Good advice… summed up appropriately in the Latent Heat section of your book “Trying to burn unseasoned wood is like trying to get warm in wet clothes”
Yes thanks - everybody knows the logs need to be dry/seasoned, but many don't really appreciate the staggering waste of heat energy needed to boil away the remaining moisture - every 1% moisture reduced is a real bonus! Thanks for your comment. Vince
There's a reason why nobody talks about this: people just don't understand it enough to see its importance. I know, that sounds mean and cynical. But it also happens to the case: simply put, we're just naturally bad at interpreting statistical information. That's why there are such things as casinos, adjustable-rate loans, and the lottery. The idea that small amounts gather seems intuitively obvious to us, yet, in practice, it somehow still remains ever beyond our conceptual grasp. My neighbor, smart as he is (and old enough to be my Dad), throws uncovered, unseasoned logs into the burner to fuel his boiler. He does this all winter long. I've mentioned to him the considerable numerical disadvantage of doing so, to which he snaps, "It'll still burn." Understanding efficiency is tough. The ability to think at scale is just not natural equipment for us human beings. We have to _learn_ to appreciate, well, appreciation. Hopefully we start to do this sooner than later!
Now that is a thoughtful reply! Thank you. And you are right - plus most humans feel instinctively lucky I believe - hence happily gambling where the odds are 14 million to one . . . I like the statistic that a person is much more likely to die while watching the lottery results than win it! I was once told a quotation you might not know and is apposite. Apparently Einstein once noted something like, "Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. Those that understand it earn it, and those that don't pay it." Tragic that your neighbour burns wet wood - such a waste. All best, Vince
Thank you for making this visual video. We need to Share this with everyone who burns/heats with wood. People don't equate [say 20 percent) moisture content that it's actually 20 percent of the weight of the piece of wood is water !!! I personally cut, split, stack, and cover (the top only) a full year in advance, minimum. When it starts getting cool, around mid-Sept, I put a full cord of wood uncovered on my covered porch to let it air dry even more. Then about two weeks before burning I'll bring half a face cord in two separate stacks. (1/4 face cord/1/4 rick each) into the room where my non-catalytic woodstove is. I'll use from one pile until it's gone then refill that stack then use from the other stack. When burning, I have a ceiling fan to move heat and air to help dry my indoor wood even more. I need a moisture meter to test my wood just before it goes into the stove. That's what's important to me. Question; Can cordwood/firewood be too dry? Sorry for getting long-winded. Thanks for the video and God Bless.
Thanks Tim, all really interesting - and you describe another key to enjoying a life with wood fires - to be well organised! I have been splitting Silver Birch and English Oak all day, I find they burn well in mixture, and I want them cut and split while the sap is still 'down'. And my point is, like you, I want to be fairly well organised - I expect to be burning them late next winter or the winter after! Have a good winter, best wishes, Vince
20% is still great for wood chunks that you want to use for smoking your food. Thanks for another very informative video. I just subscribed! Hello from Manitoba, Cadada
Ah yes, a completely different thing where extracting all the heat energy you can is not the aim! I had some oak smoked trout once - best I have ever eaten. Thanks for your comment. Vince
Thanks Rob, the physics of latent heat are massively important to people with woodburners - some people have said to me they thought that 20%mc was a target, not a threshold. Vince
Wow very graphic and really gets the message across. I knew it was good to have dry wood,now I understand why and it saves money and makes my wood last longer.Small wood store. Please do the overnight burn video. I have not heard of the put damp wood on. Thanks for kitchen physics! The OU would be proud.
We own a young small forest and sell off most of the thinnings as firewood. Currently we're thinning mostly softwood. Customers are so hung up on hardwood vs softwood when the should pay far more attention to the moisture content over the type of wood. Of course most very dry hardwood is superior but many sellers often don't wait long enough before selling it. Moisture content is the basis of a good wood fire 👍
I agree. A simple and boring truth - which spoils the magic or wood fires a bit - is that kilo for kilo, all dry wood species give roughly the same heat. Seasoning and burning conifers is just another firewood skill to be learned - plenty of secondary air to totally burn the resinous smoke helps.
Thank you for such an informative video. I have never seen anyone else explain it in this way, and show how much water that 20% moisture equates too. Simply fascinating.
