Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 08:38:06 -0500
Reply-To: mcneely4@COX.NET
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dave Mcneely <mcneely4@COX.NET>
Subject: Re: Vanagon Winter Survival Kit Question
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Well, the post said all wood has approximately the same heat content by
weight. The aspen has less heat by volume, because it is much less
dense than oak. At one time, when I heated my house in eastern Kentucky
with wood, I had a list from USDA of the heat content of various woods,
down to the species level (so black maple, sugar maple, red maple rather
than just maple; white oak, black oak, northern red oak ...... , and so
on). White oak had the greatest heat content of any listed that was
available in the area where I lived. State of curing makes a big
difference, too. Unseasoned wood has the same absolute heat content as
does seasoned wood, but expends much of its heat by driving off water
(more heat up the chimney, less warming the air in the room). I think
the greatest heat content of any of those on the list in N. America was
bodark (osage orange, hedge apple), a wood that only occurs in the in
the lower Midwest, Texas, and edge of the Southeast. But the variation
is by volume (given as BTUs per standard cord). For those who don't
know, a cord is a stack of wood 16 ft long, 4 ft high, 4 ft wide. Wood
dealers often sell wood by the "rick." A rick is simply a stack of
wood. You get what you pay for.
A wise man once said that firewood warms one three times: Once when
cut, split, and stacked, once when hauled to the house, and then again
when burned. We found cutting, hauling, and stacking wood to be a
family activity that brought us together. I would haul my daughter to
the wood stacks on a sled, then use the sled to haul the wood to the
house.
I once ran into a man in Big Bend National Park who had a small wood
stove in his van. He was burning charcoal in it on that particular
trip, if I recall. That was forty years ago, and I don't recall if it
was a VW of any kind. If so, it would have been an air cooled of
course.
David McNeely
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Rob wrote:
> Extra heat? That is the wood burning in addition to the wax.
> All wood has the same energy? Oh wow, think of all the time I spent
> messing with the oak rather than the aspen... See that was my
> problem, I thought I was getting more heat from the oak than I did
> from the softwoods all those years.
> I thought the hardwood burning along with the wax did the trick for
> the extra heat. The only person I know (from a list) who has used one
> said it worked great in the car that had run off the road in a snow
> storm.
> It is one of those emergency things you keep
> in back, with any luck you will never have to find out if
> it gives enough heat to keep you alive thru the night.
> Next time you're messing with a presto log give it a try and
> let us know if it works.
>
> Rob
> becida@comcast.net
>
> At 10/30/2009 08:25 PM,Mike S wrote:
>> At 10:19 PM 10/30/2009, Rob wrote...
>>> At 10/30/2009 06:32 PM, Mike S wrote:
>>>> Sounds much like one of those artificial fire logs. You could
>>>> probably just get one of those, and cut off what's needed, as
>>>> needed.
>>>
>>> This is a candle gives off 'extra' heat not a presto log.
>>
>> Where does this "extra" heat come from? A special high-calorie wax?
>> Dry wood is around 6K BTU/lb., whether hardwood or softwood.
>>
>> Cutting off a few inches of a artificial log, and stuffing it around
>> a wick in a can (the logs use a soft wax, and crumble easily), seems
>> much easier than mixing melted paraffin wax and woodchips. It also
>> allows one to replenish the candle when needed (a log and some wick
>> are all that's needed). Probably cheaper than paraffin, too.
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