Making Your Wood Supply Last For Your Outdoor Wood Boiler
Is Your Wood Supply Enough To Last For This Winter Season?
Here are three easy steps to make your wood supply last longer - these are steps you can take NOW:
1. Cover your woodpile
2. Do a complete cleaning of your outdoor furnace
3. Add a Chimney Extension and replace your blower fan
Cover Your Wood
If your woodpile is not covered, you are likely to have snow, frost, and ice all over your wood. As the temperature rises above freezing, there may be considerable rain making your wood moisture content high. It is never too late to cover your woodpile with a tarp, which enables the wood to dry and makes your burn more efficient.
Wet wood will burn in your outdoor wood furnace, but many of the BTUs
produced from the burning of your wood fuel are wasted because that energy is required just to burn off the water and convert it to steam.
Cover only the top of your woodpile, don't include the sides so air can flow through it from the sides and dry out the wood.
Completely Clean Outdoor Wood Burning Boiler
You want the heat from your wood fuel to transfer into your water jacket to get the most out of it. A dirty furnace, on the other hand, is less efficient so you should regularly clean your outdoor boiler.
Deep layers of ash will prevent the heat transfer of BTUs from your wood fuel into the water jacket. So, make sure to keep the ash layer to one inch or less.
Thick layers of creosote on the firebox walls will also prevent heat transfer so be sure to reduce creosote using the DRY BURN method described in this article HERE.
Also, make sure your chimney and deflector plate area is clean - deep layers of ash in this area will prevent proper airflow which reduces efficiency also.
Add Chimney Extension / Replace Blower Fan
A chimney extension slows airflow through your outdoor wood burner and thus improves efficiency because 
heat stays in the boiler longer. Remember that HE furnaces require a chimney adapter to add the extension. These items are available at our online store by clicking this link HERE.
Blower fans that are older than 5 years old will begin to lose their effectiveness and may not be performing at their optimal power. We recommend replacing the blower fan if you are experiencing poor efficiency for undiagnosed reasons.
If you still don't have a spare blower fan, go HERE to get one.
We recommend having AT LEAST a spare blower fan on hand in case yours breaks down, which will inevitably happen over the first 10-20 years of your heating system's life. Please see the best promo we have for the Emergency Preparedness Kit at our online store. You can also browse for more outdoor wood boiler parts!
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With FREE Technical Support, our hundreds of videos, articles, operations & maintenance tips, and FREE Design Services, we guarantee that we will provide you the right answer to your question or solution to your problem."
Free Water Testing
One of the most important steps in prolonging the life of your outdoor boiler is to ensure that the water in your boiler is not corroding the steel. Water starts to eat holes in steel immediately upon contact (through rust corrosion) unless properly treated.
The boiler chemical (corrosion inhibitor) that you would apply to your furnace water coats the inside of the outdoor wood stove to reduce the effects of corrosion on the metal.
Click HERE to order our Liquid Armor Water Treatment and other outdoor wood furnace parts. Every gallon of Liquid Armor comes with FREE 2 sample bottles. Then submit your water sample to Outdoor Boiler Lab and get Free Water Test! We test your outdoor furnace water for free!
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Customer support begins with a great customer service team. Our dedicated team is trained and experienced in all things outdoor boiler. You can always expect a human on the other end of the line. We know what’s important to you - your family, saving money, and keeping your house toasty warm - and we make that our highest priority.
