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Most burned wood is wood unsuitable for construction. No one goes into the woods and cuts down a 200-year oak to burn in their stove. Short lengths, widths, kn

Most burned wood is wood unsuitable for construction. No one goes into the woods and cuts down a 200-year oak to burn in their stove. Short lengths, widths, knots, imperfections, wood waste pressed into pellets, etc. Although you do have a point about it being bad for air quality. Especially old stove installations.

jfoutz 3y ago
I thought pellet stoves got hot enough to be pretty clean. Co2, yes, but not much else?
- jonstewart 3y ago
  If you run it properly. A good wood stove will run cleanly as well. It’s all about the secondary combustion. An open fireplace will not get hot enough for secondary and be dirty.
- ericbarrett 3y ago
  Residential pellet stoves sound great but in practice they are not reliable (moving mechanical parts that operate at high temps, electronics poorly shielded from said temps—the manufacturers are pretty shady in my experience), and the cost of fuel varies quite a bit and can be very high. Compare to a wood stove that needs no electricity and can burn just about any combustible solid. Modern wood stoves are pretty efficient, too.
  - com2kid 3y ago
    > but in practice they are not reliable (moving mechanical parts that operate at high temps, electronics poorly shielded from said temps 25 years ago my grandmother bought a pellet stove that lasted for 15 years with semi-regular maintenance. Her next stove, same company, broke all the time and lasted less than 10 years, with much higher ongoing costs. Enshitification strikes again!
jonstewart 3y ago
In my vacation house, I’ve got a Hearthstone Heritage wood stove, neither old nor new, and I believe it has been refurbished a bit. When I ran it over Thanksgiving I put an air purifier next to it and ran it on auto. I’d been concerned about air quality with the wood stove. Pleasingly it ran on low and barely blipped when I’d open the door to add logs. Weirdly, it -would- climb up to medium if I opened the door to the garage — I guess it doesn’t like all the varnish and whatnot from there. So anecdotally, a stove that’s not a rusty old potbelly and has a good draft seems like it could be okay for air quality. You can sell the trunk of a 200 year oak (though often they’re hollow if they’re that old) but you will have PLENTY of good firewood left behind from harvesting it, with all the branches. The best use of a 200 year old oak is of course to let it be, the backbone of an entire ecosystem. An 80 year old walnut is another story…
- hollerith 3y ago
  It's not the wood stove owner that is exposed to the wood smoke, it's his neighbors.
  - herewulf 3y ago
    "Northern Canada" -- he doesn't have any neighbours. Wood stoves are fine in such a place. They aren't fine at scale.
fy20 3y ago
Here in Europe there is so much demand for wood that forests are being grown just to be cut down and turned into pellets - it's not just waste that goes into them. Maybe it's not as bad as fossil fuels, but it still has the same issues as commercial monoculture farming, which is why there are issues with bark beetles now. And most of these forests start by tearing down old growth forests.
inhumantsar 3y ago
you're not wrong per se but no one cuts down a 200 year old oak for construction either. softwood like spruce, fir, and pine is the primary wood for construction (at least in north america).
skyfaller 3y ago
I think a lot of these could be used for building construction, or for smaller wood objects, if we were sufficiently motivated. For example, here is an MIT team experimenting with using forked tree branches in construction: https://energy.mit.edu/news/using-natures-structures-in-wooden-buildings/ https://energy.mit.edu/news/using-natures-structures-in-wood...

jfoutz 3y ago

I thought pellet stoves got hot enough to be pretty clean. Co2, yes, but not much else?

jonstewart 3y ago
If you run it properly. A good wood stove will run cleanly as well. It’s all about the secondary combustion. An open fireplace will not get hot enough for secondary and be dirty.
ericbarrett 3y ago
Residential pellet stoves sound great but in practice they are not reliable (moving mechanical parts that operate at high temps, electronics poorly shielded from said temps—the manufacturers are pretty shady in my experience), and the cost of fuel varies quite a bit and can be very high. Compare to a wood stove that needs no electricity and can burn just about any combustible solid. Modern wood stoves are pretty efficient, too.
- com2kid 3y ago
  > but in practice they are not reliable (moving mechanical parts that operate at high temps, electronics poorly shielded from said temps 25 years ago my grandmother bought a pellet stove that lasted for 15 years with semi-regular maintenance. Her next stove, same company, broke all the time and lasted less than 10 years, with much higher ongoing costs. Enshitification strikes again!

jonstewart 3y ago

In my vacation house, I’ve got a Hearthstone Heritage wood stove, neither old nor new, and I believe it has been refurbished a bit. When I ran it over Thanksgiving I put an air purifier next to it and ran it on auto. I’d been concerned about air quality with the wood stove. Pleasingly it ran on low and barely blipped when I’d open the door to add logs. Weirdly, it -would- climb up to medium if I opened the door to the garage — I guess it doesn’t like all the varnish and whatnot from there. So anecdotally, a stove that’s not a rusty old potbelly and has a good draft seems like it could be okay for air quality. You can sell the trunk of a 200 year oak (though often they’re hollow if they’re that old) but you will have PLENTY of good firewood left behind from harvesting it, with all the branches. The best use of a 200 year old oak is of course to let it be, the backbone of an entire ecosystem. An 80 year old walnut is another story…

hollerith 3y ago
It's not the wood stove owner that is exposed to the wood smoke, it's his neighbors.
- herewulf 3y ago
  "Northern Canada" -- he doesn't have any neighbours. Wood stoves are fine in such a place. They aren't fine at scale.

fy20 3y ago

Here in Europe there is so much demand for wood that forests are being grown just to be cut down and turned into pellets - it's not just waste that goes into them. Maybe it's not as bad as fossil fuels, but it still has the same issues as commercial monoculture farming, which is why there are issues with bark beetles now. And most of these forests start by tearing down old growth forests.

inhumantsar 3y ago

you're not wrong per se but no one cuts down a 200 year old oak for construction either. softwood like spruce, fir, and pine is the primary wood for construction (at least in north america).

skyfaller 3y ago

I think a lot of these could be used for building construction, or for smaller wood objects, if we were sufficiently motivated. For example, here is an MIT team experimenting with using forked tree branches in construction: https://energy.mit.edu/news/using-natures-structures-in-wooden-buildings/ https://energy.mit.edu/news/using-natures-structures-in-wood...