Outdoor Wood Furnace Info

All-Purpose OWF Discussions => Fire Wood => Topic started by: heat550 on October 06, 2017, 03:07:58 AM

Title: slab wood bundles BTU extraction
Post by: heat550 on October 06, 2017, 03:07:58 AM
Has anyone tried just burning slab wood in the outdoor boiler .  I can get 4ft x 3ft x 8ft bundles oak $50
its ruffly 3/4 of a cord per bundle . and I can get them by semi load . my boilers 54 inch deep . so its like
cutting them in half. and stack them in . any thoughts ?? has anyone tried it . is it a trade off of time spent
sawing and splitting . to staking slabs in boiler ? was told there bigger piece also and de barked . going to
look at them next week .  :thumbup:

Heat550
Title: Re: slab wood bundles BTU extraction
Post by: E Yoder on October 06, 2017, 04:50:40 AM
To me it would depend on how thick they were and whether it's hard or soft wood.

Anything under an inch thick is a pain to cut with a chainsaw. But if it's two inches thick and hardwood, yeah, that's more like it.
Title: Re: slab wood bundles BTU extraction
Post by: BoilerHouse on October 06, 2017, 05:44:36 AM
That works out to about $70 a cord.  I would give that a shot.  Being slabs, you likely do not have to split them.  To cut them, I would probably try running my chain saw down through the pile while it is still bundled up. 
Title: Re: slab wood bundles BTU extraction
Post by: RSI on October 06, 2017, 07:32:44 AM
There is a lot of air space in a bundle up slabs. It is all the outer sapwood which has less btu content than the inner part. I would figure that a bundle is equivalent to 1/3 cord of cord wood.
Title: Re: slab wood bundles BTU extraction
Post by: coolidge on October 06, 2017, 03:57:22 PM
I burned a few bundles of softwood slabs in my P&M 250, they burned good, but a lot of ash from the bark.

If they are debarked as you say, throw them I in and try some before committing to a whole load.
Title: Re: slab wood bundles BTU extraction
Post by: heat550 on October 09, 2017, 09:22:30 PM
Here's them slabs all oak.

Heat550
Title: Re: slab wood bundles BTU extraction
Post by: E Yoder on October 10, 2017, 03:01:38 AM
Burn 'em! :)
Might burn a little rich in an updraft unit. But they don't look really thin .
Title: Re: slab wood bundles BTU extraction
Post by: Trint on October 10, 2017, 05:58:28 AM
Those look good, go for it.  I've burned some that were around an inch thick and still had bark, that was a lot of work for the time it burned.  Took like 50 pieces to fill the boiler up, used an old buzz saw to cut some of it.