush on the exterior vertical pipe to kick everything loose, and while it's flexible, it's not flexible enough to get into the horizontal.

Had I known more about it when I had the stove installed I would have told my guy to NOT use the RTV high temperature sealant on the one joint outside, but to use the high-temp stove tape to seal it. I could have gotten the pipe apart more easily to do the cleaning.

But, the leaf blower does a good job of sucking the ash out of the pipe so I think I'm OK there.
Carbon Monoxide, sucking the life out of idiots, 'tards, and fools since man tamed fire.

JTHunter

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #59 on: September 18, 2022, 11:11:53 PM »
Note before the back East guys chime in: Pine is just a wood that's used in the Northwest. We don't have as many hardwoods as you guys do. I mostly use it as kindling and to get the fire going. It's mixed in 25/75 with my Russian olive, which while decent firewood, is just not up to oak standard. The faster and hotter burning pine mixed in really helps get the larger olive logs going good and keeps the wood stove at closer to optimum temperature.

About 4 years ago, we demo'ed an elevated deck at my mother's that was made of cedar.  The 2x6 boards were also painted with a "barn red" paint.  I used my hatchet and a hammer to split those boards into 1.5" x 0.5" pieces and then split some of those in half again (0.75 x 0.5).  They make good kindling as they are old and dry and catch quickly.  I also sometimes use them in the middle of the night when I wake and the fire is down to just coals.  A couple of pieces of that cedar followed by multiple handfuls of hardwood twigs and branches gets the fire up and running again.  Then I add the larger pieces before going back to bed.
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JTHunter

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #60 on: September 18, 2022, 11:18:11 PM »
I get about a cup of black sandy grit (kreosote) when I open the damper first time in the fall and that’s it.

What is your pipe's diameter and length?  Mine is ~6" (i.d.) double walled stainless and ~10-12' tall, but I only get about 1/4 cup of black powder.
“I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted.  The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American’s guarantee of freedom.” - - President Harry S. Truman, “Years of Trial and Hope”

Kingcreek

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #61 on: September 19, 2022, 08:49:48 AM »
It is 10-12” inside diameter and maybe 16’ to the top.
Right now, top part of it is laying in the yard with the new steel roof work. No significant buildup.
Maybe it’s only 1/2 cup when I open the damper first time for the season. I just know to expect it and have a tub under it.
What we have here is failure to communicate.

Ben

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Re: Log Splitters?
« Reply #62 on: September 21, 2022, 06:08:50 PM »
Well, my sweep just left and it looks like all is in good shape for having been a two year period. They have a "0-4" scale for buildup severity and he marked me a 2+. I thought a lot came out, but he said it was a good amount for the time period and it was all the very fine, dry, powdery stuff, which also was good.

He said if  I would have only gotten a little bit out after two years and how much I used it, it would have meant the stove wasn't functioning correctly. That's not intuitive to me, but it's apparently how these newfangled stoves work.
"I'm a foolish old man that has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop."