Fairbanks fire officials urge caution in using wood as heat source
Published Monday, August 25, 2008
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FAIRBANKS — With more people turning to firewood to heat their homes due to the high cost of heating fuel, forestry and fire officials in Fairbanks are worried about greenhorn firewood cutters burning green wood in their wood stoves this winter, which will increase the likelihood of chimney fires.
“We’re hoping people get in and get their wood cut so it can season,” Fairbanks-area forester Marc Lee at the Division of Forestry said. “If they’re going to burn green wood, it’s not going to work.
“That’s my fear,” Lee said. “That’s what we’re seeing. A fair percentage of people think they can burn it this winter.”
“Green” means wet, and wet wood is not good wood.
“Green wood puts out a lot of creosote,” said Mitch Flynn, chief at the Steese Area Volunteer Fire Department.
Creosote is the sticky, tar-like substance produced by burning wood. It collects on the inside of chimneys and can catch on fire, potentially causing a blaze that can spread to the roof of a home. Creosote buildup is the leading cause of chimney fires.
“Green wood produces more moisture and creosote, and moisture makes creosote attach to a (chimney) pipe,” said Brad Poulson, deputy chief at Chena Goldstream Fire and Rescue.
With the price of home heating fuel pushing $5 a gallon, the increase in people cutting firewood to burn as an alternative heat source is almost exponential, according to Lee and local fire officials.
“From the (wood stove) dealers I talked to and the people I’ve talked to, this year has really opened people’s eyes and a lot of people are looking at alternative heating systems,” said state fire marshal Tom DePeter in Fairbanks.
The number of people applying for state wood cutting permits has skyrocketed, according to Lee.
“What we used to issue in a year, we issue in a month and a half now,” the forester said. “People are definitely very concerned about this winter coming up.”
So are local fire officials.
“It’s always a concern when you have people who have never utilized alternative heating sources before,” DePeter said. “You get people installing them themselves and they have limited knowledge on the installation or use of whatever appliance they’ve bought.”
Fire Marshal Ernie Misewicz at the Fairbanks Fire Department said he has talked to several homeowners who are turning to wood heat for the first time.
“We do have a worry that we might see an increase in fires because of improper installation, improper maintenance and improper use,” Misewicz said. “The biggest advice I can give to a person is to follow the manufacturer’s specifications for installation.”
DePeter and Misewicz recalled a spike in chimney and attic fires in the early 1980s as a result of more people burning wood to offset high fuel prices, which rose from $1 a gallon to $2 a gallon in the space of about a year, Misewicz said. The fires were caused mainly by faulty installation — stuffing insulation against chimneys in attics, putting chimneys too close to wood — and creosote buildup that sparked chimney fires.
“Are we going to have the same situation again this year? ... That’s hard to predict,” Misewicz said.
Anyone who is installing a wood stove or has had one installed and isn’t familiar with burning wood should ask professionals for advice on how to operate it and clean it, Misewicz and other fire experts said.
“If people have questions, they can contact their local fire department or contact our office in Fairbanks and we’ll be more than happy to answer questions and point them in the right direction,” DePeter said.
Basically, people who plan to burn wood this winter should follow these guidelines:
Dry your wood
To maximize heat value and minimize creosote buildup, firewood should be dry.
“If you’re just trying to burn a green chunk of log, you’re not going to get much heat,” Lee said. “You end up spending a lot of BTU value in a chunk of wood boiling the moisture off. Then you get all that moisture going up your stack and you get creosote, so it’s a double whammy.”
The only way to dry firewood is to cut it, split it and season it, usually for at least six months, he said.
“It’s marginal right now if you’re going to go out and cut something green and burn it this winter,” Lee said. “People are out buying wood stoves and outdoor boilers and furnaces with that thought in mind.
“With green birch, you need at least two years with it cut into wood stove lengths to get it to dry,” he said. “If you split it, you can speed up the process.”
Spruce produces less creosote than birch and dries faster, but it contains more pitch, which also contributes to creosote accumulation.
Learn how to burn
One of the leading causes of creosote buildup is smoldering fires. The hotter the fire, the less creosote is produced, Misewicz said.
“A lot of people have the belief that bigger is better; they get an oversized wood stove in place and it gets too hot so they damper it down,” he said, referring to a device that controls the air draft on wood stoves. “As soon as you damper down a fire it creates more creosote.
“That’s a big cause of wood stove fires, people want to damper it down.” Misewicz said. “Any time you damper it down, you’re not burning as efficient. You add green wood to it and it’s awful.”
Cranking up a stove early in the day and dampering it to preserve the heat while you go to work is not necessarily a good idea, he said. Neither is letting a fire burn too hot when you leave. It takes practice and experience to figure out how to operate a wood stove properly.
“Some people damp it down too far, and other people don’t damp it down enough,” Poulson said.
Be prepared to sweep
Chimneys need to be checked and cleaned on a regular basis, regardless of what kind of wood you’re burning.
“I clean my chimney once a month,” said Poulson, who burns about eight cords of firewood a year in his home.