Thank you - it actually surprised me too! Everyone now thinks that just getting the log's mc down to 20% is enough - but every extra 1% drier really matters and is worth the effort. Vince
If you learn this drying stuff, and the importance of burning your smoke, you are already a competent wood-burner and ahead of many who think they know wood fires!
Great video, looking forward to the next one! It's staggering to think that at todays wood prices how much of your money can be lost if the wood is not sufficiently dry. Thankfully I use a lot of chunky untreated birch and oak joiners offcuts at around 10% moisture so hopefully getting maximum heat for my money!
Such a good video !!!!!! Rewatched this one tonight, I have so many questions 😂😂😂 Hope Christmas trade is good looking forward for a video come January
Yes, having at least a basic understanding of the importance of the 'latent heat of vaporisation' - even if only a fuzzy one, is incredibly important in firewood and log fires. Christmas tree sales are nearly over now, so I will get the camera out again soon! All best. Vince
Hello fella, just found your channel and absolutely love and appreciate your knowledge and the fact your from Somerset like me. Books on my Christmas list 👍 Thankyou
Appreciated the physics - if you wanted to continue how about breaking down the density of woods - we have heated debates (pun) over buying oak or ash or birch as a example as that’s generally what’s kiln dried commercially available I want oak and my wife is happy with ash. Best burn for the buck? And yes let’s put the overnight fire question to bed (sorry on a roll there)
Well, it won't help family discussions - but you are right! If you are buying by volume, as mostly happens, then getting the densest wood species you can is efficient. Oak is denser than ash or birch, but having a mixture is good as a pure oak fire can be hard work at times - your wife is right about that bit! In my opinion, Ash is over-rated for no obvious reason. American research shows it to be about 8th if you class seasoned logs by heat value.
I saw a video of a guy using latent heat extend the warm of his fire one. He put a giant pot of wax on the stove when the fire was hot to melt it. Then when the fire dies down over night, the wax give the heat off as it changes state from liquid back to solid. Genious though extremely dangerous if the wax isn't contained safely.
Interesting - but terrifying! I met a woman once whose door was blown off after someone had absent-mindedly put a tin of floor wax on a lit wood stove. She was very lucky and only had minor burns.
Really clear and informative. One question I have is how low a moisture content could we possibly achieve by leaving the logs to season for longer. Being new to wood fires, I’m fascinated by the theory and science behind it all and imagine it hits a point of diminishing returns?
Your climate, and to a lesser extent the log species and when it was cut, will all affect how dry you can get the wood. Basically, it cannot get drier than the ambient humidity. But, as with all things firewood, it's not even that simple. The salts or sugars in the sap are hygroscopic - so sometimes you cannot get firewood even to ambient moisture content no matter how long you store it. It is all a bit of a learned art - but a great knowledge to build up.
@@WoodFiresWithVince Thanks for replying and appreciate the information. That makes total sense and very interesting to know that some elements of some woods are hydroscopic ( I only know what that word means from working with mineral insulated cable) Lots more to learn yet and I’m only just beginning on this path. Looking forward to seeing more content from yourself. All the best
so why was the garages and shops up till 2 yrs ago selling wet wood and coal oh yes for the weight so they could make more profit . glad your showing the importance of dry wood
I never considered the actual energy loss I just figured it was bad for creosote buildup. But makes sense, that steam is basically latent heat going up the chimney.
I`ve been very upset when i bought eight cubic meters of firewood and that pile of wood just get wet because of rain started just right in the moment when truck unloaded that wood in my yard. Thats an enormous volume of wood, and i could not stack them all at once. Rain showered these logs day and night, wood became heavy, like three times heavier, which indeed made my work harder, and of course it wont burn at all. But only one week under the sun and logs became light, i could even lift them with my index finger, and it burned like matches.
A bit of rain is usually not a problem, as long as the wood gets under cover with plenty of airflow to dry it out - air under the wood is really important. Glad all is good now!
Second of your vids I've seen and the second that I completely agree with. Can I add that wet wood, by burning at a lower temperature gives off more partially-combusted hydrocarbons and that steam is implicated in reactions in the flue gas producing other pollutants?
