Dr. Spencer wants to get a head start on warming up the pool water. He is looking at his options and, in the process, provides an overview of modern wood stove design factors. See Fire & Water: Some Thoughts on Wood Stove Design and Efficiency.
Meanwhile, I’ve been reading about the newer EPA-certified stove designs – which is all you can buy anymore — that provide a hotter fire with more complete combustion of wood, rather than losing the gases and smoke out the chimney like the older “smoke dragon” designs do. I had no idea that (dry) wood could be so completely burned that there is little or no smoke at all. Cool!
The modern advance in wood stove technology is, simply put, to create a hotter fire with sufficient oxygen supply to burn all the wood and its byproducts.
It is interesting how a technology with such an ancient history is still subject to significant innovation. B Franklin invented his stove in 1741 (wikipedia). Then there is the effort for a clean burning stove as a means to provide aid to Africa. (Social Entrepreneurs Develop Cleaner Alternative to African Wood-Burning Stoves or mbaula wood burning clay stove)
Fuel and air and heat. Those are the basic ingredients. New inventions provide control for efficiency. In addition to just burning the wood, there is now the afterburner. That is the burning of the exhaust gases that used to cause creosote buildup in chimneys making regular chimney cleaning a safety requirement to avoid chimney fires.
Just because it’s been around forever doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.
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