Soft wood

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, difflock said:

 

No kindling needed, a few handfuls of scrunched up newspaper and a few casually selected likely looking sticks, picked from those brought in for burning, i.e. 1/2 rotten, or thin section, or splintery or a hydraulic wedge split & "ruffelled" knotty Lodgepole pine.

A few minutes later with the door "snibbed" open, a roaring inferno.

 

Since there was a bit of discussion about hoth air igniters some while back I bought a £17.50 Einhell (matches the saw I was given) hot air gun. I load the fire and point the gun through the air inlet, never takes more than a minute as long as there is a bit of split pallet wood in the line of fire.

[difflock]

Hush you!

I still like playing with matches.

But

Back in our barbacuing days I used a cheap hair dryer to accelerate the ignition of the charcoal.

And I always fancied a MAPP blowtorch for that application.

Some of better gasifying logwood boilers, uses a hot air gun for ignition, however one of the best designed (with respect to easy cleaned from the front flue tubes, and I have foregotten the brand, DOH!) simply uses an inbuilt  propane blowtorch, which is pure simple pragmatic genius.

mth

Edited January 30, 2018 by difflock

[flatyre]

How well does Eucalyptus burn and is it hard or soft wood? Have loads of it in the shed but made the mistake of not splitting it immediately, like concrete

[spandit]

3 minutes ago, flatyre said:

How well does Eucalyptus burn and is it hard or soft wood? Have loads of it in the shed but made the mistake of not splitting it immediately, like concrete

It's a hardwood and burns brilliantly but as you have found out, it's a pain to split when dry

[flatyre]

have been told its not safe to burn on open fires, urban myth?

[spandit]

Just now, flatyre said:

have been told its not safe to burn on open fires, urban myth?

Maybe it spits a bit like chestnut. Use a fireguard

[Stubby]

8 hours ago, flatyre said:

have been told its not safe to burn on open fires, urban myth?

Not a myth  . Stove only  . Love it . Makes charcoal in the morning .

[Steve Bullman]

Safe to burn if you have a decent spit guard in place 

[Highlandcrofter]

On 1/26/2018 at 09:09, Lucan said:

But are the costs per kw the same?

 

Softwood has around 75% the energy of hardwood per volume, which means from the customer's side they would be looking at 70-75% to make switching interesting. However you often see softwood only around 10-15% cheaper so is it any wonder the slow demand. I guess that is because although softwood is cheaper to produce that often doesn't match a final 25% cost reduction including delivery?

have a look at this http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4441e.pdf 
i had a discussion with a stove seller who tells all his customers never to burn softwood, which really got my goat as where we are there is no hardwood and i only supply kiln dried softwood

[matelot]

8 hours ago, Highlandcrofter said:

have a look at this http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4441e.pdf 
i had a discussion with a stove seller who tells all his customers never to burn softwood, which really got my goat as where we are there is no hardwood and i only supply kiln dried softwood

Maybe a free bag of softwood for this stove seller would be a good investment for you? It might make him reconsider the advice he gives...