Yes thank you - I know the chemistry is really complicated, even in a simple flame. With all the flack that wood fires are getting at the moment - almost all unreasonable or based on questionable science, it is so important that those of us with wood fires be as efficient and clean as we can be. Ambassadors for this uniquely renewable fuel.
Bonjour!! What a nice test, nice to have visualized it like this....! I see a fire extinguisher near the wood stove in the video...chimney fire...my worst nightmare...I sweep the chimney 3x a winter...just in case..Is it an idea to make a video about that? ? I only heat on wood here in the Dordogne, France...Especially oak...and I light the fire since your video like you do but with dried Atlascedar pines...the very big ones ;-)..works amazing for kindling!!..we have a very old Atlas cedar in the meadow, beautiful tree! ... Warm regards ; ) Christian
Interesting thing chimney fires. They can do terrible damage, crack the chimney and even burn the house down. But, before we lived in such safety-conscious times, the men I worked with in the forest rented their houses and many set fire to the chimney on purpose, as a quick way of cleaning it - they showed me how to do it and this was always a secret! I have never done this in my own house. Those cones must be great - I think they have a lot of resin in them?
Wow, that graphic is a real attention getter. If you're heating with wood, that's a lot of lost heat... I actually use the not-so-dry wood to slow the fire down trick- but only in my outdoor campfires. I have a large amount of softer, fast burning wood that I no longer need, and is just in the way. If I just burn it by itself, the resulting fire is too big and too hot for my use: cooking. Mixing it with semi seasoned wood results in a more manageable fire. Not at all the ideal way to do things, but it's serving it's purpose and soon the bulk of the Silver Maple will be gone. (and I can use that space to stack more ideal wood-- of which I have loads, just waiting for space to stack it in) I wouldn't do it in anything with a chimney- unless you LIKE the messy job of cleaning that chimney out often. But for outdoor fires, it's fine.
It is on the list, sorry it is not done already as it is a really important thing. I have 3000 Christmas tree seedings to plant and have just started to write another book - but I will make a video on the over-night burning question, is it a good idea or not?
It surprises me that you dont have a high efficiency stove. I cut my wood consumption by 30% by going from an airtight boiler to a gasification boiler. Had heat storage witu both, just changed appliances.
Fair point!! When I built the house I fitted masses of insulation - and then put in a traditional range. The big leap in saving logs for me was moving on from an open fire.
@WoodFiresWithVince I live in northern Maine (very close to Canada) and I built my own house as well. Used about double the insulation that was standard at the time. R30 walls and R60 ceilings. I heat 3200 square feet (includes 2 car garage) and all my domestic hot water with just under 3 cord of mixed Maple, Beech, Yellow/White Birch. Burning wood is a wonderful hobby!!!
Yes - the elm in the hedges around me grows to about a 6" diameter and then the Scolytus beetles find the young tree and introduce the Dutch Elm disease. Tragic, but makes great firewood! Vince
![Quando Rondo - Life Goes On [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eIf3fhMXAow/mqdefault.jpg)
Good advice… summed up appropriately in the Latent Heat section of your book “Trying to burn unseasoned wood is like trying to get warm in wet clothes”
Wow I had forgotten that! It is such a good simile I would have used it in the video . . if I had remembered!
You really put the moisture content of our firewood into perspective. Thanks for another great video!
Yes it really is that important - glad it was useful.
Yes @Joshua Tyler. I agree and in fact said “Wow” out loud and I’m on my own 😄
Thank you very much.
The glasses of water was a great use of video medium to make the point.
Cheers
d
Yes thanks - everybody knows the logs need to be dry/seasoned, but many don't really appreciate the staggering waste of heat energy needed to boil away the remaining moisture - every 1% moisture reduced is a real bonus! Thanks for your comment. Vince
There's a reason why nobody talks about this: people just don't understand it enough to see its importance. I know, that sounds mean and cynical. But it also happens to the case: simply put, we're just naturally bad at interpreting statistical information. That's why there are such things as casinos, adjustable-rate loans, and the lottery. The idea that small amounts gather seems intuitively obvious to us, yet, in practice, it somehow still remains ever beyond our conceptual grasp.
