Burning Foraged Wood

[Sade]

For arguments sake only......I am not living on a boat yet and we have talked about foraging for dead wood as fuel. I know that a lot of management systems of parks etc clear dead wood and to the detriment of the environment. Dead wood really is part of the whole ecosystem of woodland etc. That's not to say that we shouldn't be able to collect free fallen branches (which we have also done living in a house) and I am guessing that the percentage of wood taken like this by individuals is nowhere near the impact of land owners doing their site clearing maintenance but I do think that if you are disturbing part of the countryside then do it responsibly, in a well informed way. This article is pretty good at explaining the habitat problems and as I'm sure most boaters are concerned with the environment then its important..... http://www.rfs.org.uk/learning/deadwood

 

Looking further into it, it goes back to the old analogy of hopping into a neighbours garden and nicking their fallen apples so that's another point to add to the post. If a landowner is already clearing wood then it might pay to speak to them and just ask if you can take some, that way you're not annoying them and they have already cleared the wood so you would not be adding to the habitat problem, in a way. Try to use other sources of fuel as well, local carpenters or timber yards might have off-cuts that they need to get rid of

[Jerra]

What's with the sulpheric acid claim, any sience behind that?

If I remember my schoolboy science it goes something like this.

 

Burn anything which contains sulphur (Many things do and coal certainly does) and you get Sulphur dioxide SO2 this combines with water H2O to make Sulphurous Acid H2SO3 which then combines with Oxygen O creating Sulphuric Acid H2SO4

 

Somebody will probably be along and explain it more accurately.

[Ships Cat]

Mac of Sygnet: I'm not sure why your tone is as it is. I'm sharing 20 years experience of multifuel burning to explain why many people seem to be having issues with stoves that I translate as from not burning efficiently. I'm not dissing coal burning people, and certainly not trying to put people off burning wood either, and no where in this thread will you find that I am.

 

Cast iron and steel stoves don't flex. If you're talking about vibration, fair enough. I agree, I was in a past life an aircraft engineer and know that vibration can trash anything in very short order. And boats certainly vibrate.

 

Environmental destruction from thoughtless foraging is indeed an issue that the EA wish they could address. Every log you pick up is the home for something.

 

I burn pallets, broken ones. Larch and poplar are the hardest softwood and a reciprocating saw with a pallet blade in makes short work of them. You just throw the nails out with the ash. Coal is convenient and cheap when the supply of pallets dry up, £6 a bag here.

 

I know how much coal is still under us, I'm very good friends with someone who used to work for the BGS and his first job was to assess just that, here in the North East. Just not economically viable right now to dig it out. It will become so as other finite carbon sources dry up.

 

And I'm a she, not a he. The picture on the left is a bit of a giveaway.

[Higgs]

During the first winter, on this boat, I hadn't sorted the chimney and it leaked that crud from an ill fitting chimney to collar. It followed a path along the gutter and then down the cabinside, making it all the way to the rubbing strake by the waterline. It had clearly eaten the metal at the waterline; this worried me more than the brown messy streak that wrecked the paintwork.

 

I've always used smokless, so there is possibly a sulphuric acid contingent.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Higgs

[Starcoaster]

I'm struggling to see how Mac of Cygnet "took a tone" you are uncomfortable with; his post read to me as appropriate to the tone of the OP itself.

I would also refute the repeated statement made that many of us have issues with our stoves.

People new to solid fuel stoves will take a while to get to grips with them, obviously. When they have problems, they post here. However, the vast majority of boaters don't have problems or issues with the stove once they have gotten used to it, regardless of what they burn, and are able to advise those that do, as evinced by the multitude of replies to the odd post made by those having stove issues.

 

Many of the posters here also have 20 (or many more) years of experience, burning all manner of fuels, on stoves on boats. This is not unusual.

 

People don't tend to post just to mention that their stove is fine, hence it is understandable that the posts you see referencing stoves will likely be when someone has an issue. It is a leap though, to assume that many of us have problems, or that there is any one reason for why people have problems, or one right or wrong way to instruct people on how to manage their own stoves.

[Mac of Cygnet]

Mac of Sygnet: I'm not sure why your tone is as it is. I'm sharing 20 years experience of multifuel burning to explain why many people seem to be having issues with stoves that I translate as from not burning efficiently. I'm not dissing coal burning people, and certainly not trying to put people off burning wood either, and no where in this thread will you find that I am.

 

Cast iron and steel stoves don't flex. If you're talking about vibration, fair enough. I agree, I was in a past life an aircraft engineer and know that vibration can trash anything in very short order. And boats certainly vibrate.

 

Environmental destruction from thoughtless foraging is indeed an issue that the EA wish they could address. Every log you pick up is the home for something.

 

I burn pallets, broken ones. Larch and poplar are the hardest softwood and a reciprocating saw with a pallet blade in makes short work of them. You just throw the nails out with the ash. Coal is convenient and cheap when the supply of pallets dry up, £6 a bag here.

