Just threw a large heavy piece of oak in the wood stove. Within about 5 minutes, the whole house had a sickly sweet smell. Never had this happen.
It's Live Oak, and is supposed to have been split about a year ago. This is out of a cord I purchased since I couldn't split enough last spring. Guy is very trustworthy, so unless he made a mistake, I believe him about how long ago it was split. Although, it was rather heavy for a year old.
I'm not overly concerned about it. Just curious. Anyone have any idea? Wood stove is old, gaskets are in good shape, and it's been working fine.
Oak can sit for years and not dry til it is split. You can tell whrn you pick it up if it's wet.
Well, I don't think it's wet. If it is, not much. I've burned wet oak before.
This is just a weird sickening sweet smell it had. It didn't bother me as much as the ol'lady. Said it almost made her nauseous. And that don't happen easily.
If you have proper draft I can't see how you could smell anything burning in a stove? I run my pretty much non stop 4-5 months out of the year and other than the first burn after a chimney cleaning and the summer off, there is no smell.
Yea, it's time to run your stove wide open for an hour or so. You shouldn't be able to smell anything.
Oak is so horribly slow to "dry"
Might have to open the draft a little extra, feed it a little more air to get the flue temp up.
Thanks for the answers. I don't get smoke in the house. Normally get no smell at all. The fire had been going for a couple hours and it was very hot.
It was just this one piece that produced that smell.
After that piece burned for a while, it quit producing a smell. It's not that cold out so that was the last piece of wood I used for the night. I'm gonna use some wood out of that same cord tonight and see what happens.
Oh, and it was cleaned at the end of last season and this is only about one week into using it.
What kind of oak?
Our local native oak is a red oak with a very thick, rough, semi corky bark on it. I don't like that bark. Messy schit.
it might have been invaded by a fungus, that is mushrooms, but it's just a guess.
usually combustion of white oak has a "sweeter:" smell, at least to me, compared to a redoak.
Does not compute.
They actually call it "live oak"?
its a thick brush down in Texas
Live Oak Your Google-Fu needs some work.
Actually, it's not THAT Live Oak.
More specifically, it's Canyon Live Oak. It's specific to California I believe.
This whole thread got me researching. Didn't know there were over 60 types of Oak throughout the US and they all seem to be a bit different.
Anyway, we call it Live Oak. But it's really Canyon Live Oak. The other type, and most common, we have and burn is Black Oak. Haven't checked yet, but I'm betting there's more to that species too.
