As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
As a pioneer in combustible stoves, the old fashioned way, I'm still on the fast learning curve and the Holy Ghost Inspiration cheat sheet as there is a reality with burning wood in the lesser carbon forms, that satan has things involved sometimes that has you smelling like a smoked ham or you breathe enough smoke in a fire not lighting, that you could smoke 12 packs a day and not get that much lung frosting.
Draft is the humor in wood burning. You can tell people who burn wood as they always bring up draft up the chimney, which means they too have sooted themselves to ranting profanity.
This year we got all of our wood cut. Of course my cousin who was supposed to sell us a metal trailer sat on this ass for 2 months and then finally said, "Well offer what you think and don't be afraid to low ball us". The brother went tits up so that with the weather got us not where we wanted to be, so it rained, it iced and snowed and even covered up wood just gets damp, and it does not like to burn cold.
The positive news is the musty cellar is kaput. It dried out and no longer smells like a lung infection. The situation I have though is a barrel stove, and 15 feet of horizontal pipe to get to the 12 feet of chimney we built. It all works lovely when it is warm with draft, but get a wet day, an east wind and damp wood products and you see the warning signs on light up of smoke coming out of the holes in the metal pipe and .......you just open the winds, lose heat, put on the fan, cuss like hell and waste an hour of time. The house smells nice wood smoke though which covers up the cat scent.
So in desperation on the third attempt to ignite the Lame Cherry exclusive cardboard handle, newspaper torch and it going out.......yes not all paper is the same and they changed the paper this year to some shit that burns at a higher temperature than fire........the Holy Ghost said, "Do the torch but put some lighter fluid on it to keep it burning".
OK I'm no idiot when it comes to combustible fuels. I have had enough things to POOF to know that I'm grateful I did not start on fire or blow body parts off. When JYG was blowing up tires with ether and I survived that was a lesson I remembered, just like when I lit up the charcoal briquette chimney and that cylinder collected fumes of lighter fluid and it went POOMP sounding, I was thinking of all of this in sticking a torched slightly soaked into a smoking, rather ember warm enclosed chamber, that I was expecting some poof sound again or some other activity which would leave me dismayed.
So I lit the fluid burning torch. It burns fast with that liquid fuel, got it into the grey smoke stove interior and it kept burning, unlike the last time it did not have draft, and it kept burning and in 30 seconds the fire was making that sound and the metal was snapping as it was heating up. All without POOF sounds or me on fire.
I tried it again a few days later in the cold, was a northwest wind so the winds were on my side, and even with an additional squirted upon cardboard piece, it all ignited, burned and no POOF sounds. It make me think I knew how to build fires.
JYG always frowns upon costs, like fuel that is not free costs. I frown on that too, but I'm in favor of dressing up the Lame Cherry torch with some distilled hydrocarbons. I have not smelled anything off the fuel so that is good. Had a worse problem with ink print making scents and turning my inner nose black, but things seem to be going better in two trials of this.
I think when I get a fuel can, that I'm going to try diesel fuel as it is cheaper than lighter fluid. It probably would eat plastic, but if I could get a spray bottle or use an oil can, this might be more friendly in rationing the fuel onto the paper. It does not take that much and it just goes up in flames and so does the rest of the tinder fast, which is what this draft thing is all about.
I tend to ration our wood as auxiliary fuel. Meaning I do not heat primary with wood as that is all I would do and the house would not be warm. We have Richard and Stephanie's main source of heat, then one of those Amish electric things in the kitchen to keep the main furnace from running harder, and to this we supplement with wood. When we get the thermal mass of the cellar and the house heated up, the house remains comfortable and the furnace runs about like when it is 40 degrees out.
Al of this has made a difference in the furnace used to run 45 minutes at a time. It is closer to 30 now. Also in zero to 20 degree weather, we can get 2 to 3 hours between it running. It is close to that in below zero weather too with me feeding the wood stove. The key is getting the cement and plaster warm, so it is not bleeding cold all the time into the house.
When the mother was alive with our old stove, there were times in 20 to 40 below weather that the furnace simply cycled continuously. The fan never shut off. When gas is over 2 bucks a gallon that gets your attention. So what we are doing now is a massive improvement. Last year I told TL that the house in severe cold was comfortable for the first time ever.
As Richard and Stephanie can attest to Texas below zero ice storms, wood burning eats wood like candy, and that candy takes cutting, splitting, hauling and stacking. You tend to be jealous or your wood as you have equity invested in it.
This though was about the torch being amplified and it is how I'm going to continue on with lighting the stove to get the fastest draft as this year is a bitch in this satan curve of damp combustible products.
This is another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Nuff Said
agtG
agtG