 

I know how much coal is still under us, I'm very good friends with someone who used to work for the BGS and his first job was to assess just that, here in the North East. Just not economically viable right now to dig it out. It will become so as other finite carbon sources dry up.

 

And I'm a she, not a he. The picture on the left is a bit of a giveaway.

 

First of all, apologies for misgendering you - I didn't look back at your avatar.

 

However, the whole tone of your post was to put so many 'rules' into wood-burning, such as to put people off (as indeed one poster was - see post #8. It really is less problematic than you imply.

 

I wouldn't normally quote 'years of experience' to back up my views, but perhaps I can treble yours? Sorry!

 

I forage for and burn about 15 cubic metres of logs per year, the vast majority for the house, but some for the boat, and I know that I am barely scatching the surface of what is available - plenty more for the beasties to live on. Indeed every log you pick up is a home for something, but so is every path you tread and every bunch of flowers you pick. In addition, wood is a carbon-neutral fuel, unlike coal, oil, or gas, whose carbon was fixed millions of years ago.

 

With regards to the properties of conventional fire cement, I was referring mainly to the joint between stove and flue, which certainly does flex, due to boat movement and expansion (lenghtways) of the latter on heating.

 

Again, I'm sorry if you're offended by my 'tone', which wasn't intentional, but as CarlT often says, this is a discussion forum, and one must expect people to take views contrary to one's own. It's part of the discussion.

[Jerra]

 

. Indeed every log you pick up is a home for something, but so is every path you tread and every bunch of flowers you pick.

Off topic I know but paths are not anywhere as near a diverse habitat (home) due to them being walked on so not a good example.

 

If we are talking wildlife you aren't supposed to be picking wild flowers either.

[paul68]

So what is the cheapest, best, most environmentally friendly fuel to use then?

Edited August 5, 2013 by paul68

[Ships Cat]

Industrial waste. Broken pallets, lol from pallet yards. And tree surgeons have plenty of spare wood. You have to make friends with people.

 

Compressed sawdust logs work very well, burn great in a stove, but are costly unless you can buy bulk. (which is why I aspire to a tug with a VERY long tug deck). But also ind. waste.

 

In this country we bury 80% of waste wood, which is one of the reasons Dalkia have just built a waste wood electricity plant over our roundabout. Burying 80% of our waste wood is but totally insane, IMO.

 

(I don't pick flowers from the garden, never mind the wild. Much nicer left alone!)

[carlt]

So what is the cheapest, best, most environmentally friendly fuel to use then?

Cheapest - foraged wood

 

Best - Smokeless solid fuel (imo)

 

Most environmentally friendly - Owning your own coppice (or commercially grown wood that is replanted).

[Sade]

Off topic I know but paths are not anywhere as near a diverse habitat (home) due to them being walked on so not a good example.

 

If we are talking wildlife you aren't supposed to be picking wild flowers either.

I suppose everything in balance.....if there are boaters that use a low carbon footprint, love nature and countryside that occasionally pick flowers and forage wood, there's a lot worse to be done to the environment - the canal system as a whole provides a lot of natural habitat....would that even be there were it not for boaters?

[Mac of Cygnet]

Off topic I know but paths are not anywhere as near a diverse habitat (home) due to them being walked on so not a good example.

 

On the contrary, that was exactly my point.

 

If we are talking wildlife you aren't supposed to be picking wild flowers either.

 

Oh, for heaven's sake, this is becoming ridiculous.

[Ange]

Well we just take wood that's already been cut, and, if the spring hadn't been so late arriving, would have had a winter of free fuel. Times are quite tough for us economically so that's the overriding interest.

 

It does help to know which wood is good for burning immediately, during our second winter on the boat we happened to be passing the garden of a chap cutting down his leylandi. He called to us and offered the wood - hey what a result thinks us. We piled the wood on our roof and motored off thinking what a great deal it was until we found leylandi needs two years to season before it burns.

 

Luckily we have parents with space - said leylandi burned happily in our stove this winter just gone.

[Jerra]

 

Off topic I know but paths are not anywhere as near a diverse habitat (home) due to them being walked on so not a good example.

 

On the contrary, that was exactly my point.

 

If we are talking wildlife you aren't supposed to be picking wild flowers either.

 

Oh, for heaven's sake, this is becoming ridiculous.

 

I must be being thick (well thicker than usual) this morning. I can't see your point you seem to imply that because onepart of the environment is poor habitat it doesn't matter if the value of another area is reduced. I would suggest that as we make more and more of the land into a poor wildlife habitat it is even more important that we leave undisturbed what we can.

 

Your last point about things becoming ridiculous I do to a point agree if you are capable of identifying the flower and know how common/rare it is fine you will do little if any harm. However in my experience there are a lot of people (the majority?) who can't name more than a couple of dozen wild flowers. I have seen people picking (sorry I should say having picked) rare wild flowers not knowing what they are destroying. Each rare flower picked is a seeding opportunity lost.

