WOOD - THE ECOLOGIST'S FUEL

Today almost everyone is aware of two major problems confronting life as we know it in the United States: pollution and the shortage of the fossil fuels, oil and coal. Actually neither of the fossil fuels is presently in short supply, although it is estimated that fuel oil supplies will be exhausted in thirty-five years unless new deposits are discovered. At the moment there is plenty of oil, but we have to import 40 percent of it at increasingly prohibitive prices from other countries; there is plenty of coal, but mining it is both costly and ecologically harmful. Even the consumer who is unconcerned about ecology takes notice when his pocketbook is affected; the price of these fuels has risen to the point where everyone is hurting. Electricity, used as a substitute for fossil fuels, is manufactured in large part by the use of them, and it is even more costly than they are. As the cost of common heating and cooking fuels continues to rise-and it will continue to rise-many people are searching for alternatives. While there is a limit to how far the thermostat can be turned down without actual hard- ship resulting, there is apparently no limit to the extent to which inflationary costs can be passed on by public utilities and private fuel oil companies to the consumer. We are on a collision course. The intelligent consumer looks around, sees what is coming, and makes plans for the future. Fortunately, the solution is near at hand; it is economical, feasible, and a pleasant improve- ment in life-style-it is the substitution of wood for other heating and cook- ing fuels. A wood stove is both ecologically sound and economically within the range of everyone. It is a psychological comfort, fulfillment, and delight. It comforts in its gentle warmth; it gives the satisfaction of personal achievement, because you are being heated by your own efforts; it is a delight because it brings the consumer into intimate contact with nature and with one of nature's most fascinating and beautiful things--a wood fire. The use of wood as fuel, however, inevitably raises certain questions. The one most often asked is: "Wouldn't a return to wood as fuel decimate our forests?" WOOD AS A RENEWABLE RESOURCE Most people who have lived on a piece of country property for more than ten years have seen with their own eyes how the forest renews itself. In our small part of Fairfield County, we wage a constant battle with black locust trees. The summer lawn is usually cut once a week; sometimes other chores press closely and this schedule is neglected. If the lawn goes two weeks without cutting, it is not only shaggy, it is also liberally spiked with foot-high black locust seedlings. Turn your back for a month and the seedlings have grown too large to cut comfortably with hand clippers. If you painstakingly cut down young trees in the meadow that have sprung up unobserved, you find a host of small seedlings sprouting in no time at all from the miniature stump and from an area four to six feet in diameter. We had several trees downed by an ice storm a few years ago; today one of the most tedious chores on the grounds is cutting back the shoots, which still come up from the stumps and the wide-spreading roots close to the surface. It is endless. Yet if we didn't persist, each one of those shoots would grow in record time to a seventy-five- foot giant. Our land abuts some twenty or thirty acres of thick woods that have been left in a wild state for over sixty years. An elderly resident of ninety-two recalls the days when he used to pasture his small herd of cows on that very land. "There weren't many trees then," he told me, "only meadow. In fact we set up a bit of a golf course. Where those woods are-it was all grass and buttercups in those days." Walking through the dense stands of sugar maple, beech, and various hickories, it is hard to imagine the land as he knew it then. I would expect from my own experience that today it would be solid black locust and poison ivy, but nature manages things better than we might think. The return to the woods of this small bit of land is not an isolated instance. Finland, a tiny country of extensive forests, has for centuries been a large exporter of wood products; much of the world's supply of newsprint, ply- wood, and other wood-based items comes from Finland. Yet today Finland has greater and more productive forests than it had forty years ago. Finland's increased productivity is due entirely to good forest manage- ment. In 1922 Finland had 25.3 million hectares of forests; in 1938, 24.8 million; in 1963, 21.7 million; and in the beginning of l965-the latest figures available from the consulate general's office in New York-22.1 mil- lion. This, in spite of the fact that Finland's forest area is now almost 13 percent smaller than it was thirty-five years ago, due to territorial concessions made after World War II. Nor is Finland resting on its laurels. Although forest lands in Finland are 63 percent privately owned, private ownership in cooperation with government programs and research is confidently looking forward to a future of even greater productivity. Europe, densely populated and highly industrialized, came late to forest management; today European forests are growing, rather than diminishing, in both extent and productivity. Germany's famous and ancient Black Forest has been harvested for over 600 years; visitors to the Black Forest today see woods more productive and just as beautiful as in the centuries before man's invasion of them. In every case where wood has proven an economically desirable product, forest productivity has been increased. Man has the technology to harness nature to his needs in the production of wood as Well as in the production of less ecologically desirable products. Since our immediate concern, however, is with the forest resources of the United States, what is the situation here? When the pioneers began to clear land in the New World for their homes, farms, and cities, they marveled at the apparently endless forests. By the eighteenth century, Ben Franklin was turning his inventive skills to a stove that would help ease the shortage of wood around Philadelphia. Today, two centuries later, the United States still has almost 75 percent as much forest land as existed in the time of the pioneers--754 million acres, or one third of the United States, is still forest. Of that acreage, 254 million acres have been set apart for parks and recreation areas and cannot be commercially cut for lumber, but they are still available to those gathering wood by permit. The remaining 500 million acres are classified as commercial forest land-forest land which may be harvested. In the state of Maine, for example, 90 percent of the land is forest-admittedly, more than in any other state--but Maine is also the site of some of the largest paper manufacturers in the country, and 86 percent of the forest land is commercial acreage. From our commercial forest land comes all of our plywood, paper, wood pulp, building lumber, and other wood products-supporting some of the largest and most essential industries in the country; yet even today we are growing more wood than we are harvesting. This is due largely to good forest management by industrial users. It may seem strange that the greatest increase in wood production lies in the most commercially active areas, but because the wood is a money crop, forest land that is used for harvesting is more wisely managed and more productive than forest land that is allowed to grow untended. Just as a vege- table garden, cultivated intensively, can produce greater quantities of food than those same plants growing wild in a meadow, so a managed forest plantation is more productive than a wild forest. Once wood is as important to a homeowner as his vegetable garden, wood production can be stepped up, and productivity, it is estimated, can be at least doubled. WOOD HARVESTING AND THE QUALITY OF FORESTS The question then arises-does intensive production and harvesting of forests deplete the land and decrease the quality of the forest? Happily the answer is-on the contrary. A well-managed forest produces more young trees, healthier older trees; it eliminates diseased, crooked, and