The best way to inspect a chimney is to look down it and see if any creosote is caked onto the sides, Misewicz said. If there is any creosote buildup, the chimney should be cleaned. If you can’t do it yourself, you should hire a professional chimney sweep, the fire marshal said.
How often a chimney needs to be cleaned depends on a number of factors, from how dry and what type of wood you’re burning to what kind of wood stove you have to how much wood you burn.
“Are you a weekend user or a daily user? What kind of wood are you burning? Is it green or dry? It is high-BTU wood?” Misewicz said. “I know people that need to clean it once a season and other people that have to clean it twice a week.”
Burning creosote out of a chimney with a hot fire, a practice used by some wood burners, is not a good idea because it weakens the chimney pipe liner, Misewicz said.
“The only tried-and-true way to make sure a chimney is clean is to run a brush up and down it,” he said.
Neither should you use chemical soot removers to get rid of creosote in a metal chimney.
“It goes up inside and attacks the creosote, but it’s a chemical and it reacts with the stainless steel liners of chimneys and eats them away,” Misewicz said.
Outdoor wood stoves and boilers also need to be properly installed and maintained even though they are located outside the house, he said.
“If they’re improperly installed, you could have hot embers or ash come out of chimney and get into an air vent or gable opening in house and cause a fire,” the chief said. “You don’t just plug it in and have alternative heating. You have to install it and maintain it, too.”
http://forestry.alaska.gov/wood/firewood.htm
http://forestry.alaska.gov/wood/index.htm
Community Discussion
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I treat chimney cleaning the way I treat bathing: once a month, whether I need it or not. Chimney brushes are cheap, easy to use, and one of the most cost-effective forms of insurance you can buy. If you're new to a woodstove, go buy one now. And if in doubt, call your friendly chimney sweep to inspect your pipe. I always hate reading about home fires, especially during winter. As they say, an ounce of prevention...
Bring on the air pollution and breath deep!
Another thing that helps a great deal in promoting a good burn and lesser creosote build-up is installing your woodstove so the chimney is as straight as possible. The more bends you install the more likely you are to see the nasty stuff grow. Too, it's pretty hard to get a cleaning brush past a bend. It may mean putting the chimney through the roof rather than the wall but it's worth it in terms of safety and cleaning ease.
Burn wood.... It's the only affordable way to heat your house..
Oil is too much and Natural Gas, well you know, WE DON'T have it, and in Fairbanks, it's not cheap eiether
Proper installation away from combustible surfaces in a most. A wall or studs can dry out for a period of years and then can finally ignite. Something you never see coming.
Outdoor Wood Gasification Furnaces are the answer! They are the Green Furnaces of the future and available now. They sit outdoors, hook into existing systems, are super energy efficient burning with very little emission and burning very little wood. TO see video go to www>WoodGasificationFurnace.com.
Yes - put your fireplace outside and heat the great outdoors.
Outdoor wood furnace just makes no sense! I could not stand throwing away all that instant heat.
I also hear that they use about 3 times as much wood as a fireplace does to do the same job....
A fireplace is just about the most inefficient way to heat. A wood stove is not a fireplace. An outdoor burner is a boiler that can use wood, pellets or grains depending on the system. Do your research and see the efficiency on any type of a system. Even oil burners have different ratings. Do some research on wood heating systems in Finland, Sweden, Norway, etc.. They have some very innovated systems and designs. Some of the systems have zero carbon emissions. Should make AKHusky happy.
Wood dries most out of the end grain, just as it sucks up more water, paint, stain, etc. through the ends, so shorter logs dry much faster. In good conditions, 12" lengths can sufficiently dry in just one month, while 24" logs can take 3-6 months. Splitting does little to speed the process.
Moral of the story: If you must put off some of the labor, at least cut the logs to length now and save splitting for winter.
I built a 10x12 insulted shed for my Greenwood boiler. I get the high-efficiency of the indoor boiler and the convenience and safety of having it away from the house. With an efficiency of 85% I can heat my entire house and all my hot water with 7 cords of wood per winter and save 1,000 gallon of heating oil. I could have bought an outdoor model and would be using 14 cords per winter.
I bought a Greenwood Aspen 175 this year:
http://www.epa.gov/woodheaters/models.ht...
www.greenwoodfurnace.com
However, it smokes when you start it up.
LOL! Fairbanksgas.....(insulted shed) Your carpentry skills must be as good as mine. I insult everything I build at least a couple times...
Has anyone tried burning coal ? Growing up in Ill. we all burned coal because it was cheaper tha gas. Yes it fouls the air a bit,but so does wood. I don't remember any chimney fires in my days. the one thing different about coal was the higher temperature of the fire. A different type of grate was used because a wood grate would sag or melt.Our ashes were used on the driveways on top of the snow and ice. The city used their ashes on their own streets. You seem to have a good resource for coal and it might be a safe method of heating.
There is one dealer in Fairbanks that sells coal from the Usibelli Mine. There's one in North Pole and one off the Old Steese by Curry's Cornor That coal is low sulfur, 2nd grade coal. Look in the classifies they run an ad almost everyday in heating supplies.
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