My neighbor, smart as he is (and old enough to be my Dad), throws uncovered, unseasoned logs into the burner to fuel his boiler. He does this all winter long. I've mentioned to him the considerable numerical disadvantage of doing so, to which he snaps, "It'll still burn."
Understanding efficiency is tough. The ability to think at scale is just not natural equipment for us human beings. We have to _learn_ to appreciate, well, appreciation. Hopefully we start to do this sooner than later!
Now that is a thoughtful reply! Thank you. And you are right - plus most humans feel instinctively lucky I believe - hence happily gambling where the odds are 14 million to one . . . I like the statistic that a person is much more likely to die while watching the lottery results than win it! I was once told a quotation you might not know and is apposite. Apparently Einstein once noted something like, "Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. Those that understand it earn it, and those that don't pay it." Tragic that your neighbour burns wet wood - such a waste. All best, Vince
Thank you for making this visual video.
We need to Share this with everyone who burns/heats with wood.
People don't equate [say 20 percent) moisture content that it's actually 20 percent of the weight of the piece of wood is water !!!
I personally cut, split, stack, and cover (the top only) a full year in advance, minimum.
When it starts getting cool, around mid-Sept, I put a full cord of wood uncovered on my covered porch to let it air dry even more.
Then about two weeks before burning I'll bring half a face cord in two separate stacks. (1/4 face cord/1/4 rick each) into the room where my non-catalytic woodstove is.
I'll use from one pile until it's gone then refill that stack then use from the other stack.
When burning, I have a ceiling fan to move heat and air to help dry my indoor wood even more.
I need a moisture meter to test my wood just before it goes into the stove. That's what's important to me.
Question; Can cordwood/firewood be too dry?
Sorry for getting long-winded.
Thanks for the video and God Bless.
Thanks Tim, all really interesting - and you describe another key to enjoying a life with wood fires - to be well organised! I have been splitting Silver Birch and English Oak all day, I find they burn well in mixture, and I want them cut and split while the sap is still 'down'. And my point is, like you, I want to be fairly well organised - I expect to be burning them late next winter or the winter after! Have a good winter, best wishes, Vince
20% is still great for wood chunks that you want to use for smoking your food. Thanks for another very informative video. I just subscribed! Hello from Manitoba, Cadada
Ah yes, a completely different thing where extracting all the heat energy you can is not the aim! I had some oak smoked trout once - best I have ever eaten. Thanks for your comment. Vince
Couldent agree more
Gree
Well done Vince. A great video!
Thanks Rob, the physics of latent heat are massively important to people with woodburners - some people have said to me they thought that 20%mc was a target, not a threshold. Vince
really good info thanks
It is all really interesting, and important! Thanks for your comment. All best Vince
Wow very graphic and really gets the message across. I knew it was good to have dry wood,now I understand why and it saves money and makes my wood last longer.Small wood store. Please do the overnight burn video. I have not heard of the put damp wood on. Thanks for kitchen physics! The OU would be proud.
It is stunning that even 'ready to burn' logs have a mass of water in them. Every 1% mc reduced is a real bonus.
Well said, and I totally agree with your reasoning with damp or wet timber.
This whole moisture content thing is way more important than many people realise - I am glad we agree! All best. Vince
We own a young small forest and sell off most of the thinnings as firewood. Currently we're thinning mostly softwood. Customers are so hung up on hardwood vs softwood when the should pay far more attention to the moisture content over the type of wood. Of course most very dry hardwood is superior but many sellers often don't wait long enough before selling it.
Moisture content is the basis of a good wood fire 👍
I agree. A simple and boring truth - which spoils the magic or wood fires a bit - is that kilo for kilo, all dry wood species give roughly the same heat. Seasoning and burning conifers is just another firewood skill to be learned - plenty of secondary air to totally burn the resinous smoke helps.
Thank you for such an informative video. I have never seen anyone else explain it in this way, and show how much water that 20% moisture equates too. Simply fascinating.
Thank you - it actually surprised me too! Everyone now thinks that just getting the log's mc down to 20% is enough - but every extra 1% drier really matters and is worth the effort. Vince
I enjoyed it too ☺️ thank you 👍 Newbie log stove owner here 😃
If you learn this drying stuff, and the importance of burning your smoke, you are already a competent wood-burner and ahead of many who think they know wood fires!