crowded trees. Older trees consume as much or more oxygen than they create; an average acre of healthy young trees gives off four tons of oxygen and consumes five to six tons of carbon monoxide a year. Not only does it not create pollution, it actually acts as an antipollution device to a much greater extent than an unmanaged forest. In addition, as anyone knows who has walked in a forest on a hot day or planted a shade tree to cool the living room, forests are natural air conditioners; and a managed forest is a better air conditioner than an unmanaged one because young trees are more efficient in this respect than older trees, whose photo- synthesis goes mostly to maintaining their own existence. A young tree has a cooling effect equivalent to ten room-sized air conditioners running twenty hours a day. Since air conditioners use tremendous amounts of electricity, some thought might be given by the beleaguered householder to planting a tree--even if he doesn't mean to burn wood. In addition, trees are humidifiers; they release moisture through leaves and needles into the atmosphere, and it is estimated that the combined cooling and humidifying created by a forest is equal to that created by the same area of ocean. But what of wildlife? Nature practices forest management with fires, hurri- canes, disease,' and other catastrophes; although she achieves the desired effect, nature is wasteful. She can afford to be because she is merely maintain- ing a balance and is not concerned with harvest. Man can approximate the same conditions but less wastefully and more efficiently without disturbing the natural balance of the forest. Wildlife requires a certain amount of underbrush, new young trees, meadow, and sunlight. A deep forest canopy leaves no food for deer or quail and actually discourages wildlife. In managed national forests the deer popu- lation has increased by as much as 500 percent since 1920, and by 800 percent in the South (according to the Department of Interior's Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife). Ruffed grouse, turkey, and other once-declin- ing wild creatures have made similar gains. Man has studied and imitated natural ways of forest management; forest fires are now sometimes started deliberately and allowed toburn under controlled conditions, because it has been shown that some trees and vegetation benefit from fire more than from other methods of management. When I first learned of this, I was startled at the thought of fire being used as a forest management tool; but I remembered how the farmers in the neck of the woods where I grew up used to get together on a dry early spring day to bum off the meadows so that the blueberry bushes would give their best yield. It was always an occasion for picnics and lots of lemonade-guarding the perimeters of the fire with a broom and keeping a sharp eye on it as it spread in an ever-widening ring from the center of the meadow was hot work. The crop of blueberries in midsummer was well worth it. In other words, forest management does not fight nature; it tries to learn from her and to imitate her just as the vegetable gardener does. The result, as we see in other countries as well as in our own, is bigger, better, and healthier forests that we can harvest as we do a vegetable garden, actually improving rather than destroying our natural resources. As the Forest Service of the USDA wrote me when I asked whether they considered wood a renewable resource: Wood is indeed a renewable resource and the production of wood on a sustained yield basis may be enhanced by various approaches which include: (1) improving the sites through fertilization, drainage, and irrigation; (2) converting forest areas to faster-growing species; (3) improving stocking and shortening the rotation through reforestation; (4) introducing genetically faster-growing trees; (5) stimu- lating the growth of the desired species through seeding; (6) recovering a larger share of the gross forest production through thinnings; and (7) reducing losses from fire, insects, and diseases through better forest protection. And lest you may think that faster-growing trees mean increasing produc- tion of softwoods, let me tell you that my black locusts, which grow faster than the fastest weeds in my lawn, are rated-along with shagbark hickory-- as one of the highest heat-producing hardwoods in America. WOOD-BURNING AND AIR POLLUTION In talking with people about the advisability of burning wood instead of other fuels, I have most often been asked about the polluting quality of wood smoke and other volatiles as compared to the volatiles of fuel oil and coal. In the first place, there is one interesting fact about the chemistry of wood- burning; the carbon dioxide that is released by burning is not different in quantity or content from that released by that same wood decaying on the forest floor. In that sense, any pollutants from wood may be said to be "natu- ral," in that they occur in nature and, therefore, may be assumed not to be harmful to the environment. In contrast, fossil fuels when burned give oif large quantities of sulfur dioxide--a volatile not normally found in the at- mosphere. Since sulfur dioxide is the substance that is causing statues and buildings that have stood for thousands of years to literally crumble to dust, it is obviously not a very good substance to be breathing into our much less adamant lungs. Nature has its own way of dealing with its own pollutants so that they do not interfere with the health and growth of her plants and ani- mals; she has not been able to cope equally well with man-made pollutants, and so far, neither has man himself. In the second place, wood properly burned to complete combustion re- leases far fewer volatiles into the atmosphere than wood incompletely burned. There is no reason why wood should not be completely burned; with the availability of well-designed stoves and a little common sense, most combus- tion can take place under ideal conditions. WOOD AS A SOLAR FUEL Another reason wood is the favored fuel of ecologists is that it can be classed as "solar" fuel. The very elements that wood gives off when burned, carbon dioxide, mois- ture, and energy, are the elements it converts from the atmosphere when growing; on the average, trees convert these three elements into wood fiber at the rate of four tons per acre. The energy, which we receive as wood heat, is solar energy--free for the taking and never depleted. Other fuels, coal, oil, and electricity, require pollution-creating devices to make them useful; wood aids the environment at the same time that it is creating fuel. It is the only fuel that is completely clean while it is being prepared for burning. The greatest pollution wood creates is in the use of the chain saw or log splitter-and if necessary, even these small aids could be eliminated in favor of hand-driven saws and machines. Wood is even cleaner as fuel than most so-called solar heating. As pres- ently constituted, most solar heating devices depend heavily on plastics, which are environmentally harmful to manufacture and environmentally harmful to dispose of since they are not biodegradable. This is not to say that solar heating is not a great improvement over the use of fossil fuels; but at present it is too expensive for the average consumer, must be accompanied by supplemental heat sources in the very areas where heat is most needed for longest periods, and requires elaborate new construction or expensive changes in existing buildings. It also dictates an architecture of its own which is not pleasing aesthetically to many people. SUMMARY All things considered, there is no question that wood is the most desirable fuel in terms of ecology. Its use would improve rather than adversely affect our environment, and until something better comes along, it is by far the least expensive solution to rising fuel costs. If wood fuel becomes popular, it will, of course, become just as expensive as everything else. It is up to every consumer, both as an individual and as part of the government, to see that costs are kept reasonable and realistic, and that increased demand does not lead to increased profits in an area so closely related to the public interest.

HEATING WITH WOOD - DISADVANTAGES and ADVANTAGES

THE WOOD-BURNING STOVE BOOK HEATING WITH WOOD - DISADVANTAGES and ADVANTAGES Most of us have never had to fend for ourselves in a physical way. We have heat provided either by our landlord or by our own thermostat; water is as far away as the faucet; shelter is created by architects and builders; our clothes come off department store racks and our shoes from cardboard boxes. Like the little boy who thought milk came from the refrigerator, we have lost touch with the real origin of the things we use in everyday life. Many of us have come to feel that this is not a good way to live and long to go back to simpler times; some of us, especially if we are younger, have taken to backpacking, living off the land, returning to the country. But on the whole we are not very well equipped for rural life, and of those who make the pilgrimage, a large proportion is forced back to more urban living. This need not be the case; when it happens, it is due largely to bad plan- ning, ignorance of what is involved, and tryirrg to change too much too quickly. A knowledge of what you are undertaking and an understanding of the problems you will encounter will give you a much greater chance of success. So it is with converting to wood as fuel for heating and cooking. I would like to see you pleasantly surprised, rather than unpleasantly disappointed after your first winter of heating with wood. To this end, let me paint a less than glowing picture. THE DISADVANTAGES OF HEATING WITH WOOD 1. Wood is heavy. Let us make no mistake about it. While handling wood-from cutting it up to stacking it in the woodshed-is well within the physical ability of an extremely elderly farm couple in good physical condition, it can be very tiring and demanding for a man who spends most of his time at a desk. The weight of wood is deceptive; a log is much heavier than you would guess from its appearance. 2. Wood is bulky. A winter's supply of wood should be laid in the spring and seasoned and stored at least until the following fall. Nine months is considered mini- mum storage for well-seasoned wood. This means a lot of storage space must be available for the woodpile. If such storage space is not available, you must be prepared to buy your wood in season and, therefore, pay top prices for it. Console yourself with the thought that even under these extreme conditions, it will still be your cheapest heating fuel. 3. Wood fires need to be tended. Even with automatic thermostats, wood fires need to be kept up by the addition of wood from time to time. The more time you can give to your fire, the more efliciently you can use your wood. There is also a certain amount of necessary adjusting to get the best energy (heat) return from your wood fire. 4. Wood fires need to be laid and cleaned up. When you get good at it, and if you have bought a really efficient stove, you need lay only one fire a winter-the first of the season. But you will still need to remove ashes occasionally and dispose of them; wood produces about sixty pounds of ashes for each cord of hardwood you burn. This isn't really very much and ashes are valuable in the garden for fertilizing and conditioning the soil. They are also good as a pesticide when dusted on plants, and if scattered around under plants, they will keep away slugs. (In talking about wood, it's hard to keep remembering that I'm trying to tell you about the disad- vantages.) 5. Chimneys need to be looked to. When wood was commonly used as fuel, chimney fires were a frequent occurrence. Here again you can minimize the danger and work by efficient burning. But even the best stove, well managed, will require that the chimney and venting pipes occasionally be cleaned; once a year is recom- mended. A defective chimney is something that should be remedied before you build your first fire. A certain amount of soot and creosote buildup is unavoidable and cannot be neglected-a chimney fire is no joke. 6. Wood stoves need to be maintained. Some cast-iron stoves come with special finishes that do not require an annual stove-blacking. Otherwise you have to add that to your schedule. With sheet metal stoves, you need to check for thin spots, buckling, and other signs of wear. At all times, you have to be alert for leaks, cracks, and other conditions that might require a bit of mortar or paint, or a new part. 7. A wood fire produces heat that is variable and difficult to regulate. Difficult but not impossible; in the beginning you are bound to have some failures. Wood heat is actually less variable than fuel oil--unless you have a thermostatically con- trolled wood-burning stove. Since the thermostat is activated by a drop in tempera- ture, no heating system that works on a thermostat is going to deliver even heat. 8. A wood fire is not easy to make automatic. There are thermostatic controls in some stoves, but you sacrifice some of your heat and some of your comfort when you use them. If you are lazy with a wood fire, you pay a price. Chewing is work too, but we wouldn't give up a good steak for a diet of baby food. If your schedule takes you away from home a lot, you may find a thermostatically controlled stove your best choice. There are fine ones available, and people who have them are very fond of them. In other words, having a wood fire is a little bit like having children: only you can decide if the work is worth it. Most people who have given wood heat a chance decide that, like a family, it's well worth the extra work. Now for the other side of the coin. THE ADVANTAGES OF HEATING WITH WOOD 1. Wood is nonpolluting. This is not a disinterested advantage. If we continue to pollute the atmosphere at the present rate, we will soon run out of air to breathe- certainly our children will. Many scientists and physicians suspect that a number of illnesses--in addition to the horrendous ones about which we already know-are being caused by pollution. They think we feel much less well than we should because we are breathing and ingesting so much that is inimical to the human body. The more people use wood for heat, the better ofl we all will be. 2. Wood is inexpensive. If it takes 141 gallons of oil to equal a cord of wood, and if oil costs forty cents per gallon, you can afford to pay over fifty-six dollars a cord for wood. If you burn wood really efliciently, you can pay up to seventy-two dollars a cord and still break even. Since fuel oil hasn't been as low as forty cents a gallon for over a year, and wood has cost sixty-five dollars a cord at its peak, you'd save money even if you bought all your wood. And buying all your wood is unneces- sary-there is so much free wood to be had for the gathering. These figures don't apply if you are burning wood in a fireplace; they apply to a well-designed, 80 percent-eflicient wood-burning stove. 3. Wood is available. As we will see in a later chapter, there is plenty of wood in the United States, free, or practically free, for the taking. There is no reason why we shouldn't always have enough for our use. If it becomes a question of priorities, it is even possible to look with equanimity upon a world devoid of paper napkins and paper cups. So far it doesn't seem as if it would ever come to that, but if it should, I think we would all survive it. 4. Wood is a renewable resource. It's up to us to grow enough for our needs; we've done it with citrus fruits, potatoes, wheat--we can do it with wood. And cutting wood actually will improve our forests and wildlife. 5. Wood requires low energy for production. Arrn-leg-and-shoulder power is cheaper than the power needed to run the machinery to get fuel oil and coal from the earth to the marketplace. 6. Wood requires no special facilities for storage. Huge tanks, pipelines, extensive systems of distribution with concommitant high costs, all are done away with when you use wood. Many of us can go into our back yards for much of the wood we need; others can buy or gather it locally. In any case, all we need for storage is a little empty corner of land, a shed, or a cellar. 7. Wood production is labor intensive. There is comparatively little cash outlay involved in obtaining wood from the forest--whether you do it or your wood dealer does it for you. 8. Wood warms many times. This is a standard way of putting the fact that you work up a good sweat bucking, stacking, and lugging wood. I would rather say that it improves the health of anyone who has to deal with wood in any of its phases. Wood chopping is a great tension-reliever and does more than a dozen Valium to calm and relax a tense, frustrated, or angry individual. 9. Wood is fulfilling. All the benefits that are claimed for hunting, apply in spades to heating with wood-and you don't have to kill something in the process. There is tremendous satisfaction in pitting your strength and skill against the elements and warming your home and self with your own ability and effort. Yet the demands are not so great that there need be any strain in doing it. At least no more than in landing a large fish, or playing eighteen holes of golf on a tough course. There is a satisfaction in heating with wood that you cannot get in any of these pursuits, because what you are doing is not a game but an important and necessary contribution to the serious and challenging business of living. 10. Wood is reliable. Once you have wood heat, you will never again find your- self on the phone swearing at the electric company because everyone else in the neighborhood has heat and you don't. Or pleading with the fuel oil company to somehow get through to you even though the town plow has broken down and your road is under three feet of snow. Once again, being snowbound will be fun. 11. Wood is beautiful. You have only to see how reluctant man has been through the ages to give up the viewing of the open fire to realize how much it means to him. Whether it is due to some atavistic need, or just to aesthetic appreciation, fire has always been a symbol of home. Even the doughboys of World War I wanted to "keep the home fires burning." They surely were not thinking of the thermostat that turned on the fuel oil furnace. Wood itself has an aesthetic value and handling it is pleasurable. A WORD OF CAUTION Although I have tried hard not to, I feel I have weighted the picture in favor of the wood-burning stove. So I would like to inject a note of caution. If, after reading and considering the advantages and disadvantages, you have decided to go with wood, perhaps you should compromise and try wood as supplemental heating. In other words, do not quarrel with your fuel oil man, rip your thermostats off the wall, and install wood stoves in every room (not necessary in any case). Put in one good wood stove-the best you can afford to heat the area you have in mind-and plan to supplement it with your regular heating system whenever necessary. With that to back you up, you will be free to make a few mistakes, to decide whether heating with wood is really for you. You will be able to adapt your life-style gradually, tone up unused muscles. Don't burn your bridges along with your hickory logs--you may want to use them again.

Going With Wood - How To Do It

Going With Wood - How To Do It Wood burning-like gardening-is more of an art than a science. Even if you do everything according to the book, or the manufacturer's manual, you can still run into problems. Experience is the best teacher, and one of the first things experience teaches is that sometimes a correctly built fire in a good airtight stove vented into a properly constructed chimney will still not per- form properly. The unpredictable character of wood burning adds spice and variety to life; you will never again be content with the boring monotony of merely adjusting the thermostat. Wood burning is a small daily adventure, doubly enjoyable because it is ecologically sound and economically advantageous. And you will soon find that the glow of achievement you feel sitting in the cosy comfort of a room' your own efforts have heated will be even more warming and satisfying than the actual heat generated---although at times that will be enough to send you around the room opening windows and turning down the draft. The first step to achieving this happy state of mind is to understand the mechanics of what you are dealing with. The basic principles are simple, but somehow in application the variables involved make wood burning seem more complicated than it is. In any case, if you have ever tried to fix a leaky water closet, you know that simplicity is no indication of the difficulties you can encounter. FOUR STAGES OF COMBUSTION No matter what kind of wood you burn, it must pass through four stages of combustion. l. Removing Moisture. Even the driest wood contains approximately 20 percent moisture, which must be removed by heat; as long as it contains no more than 20 percent moisture, it is considered dry. Dry wood will not only burn faster than wet wood, it will produce more available heat, since heat required to drive ofi moisture is not heat that will do you any good. Green or wet wood is very wasteful of heat. Where a cord of dry wood delivers 20 million Btu's, that same wood burned green will deliver only 16.5 million Btu's. In other words, green or wet wood actually has a negative heating value-it takes heat that you should be benefiting from, uses it to drive off moisture, and sends the evaporated moisture up the chimney flue. Old-timers may tell you that green wood is a good way to slow down or regulate a fire. Since it obviously is also a way to waste heat from wood you have had to cut, stack, lug, and store, there must be a better way. Even with dry wood, the 20 percent moisture content requires the first few minutes of your fire to dry it out enough for it to burn efliciently. Green or wet wood can contain an incredible amount of moisture--more than 100 percent, which sounds impossible but has to do with the way moisture content is measured. The simple act of drying wood before you burn it produces so much more efficient fuel that it is foolish not to plan ahead so that you will always have it-at least after the first year. 2. Breaking D0wn into Volatiles and Charcoal. Once the heat of the fire has eliminated moisture, the wood starts to break down chemically into volatiles and, eventually, charcoal. These are heat-producing ele- ments in wood, and the more effectively you use them, the longer you keep them in your room, the more heat you will get from each cord of wood. 3. Burning the Volatiles. Complete combustion of volatiles is not an automatic process. The importance of a good stove, a properly designed draft system, a good vent pipe, and a properly constructed chimney lies in the fact that their combined efforts result in burning these volatiles as completely as possible. If your stove leaks, if your chimney stays too cold or does not draw properly even though it is not too cold, or if you do not understand how to regulate your draft system, too large a proportion of volatiles will escape up the chimney un- burned. Not only will they fail to heat your house, they will also deposit soot and creosote on your chimney. The more volatiles burned within your stove, the more heat you will get from each piece of wood within the firebox. Wood begins to break down chemically into volatiles at 300 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Complete volatilization does not take place until the Wood in the firebox reaches about 1000 degrees; at this point it begins to form charcoal, which is the last stage of heat-producing combustion. The best way to burn volatiles is to pass them down through the fire. Many downdraft stoves have been invented since Ben Franldin's vase stove, which tried to do just that. Unfortunately, heat wants to rise; so all eflorts to force the volatiles back down through the fire are, so to speak, going against nature, and the results have been generally unsatisfactory. Most modern downdraft wood-burning stoves take the volatiles across, rather than down through, the flames. If you could invent a downdraft stove and circumvent the problem of back-pufling, you would not only be a better inventor than Franklin, you might even become more famous. Obviously, if the volatiles rise from the fire and immediately go up the chimney, they are taking a lot of heat potential with them. The simplest devices for retaining the heat longer Within the firebox are baflles; with them a greater proportion of volatiles are burned where they can do some good. In addition to baflles, some modern stoves have crossdrafts which they call downdrafts (perhaps on the princi- ple that they hold the volatiles down and give the fire another chance to burn them and release more of their heat). In studying diagrams of the flame path before you buy a stove, remember that the longer the flame path-in whatever direction-the more completely the vola- tiles will be consumed within the stove. A fireplace is about 10 percent eflicient. That means it utilizes about 10 percent of the heat potential of the wood burned in it; the rest goes up the chimney. A stove can be as much as 80 percent eflicient-which means you are getting a lot more heat out of the same cord of wood if you burn it in a stove instead of a fireplace. The rate of efficiency depends, of course, on a good stove, a well-managed fire, and good wood. It also depends on how much oxygen is available to the fire. As every schoolboy knows, it is impossible to have fire without oxygen. It follows that how and in what quantity oxygen is introduced into the firebox affects the efficiency of the fire. Too much oxygen means too hot a fire; too little means a smoldering fire. This is where the art rather than the science of wood stoves comes into operation. No matter how efliciently a stove is designed, you are the one who has to tend the fire and regulate the drafts, which let more or less oxygen into the firebox (unless you have a thermostatically controlled stove, which we will discuss in another chapter). The amount of oxygen needed will vary, depending on the state of the fire. There are a number of variables, including the moisture content of wood, type of wood, whether it is split or in logs, whether it is a very cold day, a particularly windy day, and so on. Your judgment is on the line every time you adjust--or do not adjust- the draft. A well-managed fire is something to be proud of; it takes experience and skill. 