Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: cranman on April 04, 2013, 10:17:55 PM
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I live in northern Canada near 55 degrees north so my heating OWB season runs 8 months and the outside temps are very cold. I know that manufacturers state that you shouldn't burn cardboard but about 8 years ago my son bought a local grocery store that has large amounts of scrap cardboard. On my daily cleanup round I simply slash and pile into a uniform sized heavy carton carton approox 2 feet longx 1 ft high x 1 1/2 ft wide. A few swipes with packing tape keeps it together. This gives me about 2 1/2 cubic feet of tightly packed cardboard per box. I have about 400 boxes per year available and they stack quite nicely under a tarp at the OWB.
Cardboard burns very cleanly. It wouldn't heat my hoome in mid winter but it sure extends my woodpile by supplying most of the heat early and late in the burning season. It also allows me to burn unseasoned wood with good results. Two boxes fit end to end in my firebox and I can pile another foot deep of logs on top to get 12 hrs. In mid season I will put in 2 boxes to extend my day fire into late evening when I add all wood for the overnight.
I estimate that I get half of my heat from the cardbard and I see no detrimental effects to the boiler over 8 seasons . I have no problems with cresote at all. My damper is clean and never has to be scraped as before, The ashes just seem to dissapear up the chimney. I have a well insulated chimney 6 feet with 2 foot pipe. Never had to clean the chimney all season. Cleaned the extension pipe just once.
I don't suppose there are many of you with access to large amounts of cardboard like me, but I thought I would throw this in for general information.
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The Woodmaster dealer that I bought my boiler from burned cardboard in his. He had a vending business and before he had his boiler had to pay to get rid of the cardboard. I have burned cardboard in my, when I have it, for twelve years.
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whenever I get my hands on some I burn it :)