@@WoodFiresWithVince Thank you, I’m doing my best to learn to do it right 👍 and love your channel ☺️
Danke, sehr beeindruckend. Viele Grüße von einem „Holzherdfreund” aus Deutschland
Vielen Dank für das Compliment. Ich wünsche Ihnen einen schönen Winter! Vince
Great video, looking forward to the next one! It's staggering to think that at todays wood prices how much of your money can be lost if the wood is not sufficiently dry. Thankfully I use a lot of chunky untreated birch and oak joiners offcuts at around 10% moisture so hopefully getting maximum heat for my money!
10%! That a moisture content of dreams for most of us! You are neither buying much water nor wasting much heat - sounds pretty good to me.
Such a good video !!!!!! Rewatched this one tonight, I have so many questions 😂😂😂 Hope Christmas trade is good looking forward for a video come January
Yes, having at least a basic understanding of the importance of the 'latent heat of vaporisation' - even if only a fuzzy one, is incredibly important in firewood and log fires. Christmas tree sales are nearly over now, so I will get the camera out again soon! All best. Vince
Hello fella, just found your channel and absolutely love and appreciate your knowledge and the fact your from Somerset like me. Books on my Christmas list 👍 Thankyou
You are very welcome - I hope you enjoy the book! All best, Vince
Wow, thanks so much. That puts it into perspective!
thank you for another really informative video we love it when you launch a new one. Big thank you for them all
Thank you - they are fun to make and I just love everything about my fires.
Thanks for sharing
You are welcome - it is so important and hardly talked about.
Appreciated the physics - if you wanted to continue how about breaking down the density of woods - we have heated debates (pun) over buying oak or ash or birch as a example as that’s generally what’s kiln dried commercially available I want oak and my wife is happy with ash.
Best burn for the buck?
And yes let’s put the overnight fire question to bed (sorry on a roll there)
Well, it won't help family discussions - but you are right! If you are buying by volume, as mostly happens, then getting the densest wood species you can is efficient. Oak is denser than ash or birch, but having a mixture is good as a pure oak fire can be hard work at times - your wife is right about that bit! In my opinion, Ash is over-rated for no obvious reason. American research shows it to be about 8th if you class seasoned logs by heat value.
Brilliant video as always !!!! We’re going through wood like no one’s business this year !!!!! Haven’t had the heating on mind 😂😍👍🏻
Keep your woodshed full though - goodness knows what this winter will be like!?
I saw a video of a guy using latent heat extend the warm of his fire one.
He put a giant pot of wax on the stove when the fire was hot to melt it. Then when the fire dies down over night, the wax give the heat off as it changes state from liquid back to solid.
Genious though extremely dangerous if the wax isn't contained safely.
Interesting - but terrifying! I met a woman once whose door was blown off after someone had absent-mindedly put a tin of floor wax on a lit wood stove. She was very lucky and only had minor burns.
Really clear and informative. One question I have is how low a moisture content could we possibly achieve by leaving the logs to season for longer. Being new to wood fires, I’m fascinated by the theory and science behind it all and imagine it hits a point of diminishing returns?
Your climate, and to a lesser extent the log species and when it was cut, will all affect how dry you can get the wood. Basically, it cannot get drier than the ambient humidity. But, as with all things firewood, it's not even that simple. The salts or sugars in the sap are hygroscopic - so sometimes you cannot get firewood even to ambient moisture content no matter how long you store it. It is all a bit of a learned art - but a great knowledge to build up.
@@WoodFiresWithVince
Thanks for replying and appreciate the information. That makes total sense and very interesting to know that some elements of some woods are hydroscopic ( I only know what that word means from working with mineral insulated cable)
Lots more to learn yet and I’m only just beginning on this path. Looking forward to seeing more content from yourself. All the best
so why was the garages and shops up till 2 yrs ago selling wet wood and coal oh yes for the weight so they could make more profit . glad your showing the importance of dry wood
Dry wood is so important - they also sold damp charcoal so that people bought BBQ lighter fuel!
I never considered the actual energy loss I just figured it was bad for creosote buildup. But makes sense, that steam is basically latent heat going up the chimney.
You are right on this - the actual loss of heat energy is rarely talked about, just damage caused by acidic tarry smoke.