4. Burning the Charcoal. Charcoal produces only half of wood's heat potential. By itself it is not de- sirable as the main heat-producing factor. Since you now know that much of the heat lies in buming the volatiles, you realize that for maximum heat you need flame-not just glowing coals. Charcoal does, however. play its part in a good fire. It helps to keep up the temperature in the firebox and chimney so that the wood burns more efficiently; it is useful for holding a fire overnight; and it eventually creates ash, which forms a good base for the next fire--in case you build more than one a season. (Many people who have learned to use their wood-burning stoves expertly do not.) Incidentally, you may hear your neighbor brag about how long he has been able to hold his fire in the charcoal stage without adding wood-thirty-six hours is not impossible. Commiserate with him. He is creating a fire hazard unless he cleans out his chimney several times a season, and he is probably wearing extra sweaters. A low fire is not desirable and should not be encouraged except where absolutely necessary-as for carrying heat overnight so as to have live coals for next morning's fire. The volatiles cool so much from a charcoal fire that by the time they reach the chimney they are moving slowly and deposit their soot and creosote there in large quantities. Not only will a charcoal fire give less heat, it will give more trouble. The manufacturers of Scandinavian airtight stoves, which have a good holding potential, always urge purchasers not to be carried away trying to break holding records, and not to use the stoves primarily as charcoal burners. MAKING THE MOST OF WOOD'S HEAT POTENTIAL A fireplace will deliver about 10 percent of the heat potential of the wood it burns. Devices designed to improve fireplace potential without sacrificing the beauty of the fireplace claim to increase this considerably. A simple box stove may provide 50 percent of the heat potential. An airtight stove or a real furnace, equipped with all the most sophisticated drafts and engineering, can deliver as much as 80 to 90 percent efliciency. These, however, are top figures; to make the most of whatever heating method you are using, certain factors have to be taken into consideration. Types of Wood As you can see on examining the tables on pages 231-232 (Heat Equivalents of Wood), the Btu's delivered by different species of wood vary considerably. A cord of shagbark hickory, a hardwood, will deliver as much heat as 251 gallons of fuel oil, whereas a cord of aspen, a softwood, will deliver the equivalent of only 128 gallons of fuel oil. In other words, it will take roughly twice as much aspen as hickory to deliver the same amount of heat. If aspen sells for one-half the price of hickory, it really costs about the same; also it requires much more work on your part-lugging logs to the fire, adding them, removing that many more ashes, and so on. Since a hardwood fire burns more slowly than a softwood one, you will have to add wood much oftener with aspen. Clearly, the best fuel wood is hardwood, and the con- sumer must make sure, if he is buying wood, that he specifies what kind of wood he wants and compares prices on that basis. If the dealer promises oak, don't settle for pine. By the way, you will generally pay premium prices for white birch. This is because it is a luxury-decorative in the woodbox but a poor performer in the fireplace or stove. If you want a few pieces for show, keep them on display but don't burn them. Dry W0od--H ow Important ls I t? Here we have to define our terms; dry wood generally contains approximately 20 percent moisture. This is the best you can achieve by air-drying the wood in an outdoor stack under normal conditions. Wood is a naturally moisture-absorbent material. It easily reabsorbs mois- ture if given the chance. Conditions of storage are important and so is aging. Ideally, wood should not be used until a minimum of nine months after cutting, and twice that time is even better. Cut it in early spring or late winter and air-dry over the summer. However, as experienced campers know, if you must bum green wood in an emergency, yellow and black birch, sumac, white ash, and beech will burn better than other species. On an average green wood is 70 percent less efficient than dry wood; it also builds up more creosote in the chimney. This means a considerable heat loss as well as more work and is well worth going to some trouble to avoid. A covering of clear plastic in the summer will speed the drying process, providing you turn it over when it condenses on the side facing the woodpile. The plastic will make the air much hotter underneath than the outside air, and will retain the heat if the temperature cools down at night. The high temperatures generated by the plastic covering will also discour- age insects and help the wood to dry rather than rot. After a couple of months you will probably have to replace the plastic because constant exposure to the sun will deteriorate it; however, it is such an inexpensive material that re- placement cost is a negligible factor. For a more permanent covering, once the Wood has dried, construct a wooden lean-to or invest in tarps, which are practically indestructible. By the way, if you live in a part of the country where wood is sold by the ton, insist on dry wood. A ton of air-dried hardwood such as oak, hickory, or maple is the equal of approximately half a cord. If it is green or wet, it will weigh much more and all you will be getting for the extra cost is moisture. Wood Sizes-R00m for Experimenting In talking with a number of people who have been heating with wood for many, many years, I have been told with equal firmness that the best Way to get the most heat out of wood is: 1. Cut it into lengths as short as can be conveniently used, splitting all sticks over three inches in diameter so that the average stick is less than three inches thick. Or 2. Use logs as large as you possibly can get into the stove-this obviously depends entirely on the size of the fireplace or stove door opening. I go along with the second method. It saves a lot of splitting, for one thing; and once you have a log burning well, it gives a slow, even heat for much longer. The smaller the piece of wood, the faster it will burn and the more often you will have to add more wood. Much as I enjoy tending a wood fire, I don't want to have to add wood any more often than is absolutely necessary. You might think that the manufacturers who have smaller openings might be the ones who advocate smaller wood, but this isn't necessarily so. Scandi- navian stove manufacturers are all in favor of the second method, and they've had as much experience in burning wood as anyone in the world. I suspect that a preference for one method over another is due to other factors-such as how the fire is managed. Since the management of a fire depends not only on what device you are using for burning the wood, but also on the nature of your chimney, the climate (cold and windy, or mild and breezy), and the nature of your installation, I would suggest you experiment and find which works best for your conditions. I would imagine, also, that it would depend on how dry the wood is, what species it is, and what kind you can most easily and cheaply obtain. Be Sure You Have a Good Draft A house that is too tightly built can create problems by not bringing in enough air (and therefore oxygen) for good combustion. It is conceivable that this might happen in a house exceptionally well built and insulated for electric heat. In that case, you might have to open a window or put in louvers. This is rarely a problem, but even Ben Franklin was aware of it, so obviously the possibility exists. Then there is a difference in stoves. Some have more eificient draft-control devices than others. A good draft means one