 

Somebody is bound to pop upand say well if I can see a big clump it will be OK. Not necessarily so. Many many years ago when I was training we were out on some field work and the lecturer was pointing out to the group a "rare" fern. I had difficulty spotting it so asked him to point it out. I hadn't spotted it because I had grown up with clumps of it near my home and didn't consider it rare. However nationally it was. If somebody had inadvertently destroyed the clumps near me then the chances of spread/recolonisation would have been reduced.

[nicknorman]

Industrial waste. Broken pallets, lol from pallet yards.

However one shouldn't burn treated or painted wood since the nasty chemicals are very poisonous when burnt.

[Victor Vectis]

Changing the subject slightly, are there any problems with burning softwoods that have been treated with wood preservative?

 

I'm talking about what looks like the copper based stuff, Cuprinol?, and the modern creosote substitute, Creocote.

 

Problems such as fumes, condensate in the chimney etc.

 

I've got quite a lot from the allotment and I wouldn't want it to go to waste.

 

SAM

[nicknorman]

Changing the subject slightly, are there any problems with burning softwoods that have been treated with wood preservative?

 

I'm talking about what looks like the copper based stuff, Cuprinol?, and the modern creosote substitute, Creocote.

 

Problems such as fumes, condensate in the chimney etc.

 

I've got quite a lot from the allotment and I wouldn't want it to go to waste.

 

SAM

Yes, nasty chemicals can be produced in the smoke for someone else to breathe! The instruction manuals for various stoves I have come across all advise against burning treated wood for this reason. Edited August 6, 2013 by nicknorman

[Ships Cat]

However one shouldn't burn treated or painted wood since the nasty chemicals are very poisonous when burnt.

 

Indeed, I forgot to say you shouldn't burn the blue pallets.

 

Or any treated, tanalised, painted, dyed, stained wood at all.

 

Of course you can. I know a window fitter who burns the hardwood windowframes he takes out, often comments on how lovely the different coloured flames are, all pretty pinks and blues ... blithely ignorant of the pall of noxious chemicals he's producing from his flue.

[Guest]

Changing the subject slightly, are there any problems with burning softwoods that have been treated with wood preservative?

 

I'm talking about what looks like the copper based stuff, Cuprinol?, and the modern creosote substitute, Creocote.

 

Problems such as fumes, condensate in the chimney etc.

 

I've got quite a lot from the allotment and I wouldn't want it to go to waste.

 

SAM

 

Remarkable co-incidence - I was just about to ask this as I've just taken a gate down at home which is treated with a water based stain ??? Cuprinol

 

Was thinking about chopping it up and sticking it on the chiminea in the garden.......

 

So it seems I won't be.

[dor]

 

Changing the subject slightly, are there any problems with burning softwoods that have been treated with wood preservative?

 

I'm talking about what looks like the copper based stuff, Cuprinol?, and the modern creosote substitute, Creocote.

 

Older tanalised wood was treated with chromated copper arsenate and is a definite no-no. Newer treatment with Tanalith, often still referred to as tanalised, is not so toxic but still better avoided. The older tanalising stuff was a much brighter green.

[Victor Vectis]

Thanks for those replies. Tanalised was the word I was looking for but couldn't remember.

 

As for the wood on the allotment, well if I find the barsteward who stripped my gooseberry bushes over the weekend I might need it for a burning at the stake!

Either that or shoving it somewhere where the sun don't shine............................sideways!

 

 

Desert goosegogs they were too, red ones, Pax variety.

 

Yours etc.

 

Mr Much-Vexed

Angry on the Allotment

 

 

[Ships Cat]

You need geese, Victor. They work better than a GSD does, eat cheaper food and keep the weeds down.

 

My lottie had an eight foot steel fence all the way round and a welded box over the padlock so you couldn't get a crowbar under the hasp.

 

Hard to believe, I know but someone's just stoked up a coal fire round the corner. Must be for the hot water. Think I'd rather boil a few kettles.

[luctor et emergo]

..snip..

 

 

 

And I'm a she, not a he. The picture on the left is a bit of a giveaway.

To be fair, the avatar to the left more often than not is a choosen image, rather than a acurate resemblance of the poster. Apart from Bizzard, who's avatar I understand to be fairly acurate...

[Mike Tee]

To be fair, the avatar to the left more often than not is a choosen image, rather than a acurate resemblance of the poster. Apart from Bizzard, who's avatar I understand to be fairly acurate...

Its not a bad likeness, but it is a mirror image, so things are a bit turned around. Now mine was when I was a child, I'm a proper grown up swan now.

[Ships Cat]

To be fair, the avatar to the left more often than not is a choosen image, rather than a acurate resemblance of the poster. Apart from Bizzard, who's avatar I understand to be fairly acurate...

 

Ah, yes but it also says what gender I am underneath.