Woodchip for household stoves

[Whatisheatnow]

Hello all. While trying to ignore this heat wave can anybody tell us how dry woodchip burns in an ordinary log burning stove? Small woodchippers produce quite an amount from brushwood, branches, etc. It seems to be a waste just dumping it or using it for paths, weed preventing mulch and that sort of stuff. I know it needs to be dried or chipped while dry for stoves. Is anyone selling woodchip in bags or small quantities and if so, at what price and what moisture content?

[Rich]

I think you would need an adapted stove that has an air duct to the grate, ( I forget their name, but there are some advertised in Living Woods magazine, as 'Workshop stoves' or something like that, they burn sawdust and offcuts etc so chips would not be a problem)

Commercially I think wood chips are dried with huge blowers, expensive to buy and to run. I don't think burning wood chip is really viable on a small scale, because of the difficulty in drying it. Unless of course this weather continues until Christmas!
Rich

[Rankinswood]

I tried burning freshly felled ash tree branch chips last winter in our domestic Rayburn stove and found that these will burn quite well.

The main problem is that of mess since chips need to be shovelled into the burner with chips falling off the side of the shovel. It is not easy trying to dig a shovel directly into chips. It might be easier loading a scuttle or metal bucket to charge a vertical loading stove. There is a real danger to regular exposure to breathing in wood dust especially when the chips are dry. Wood dust can be quite toxic with most types of wood being at least irritant to the eyes, nasal pasages and lungs

Rankinswood