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[martyinmi]

Before I sold me Empyre 100, I had a few warranty parts that I needed replaced that I wasn't able to describe over the phone to my Pro Series, so she gave me the number of a Pro Fab engineer who was able to help me out. In our conversation, he listed a few things that should not be done with a gasifier. Most I had already heard of, but one that really caught me off guard the moisture content of the wood- namely that we shouldn't be burning wood too dry. I did an experiment with my Optimizer 250 this weekend to see if what he was true. Where I work we have to dispose of cutoffs from kiln dried hardwoods that are usually about 1 inch square and around 9 feet long in exchange for free sawdust. They are dried down to single digits, and the ones I tested with our moisture meter at work ranged from 5%-10% m.c. I have been burning for a while now, so I had a good bed of coals to start my experiment with. Usually, when the OWB calls for heat, it may smoke for a minute or so before it cleans up. With the kiln dried wood in it it started gasifing right away, but because it was so dry it wasn't able to burn all the smoke- in fact- not even close. There was a huge flame in the reaction chamber, but it just couldn't ignite all of the smoke. I was around 12 hours into the burn cycle before it started burning efficiently.
   He explained that the moisture was necessary to help control the burn. Not enough moisture=too much gas released=inefficient burn. I even tried to add more air to lean the fuel/air mixture out and that didn't help at all. Today I mixed some dry wood with some fresh cut Ash and it worked great.
   My friend has tried some of the kiln dried wood in his conventional OWB and he ended up with the same results- boatloads of smoke until it got hot enough to burn some of the smoke. He had to leave his door open a bit to achieve those results(hot fire), and watching him do that made me a little nervous.
 He's out in the boonies, so the extra smoke from the 6048 doesn't bother him a bit.
   I'm wondering if anyone else hes ever ran into a situation where their gasser smoked more than they thought it should. Maybe your wood was a little too dry?
   I'm thinking that maybe that engineer really does know his stuff when it comes to blowing too much smoke

   Marty

[rosewood]

marty, i have pine slabs from my sawmill i have burned,it smokes like a locomotive. i think its because its so dry that the fire gets so hot and it cant get enough oxygen. i mix them in with the load and its fine, i would say the guy knows his stuff.

[willieG]

do you think the wood is too dry or maybe the wood is too small...too many edges to all get burning at one time. if some one is telling you to burn wet wood i would be very leary of them..wet wood means lost btu's no matter if it is in a gassifier or a conventional stove a btu that is used up to dry out the moisture is a lost btu

i would think if you were to use fresh cut ash and cut it up like kindling that you would get just as much smoke and moisture as you do witht he small dry chunks.

my opinion anyway..could be wrong but i will believe it untill i am showm proof otherwise

[MattyNH]

It seems to me that burning small pieces of wood smokes more than burning large wood...Heres something that I found about wood too dry.. www.woodheat.org    "click" tips & techniques...then you'll see the section where it says  " can firewood be too dry"

[willieG]

i guess i stand corrected on kiln dried wood but i dont think if you are cutting wood and storing for one or two years in your wood pile,it will ever be too dry.

thanks for the good info.