[Stoves] wood: air dry, damp, moist and too wet to burn

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Lanny

Unfortunately the answer to your (very reasonable) question is dependent on the excess air present in the combustion chamber and the amount of preheat the primary air is given. 

Once the fire is running (with the help of a small quantity of starter fuel, for example) the preheating of primary air can maintain a burn that is impossible for an open fire (through heat recycling). If you put in very dry fuel ithout controlling the preheating, it goes into thermal runaway making excessive gas + charcoal. 

Most TLUD stoves have a certain moisture range in which they work well, usually quite by accident. When stepping outside that range they either work poorly, or make massive, unburnable quantities of gas. 

This problem exemplifies the importance of having controllable air. 

Regards
Crispin in Palo Alto

PS Frank, I can see your house from here!
From BB9900

-----Original Message-----
From: "Lanny Henson" <lannych at bellsouth.net>
Sender: "Stoves" <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2013 08:42:15 
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves<stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Reply-To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
	<stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: [Stoves] wood: air dry, damp, moist and too wet to burn

_______________________________________________
Stoves mailing list

to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org

to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org

for more Biomass Cooking Stoves,  News and Information see our web site:
http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/