I`ve been very upset when i bought eight cubic meters of firewood and that pile of wood just get wet because of rain started just right in the moment when truck unloaded that wood in my yard. Thats an enormous volume of wood, and i could not stack them all at once. Rain showered these logs day and night, wood became heavy, like three times heavier, which indeed made my work harder, and of course it wont burn at all. But only one week under the sun and logs became light, i could even lift them with my index finger, and it burned like matches.
A bit of rain is usually not a problem, as long as the wood gets under cover with plenty of airflow to dry it out - air under the wood is really important. Glad all is good now!
Second of your vids I've seen and the second that I completely agree with. Can I add that wet wood, by burning at a lower temperature gives off more partially-combusted hydrocarbons and that steam is implicated in reactions in the flue gas producing other pollutants?
Yes thank you - I know the chemistry is really complicated, even in a simple flame. With all the flack that wood fires are getting at the moment - almost all unreasonable or based on questionable science, it is so important that those of us with wood fires be as efficient and clean as we can be. Ambassadors for this uniquely renewable fuel.
Bonjour!! What a nice test, nice to have visualized it like this....! I see a fire extinguisher near the wood stove in the video...chimney fire...my worst nightmare...I sweep the chimney 3x a winter...just in case..Is it an idea to make a video about that? ? I only heat on wood here in the Dordogne, France...Especially oak...and I light the fire since your video like you do but with dried Atlascedar pines...the very big ones ;-)..works amazing for kindling!!..we have a very old Atlas cedar in the meadow, beautiful tree! ... Warm regards ; ) Christian
Interesting thing chimney fires. They can do terrible damage, crack the chimney and even burn the house down. But, before we lived in such safety-conscious times, the men I worked with in the forest rented their houses and many set fire to the chimney on purpose, as a quick way of cleaning it - they showed me how to do it and this was always a secret! I have never done this in my own house. Those cones must be great - I think they have a lot of resin in them?
Great video where are you finding Elm you are really lucky to have it.
I know - I 'stole' it from a village bonfire. somebody had dumped a dead elm there and I thought . . . that's just a criminal waste!
Wow, that graphic is a real attention getter. If you're heating with wood, that's a lot of lost heat...
I actually use the not-so-dry wood to slow the fire down trick- but only in my outdoor campfires. I have a large amount of softer, fast burning wood that I no longer need, and is just in the way. If I just burn it by itself, the resulting fire is too big and too hot for my use: cooking. Mixing it with semi seasoned wood results in a more manageable fire. Not at all the ideal way to do things, but it's serving it's purpose and soon the bulk of the Silver Maple will be gone. (and I can use that space to stack more ideal wood-- of which I have loads, just waiting for space to stack it in)
I wouldn't do it in anything with a chimney- unless you LIKE the messy job of cleaning that chimney out often. But for outdoor fires, it's fine.
Thanks for these thoughts, and I totally agree. with an outdoor or camping fire in many cases the wood will not be dry, nor needs to be.
When are you going to make the video of “overnight burn
It is on the list, sorry it is not done already as it is a really important thing.
I have 3000 Christmas tree seedings to plant and have just started to write another book - but I will make a video on the over-night burning question, is it a good idea or not?
@@WoodFiresWithVince yes it will be a good video !
It surprises me that you dont have a high efficiency stove. I cut my wood consumption by 30% by going from an airtight boiler to a gasification boiler. Had heat storage witu both, just changed appliances.
Fair point!! When I built the house I fitted masses of insulation - and then put in a traditional range. The big leap in saving logs for me was moving on from an open fire.
@WoodFiresWithVince I live in northern Maine (very close to Canada) and I built my own house as well. Used about double the insulation that was standard at the time. R30 walls and R60 ceilings. I heat 3200 square feet (includes 2 car garage) and all my domestic hot water with just under 3 cord of mixed Maple, Beech, Yellow/White Birch. Burning wood is a wonderful hobby!!!
Hi Taylor, yes agreed - good insulation, dry logs and enjoy it all - and three cord a year is impressive!
did your elm get dutch elm disease
Yes - the elm in the hedges around me grows to about a 6" diameter and then the Scolytus beetles find the young tree and introduce the Dutch Elm disease. Tragic, but makes great firewood! Vince