that is just strong enough-~not too weak, not too strong. If you have a roaring fire no matter what you do, you don't have a good draft-you have one that is too strong and you are wasting wood and heat. Before you throw out your stove for a new one, however, be sure it is the fault of the stove, not of the fire tender. WHERE TO GET FIREWOOD FREE Your Own Property Obviously, if you own acreage in the country, you can supply some of your own wood needs. First cut up dead and fallen wood--this may keep you in fuel wood for years and will clear up unsightly litter at the same time. The next step is to identify and cut down trees which should be cut for good woodlot management. Your local State Forestry ofiice will send a ranger to walk your land with you. He will advise you about which trees should be cut and on planting new seedlings and managing the land for maximum yield. Fast-growing trees, black locust for instance, can produce a sizable crop of long-burning, high-quality fuelwood in a remarkably short time. In addition to advising you about harvesting fuelwood, the ranger may discover some valuable trees that should not be burned up. If you have black walnut, cherry, or oak trees, you may find a good market for cabinet-quality wood. Sawmills pay high prices for cabinet wood and will come and cut it down for you, as well as paying you for the wood. A nice windfall may be waiting in your back lot. Property of Friends or Relatives Even if you don't own enough of your own property to satisfy your fuelwood requirements, you may find that you can provide a service and obtain free firewood by clearing dead wood or cutting down unwanted trees from land owned by friends, relatives, and neighbors. In this part of Connecticut it costs as much as two to three hundred dollars to have a good-sized tree cut down and carted away. If you are experienced and can cut down large trees, you can secure free firewood and be paid for 1t. If you are not experienced enough to actually cut the trees down, you can still save your friends money by cutting up and removing the wood once the trees have been felled by professionals. Your friends will welcome your ser- vices and you will obtain free wood. Dumps and Landfills After ice and wind storms, the town and local residents dispose of fallen trees in local dumps. You are usually welcome to go and take whatever you want. The wood will usually have been cut into manageable sizes, and you will be surprised at how many truckloads can be collected free this way. Private Landowners In wooded areas you may easily obtain permission to remove dead and fallen wood. Sometimes a small fee will be asked, but most people are generous and will be pleased to have their woods cleaned up. Your Own and Nearby State Forests "Nearby" because you may live near a border. For instance, many Connecti- cut residents are near New York forest areas. Check with your Extension Service; they will know what wood is available and whether it is free for the taking. National Forests The U.S. Forest Service provides free permits for up to ten cords of dead, down, and unmerchantable fuelwood from national forest lands. The Bureau of Land Management The nearest district office will know about local conditions and whether there are any arrangements for gathering fuelwood in designated areas. Telephone Company Cuttings Keep an eye out for telephone company cutting. In order to minimize damage from fallen limbs, the telephone companies routinely clear out trees, leaving the cut material by the roadside for subsequent carting away. Anyone is welcome to it; you might as well be the one to benefit from this excellent source of good, free wood. Hurricanes, Ice Storms, and Other Catastrophes Much wood is downed, especially in the fall and winter, by weather condi- tions. The wood is usually hastily cleared and left on the verges for later collection. A tremendous amount of wood is available for the collecting. You will be doing the town a service, saving your own tax money, and benefiting your woodpile if you systematically collect this debris. Sawmills, Lumber Companies, and Wood-Related Industries In this age of specialization, one man's garbage is another man's treasure trove. Since the cost of carting away waste materials is so high, and the room to dispose of them is so scarce, you can consider yourself a public-spirited citizen if you can recycle some of this waste in your wood-burning stove or fireplace. Don't collect a lot of trash or too much resinous wood; be selective. At the very least, you will acquire an endless supply of dry, already cut-up kindling; at best, you will lay in a good stock of fuelwood. Don't neglect chunk wood-it may look unfamiliar, but it makes perfectly good fuel. Wood Dealers The most expensive way to obtain firewood is, of course, to buy it already cut from someone who makes a business of selling it. Sometimes you have no choice because there is no other source, but even here you can effect a savings if you buy carefully. The following section discusses the various things you need to know to buy wood as reasonably as possible. HOW TO BUY FIREWOOD If all other sources fail and you have to fall back on buying wood from a local wood dealer, save yourself money by checking out the following procedures. Shop Around As with any other commodity, some dealers will charge more than others. It's worth making a few phone calls to dealers and asking your neighbors to find what the going rate is and who is offering the best deal. Know What Wood You're Buying Hardwood will cost more than softwood but will deliver more heat for the money. Ask what kind of wood the dealer is ofiering and check it out on the Btu's list on pages 231-232 to see how it rates. You will need a smaller quantity of hardwood to get you through the winter. It will be easier on your chimney and stovepipe, will require less fire- tending, and will be more satisfactory in every way than softwoods. However, if immediate cost outlay is the most important factor-and it may well be-try to get a mix of softwood and hardwood. It should be cheaper, but not all dealers will give you a cheaper price for less desirable wood unless they realize you know the difference. Whenever possible, specify air-dried wood unless the difference in cost is prohibitive or you have time and facilities for long storage. Wood with a high moisture content burns less efliciently; much of its heat goes up the chimney. Fresh-cut wood-unless it is from dead or fallen trees--is green, and green wood makes a slow fire, not the sort of fire you want to wake up with on a bltter January rnormng However, not only green wood has a hlgh moisture content; so does wood that has been lmproperly stored Wood not kept under cover gets wetter with every ralny day or dewy mght Be sure you don't make the mistake, yourself, of buylng good dry wood and stonng 1t carelessly. You w1ll soon learn to recogmze green Wood from dry wood~in the begmmng look for cracks radlatmg from the center outward; the more cracks the drler the wood Know What You Are Ordering Wood is sold more often by a standard measure than by weight. Cord. The most common measure is a cord, which is a stack of wood four feet wide, four feet high, and eight feet long--this adds up to 128 cubic feet, including air between the logs. Run, Face Cord, Rick. For fireplaces or stoves, wood is usually cut into shorter lengths. These shorter lengths piled four feet high and eight feet long make up a "run," or "face cord," sometimes called a "rick." In other words a face cord of 12-inch-long wood would be twelve