How to Improve your Stove
Contents
Short Description
The following concepts describe how you can improve your stove in terms of efficiency. There are different aspects which will be analyzed because one can do more than just insulate the combustion chamber.
Clean burning
In the combustion chamber wood or other biomass is turned into heat. A good chamber is when this process does not create much smoke or creosote (condensed wood tars). Complete combustion of wood results in two byproducts: carbon dioxide and water vapor. In contrast, incomplete combustion creates unburned particles that cause pollution and creosote that fills chimneys and can cause chimney fires if it ignites. Nearly complete combustion in a wood burning stove can be achieved by doing the following things:
1) Metering the fuel.
Cutting wood up into smaller pieces and feeding them at a proper rate into the fire as they are consumed.
2) Making a hot fire.
Creating a combustion zone where fuel, flame and air are mixed by turbulence, at a high enough temperature, for a long enough time to completely combust. Combustion temperatures must be hot enough to assist burning all escaping gases released from the wood.
3) Insulating the combustion chamber.
Insulation helps to keep temperatures high.
4) Igniting escaping smoke.
Passing smoke, which is un- combusted fuel, through a flame.
5) Providing sufficient oxygen.
Starving the fire slows it, cools it down, and produces smoke.
6) Warming and increasing the velocity of the cold air entering the fire.
Air is warmed as it passes through a small opening into the combustion chamber. For systems without a fan, make enough small holes under the door into the combustion chamber so the holes have as much cross-sectional area as the chimney exiting the stove. Position the holes so that primary air is sucked into the coals and up into the combusting wood. Do not allow the user to block the holes reducing primary air. Blocking the necessary amount of air will create pollution. The rate of burn in a heating stove should be determined by the amount of fuel in the combustion chamber, not by shutting off air to the fire.
7) Forming a grate out of the firewood.
Sticks burning close together heat each other and keep the temperatures high. The pattern should be stick, air, stick, air, with even spaces between the sticks.
8) Creating sufficient draft.
Use a tall enough chimney or better yet a small fan. An insulated chimney creates a lot more draft than an un- insulated chimney. High velocity, low volume jets of hot air entering under the fire, up though the coals, create mixing which reduces emissions. Do not use a damper in the chimney. Design the stove to run efficiently with enough air entering and leaving the stove to burn fuel cleanly.
Complete combustion cannot occur when starting a stove because the combustion chamber is too cold. An insulated combustion chamber will heat up more quickly and then, when burning metered amounts of biomass, make less smoke. Throwing a big log on the fire, however, always makes smoke. The log cools the fire and releases more pyrolysis gasses that overwhelm the available air and are too cold to be combusted.
Without enough air, wood cannot burn cleanly. The size of the air inlets into the fire should add up to be about as large as the chimney exiting the stove. The power level of the stove should be set by the wood loading rate, not the air flow. When users try to control the power of the stove by shutting off air to the fire they can send horrible plumes of smoke out of the chimney. A stove must have enough air to function efficiently.
Metering fuel makes clean burning easy. In a regular wood burning stove, the same thing can be accomplished by burning small pieces of dry wood and watching to make sure that a fierce flame is present. A little observation teaches the operator quickly how to maintain clean burning. Unfortunately, adding fuel at regular intervals is much more demanding and time consuming than just throwing a log onto the fire and then ignoring the smoke polluting the environment.
Combustion chambers
Heat exchangers
There are three different common types of heat exchangers described below: Mass heat exchangers, air to air and air to water heat exchangers. They have all advantages and disadvantages:
Massive Heat Exchanger
The great thing about air-to-mass heat exchangers and air-to-water systems is that the stove can be fired very hot for a long time without overheating the room. The heat goes
into the cool stone or water, instead of immediately into the room air. Big fires are very hot and for that reason can produce less harmful emissions. The harmful gasses burn up in the hot fire.
Positive
1. The mass stores heat that can keep the house warm overnight.
2. Gentle radiant heat feels good.
3. Burning time can be reduced.
Negative
1. Stored heat is there if you need it or not. If the day suddenly gets warmer, the room can overheat.
2. The mass takes up room. To store sufficient heat, the heat exchanger must weigh thousands of pounds.
3. The cold mass will take a long time to heat up and warm the room. Coming home and lighting the stove for warmth will not work with a high-mass, slow-response heating stove. The stove needs to be kept warm.
4. Creating the ductwork in stone, brick, or adobe frequently requires experience.
Air to Air Heat Exchanger
Positive
1. It is inexpensive and easy to make.
3. It takes up less space.
4. It heats the room quickly.
5. If the weather suddenly warms, the heat can be adjusted.
Negative
2. It discourages big, hot, clean-burning fires (which overheat the room) and can encourage small fires that pollute.
3. It is better suited to less drafty houses.
Air to Water Heat Exchanger
Air-to-water heat exchangers for house heating seem so full of potential problems. Imagine trying to repair lots of leaking pipes buried in your floor. So far, potential difficulties and cost have steered back to simpler solutions. Heating water is theoretically a great idea but can be complicated.
Positive
1. Can provide very efficient heat transfer
2. Retains more heat than other thermal mass
3. Allows for control of the amount of heat by opening or closing radiators
Negative
1. Usually requires a thermostat
2. Needs safety release valves
3. Water can leak
4. Minerals in water can reduce internal pipe diameter, leading to reduced water flow, greater temperature rise and increased pressure loss in the system.
Different stove types
Insulating the combustion chamber
Insulating your house
The most fuel efficient heating stove is one that is never used! Therefore it is most important to reduce uncontrolled air exchanges by filling cracks in the walls, around windows and doors and secondarily to insulate the house. A house that is relatively airtight and insulated like a thermos bottle or a box full of hay does not require constantly burning wood in a stove to maintain interior temperatures.
References and Further Reading
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