inches wide, four feet high, and eight feet long. If a cord of wood is cut into 16-inch lengths, for instance, it will no longer measure 128 cubic feet because the shorter lengths will stack more compactly and will take up less room than the longer wood; also some of the wood will be lost in the cutting-how much can be judged by the amount of sawdust. On the average, if you are trying to judge a load, you can figure on a 10 to 15 percent loss in space, for instance, for four-foot wood cut into 16-inch lengths; 12-inch lengths will make a pile that is 25 percent smaller than the original cord. Obviously, if you are planning to check on the size of the delivered load, you and the dealer should be clear as to whether you are talking about a standard cord or a face cord, and you should specify the length you want. If you are able to cut up your own wood, you will save money ordering the standard cord in four-foot lengths; you will be able to check more easily if you have been delivered full measure, and you will have the use of the sawdust, which makes good compost and can even be burned under certain conditions. Truckload. Some dealers sell wood by the "truckload." The amount of wood in- cluded in a truckload obviously depends on the size of the truck. Wood is surpris- ingly heavy-a cord of wood weighs between one and a half and two tons-and the typical pickup truck simply cannot hold a cord of wood. So beware of a "cord" delivered in a pickup truck. If a truck has a six-foot body that is four feet wide and nineteen inches deep, it will hold less than one sixteen-inch run; if it has an eight-foot body, it will hold- at the most-one run. A full cord of four-foot wood would require a dump truck. Incidentally, you always have to ask if the price of the wood includes stacking it for you, but with tnickload wood, you will find that it is generally dumped and left to you to stack. Unit or Carload. If you are picking up the wood in your station wagon or large car trunk, you won't be able to transport more than a "unit." This is usually two feet by two feet of sixteen-inch wood, about one twenty-fourth of a standard cord. The cheapest way to buy wood is by the standard cord, but whatever you order you will find this is very much a case of let the buyer beware. Measuring wood accurately is a bother, and many more-or-less honest dealers will estimate their load and perhaps not give you full measure. Any dealer who delivers a "cord" of wood in a pickup truck obviously knows better, and you should refuse delivery or arrange to pay for less than a cord. If the wood is stacked for you, check out the size of the pile before paying your bill; otherwise, stack it as soon as possible to see if you have received what you ordered. Also check whether it is all hardwood, if that is what you specified. I wouldn't think it necessary to suggest that you avoid purchasing wood from roadside stands where it is sold to tourists at so much a log; but I have seen so many signs to that effect that I ought to mention that this is no way to buy wood if you are really serious about cutting fuel costs. Buy Wood Out of Season The biggest savings you can effect, if you have to buy wood, is to buy in late spring or early summer. The wood dealer is probably busy then with other work-much of which is cutting and clearing trees. He will welcome the opportunity of selling wood he has on hand to make storage room for the new wood he is acquiring. By now you probably know what wood should cost in your area and are in a position to bargain if you are buying off-season. The worst time to buy wood is from January on, when prices will be steadily rising. Try to anticipate your requirements and buy enough wood to carry you through until late spring. This kind of foresight requires you to pro- vide storage space for a great deal of wood, but if you seriously mean to replace other heating fuels on a permanent basis, the sooner you set up wood storage facilities, the better. If you cannot provide a woodshed or lean-to of sufficient proportions, clear, heavy plastic cloths and tarps will do very well. (See next section.) HOW TO STORE FIREWOOD There are two kinds of firewood you will be storing-dry and green. With dry wood, the problem is to keep it from reabsorbing moisture; with green wood, the problem is to dry it. Storing Dry Wood Wood should be stored on a waterproof foundation; this can be concrete, brick, iron, or even wood that is not to be used. If possible, the foundation should be at least four inches above the level of the ground. This will create better air circulation and will prevent ground water from running under the pile and creating a wet atmosphere. Dry wood can be stacked fairly closely, but a thought should be given to circulation of air--your best drying medium in the open. A roof or cover must be provided. This can be as elaborate as an enclosed shelter or as simple as a tarp or plastic. Plastic sheeting is available in large sheets; be sure to use a moderately heavy plastic-the drop sheets painters use are too thin-so that the edges of the logs won't cut through it and make holes that will admit rain. If you are doing this for the first time, secure the covering by tying it down or anchoring it firmly after you have pressed it as closely as possible to the woodpile. That nice, mild, sunny day you picked to cover the wood is very different from the winter gale in which the tarp blows off in the middle of the night---the last thing you need to wake up to is a woodpile covered in two feet of snow. Even a well-secured covering should be checked every so often to make sure the wind hasn't worked a corner loose. Aside from moisture get- ting into the wood, moisture getting around the outside of the wood will freeze the whole cord solid, and you will have to use a crowbar to gather a stoveful. If you are covering green wood, it should be covered in such a way that air can circulate in and around under the covering. On a really hot sunny day, you may notice moisture condensing under the plastic. If this occurs, remove the plastic for an hour or so and replace it with the damp side out; otherwise the moisture will drip down onto the wood and be reabsorbed. Storing Green Wood Follow directions for dry wood, with one big difference: in stacking green wood it is necessary to create greater air circulation. Ideally, green wood should be stacked alternately, with each log at right angles to the log above it, to form squares. After it has been stacked this way for about three months, you can stack it in the normal fashion. I f space is a problem, stack most of the wood in the usual way but put aside the wood you will need for the coming month and stack this alternately. It is really best to allow wood to season thoroughly before using, but this is not always possible. Bring wood inside. Keep as much wood on an enclosed porch and as much beside--but not too near--the fire as possible. This will help to dry it out more than outdoor storage. Keep it away from the house wall, whether indoors or out. There is one big exception to home storage: if the wood is buggy or decayed, bring it in at the last minute. It would be better not to use wood in that condition at all, but sometimes there is no choice. In any case, always use your wood in order of its age-older wood first-so that insects have as little time as possible to take up residence. Badly decayed wood is no good as fuel; you won't be sold it, but you will have to examine wood you gather to make sure you aren't wasting time and energy dragging home a log that is good only for compost.