The British invention kills BATTERYs!

[ggirod]

Re: The British invention kills BATTERYs!

Burn cedar in your wood stove, and your stove would emit cyanide gas because all cedars make cyanide to combat insects. Some cedars are so rich in cyanide that you can smell the strong sweet smell of cyanide when you saw them.

As I said, I would not last one day working for the EPA, Environment Canada, and that entire bunch

I will have to be on the lookout for the sweet almond smells like those in California's old gas chambers. Though I burn mostly Birch and Maple with a smattering of Ironwood and Hemlock, i am now concerned that some cedar might make its way into my firewood supply. Hence, I looked up cedar and cyanide in Google and found the following links ...

the first link ...

Why is there a hospital called Cedar Cyanide?Isn't that a sick name for a hospital?
Indeed it is a sick name, but here is the answer ...

It's not 'Cedar Cyanide'...it's 'Cedars-Sinai'. :-)
The name comes from the merger of two hospitals; 'Cedars of Lebanon' and 'Mount Sinai Hospital'.

It is in the Top 20 hospitals in the entire world.

Then, I read the CDC statement on Cyanide ... which is here and no mention of cyanide associated with Cedar smoke. Cigarette smoke contains loads of hydrogen cyanide, of course, but cedar smoke doesn't pass muster. Maybe I have missed something. Or maybe the cyanide is found in cedar smoke at levels considerably below that of Marlboros or Gauloises.

[ggirod]

Re: The British invention kills BATTERYs!

I won't even get into the issue of trace amounts of radon and thorium and uranium emitted from wood stoves. And when scrap roofing materials are burned, arsenic can be emitted into the atmosphere. ( Let's not even open that can of worms. )

Are you really proposing that people burn treated wood? Aren't people supposed to read the cautions for treated wood? or treated shingles?
Now, as for radon... from wikipedia:

Radon is found in some petroleum. Because radon has a similar pressure and temperature curve as propane, and oil refineries separate petrochemicals based on their boiling points, the piping carrying freshly separated propane in oil refineries can become partially radioactive due to radon decay particles. Residues from the petroleum and natural gas industry often contain radium and its daughters. The sulfate scale from an oil well can be radium rich, while the water, oil, and gas from a well often contains radon. Radon decays to form solid radioisotopes which form coatings on the inside of pipework. In an oil processing plant, the area of the plant where propane is processed is often one of the more contaminated areas, because radon has a similar boiling point as propane.^[56]

So, ya wanna burn propane, ya get radon. Ya wanna burn natural gas, ya get radon. no matter what, ya might get radon, unless, of course your land doesn't release any radon into the soil. Then, maybe, you just import your radon with your propane or natural gas. Or maybe you decide that burning wood is not so bad after all, if you consider the effort to be a benefit, much to the distress of Jack LaLanne.

[Starving Steve]

Re: The British invention kills BATTERYs!

I will have to be on the lookout for the sweet almond smells like those in California's old gas chambers. Though I burn mostly Birch and Maple with a smattering of Ironwood and Hemlock, i am now concerned that some cedar might make its way into my firewood supply. Hence, I looked up cedar and cyanide in Google and found the following links ...

the first link ...
Then, I read the CDC statement on Cyanide ... which is here and no mention of cyanide associated with Cedar smoke. Cigarette smoke contains loads of hydrogen cyanide, of course, but cedar smoke doesn't pass muster. Maybe I have missed something. Or maybe the cyanide is found in cedar smoke at levels considerably below that of Marlboros or Gauloises.

I burn cedar, and it won't kill you. Almost half of the trees around the forest here are cedar. But I have been told that cedar does contain cyanide as a natural insecticide in the wood.

I did have a cedar log which stank of a sweet smell, far more than the other logs that I have sawed. Last summer when I hand-sawed the small stinky log, I had some very odd things happen to me:

a.) my upper arm muscles became very sore and greatly enlarged;
b.) my breast muscles became very sore and greatly enlarged;
c.) I had a grand mal seizure with loss of consciousness immediately after the sawing on June 3rd, waking up in Victoria General Hospital Emergency Room; then another grand mal seizure on June 5th, again perhaps related to the sawing of the log, but perhaps not, and again waking up in the Emergency Room after a long period of unconsciousness;
d.) I had low blood pressure and extreme weakness and loss of memory;
e.) I had swollen nipples in the male breasts;
f.) I had large black or dark blotches on my skin, looking like rot, especially on the upper part of the hands;
g.) I lost control of my urine.

So this may have been cyanide related, but it may have been a coincidence with the sawing of the log, and nothing more than that. But this did happen, and I lost my legal right to drive in British Columbia for six months on account of these "loss of consciousness" events. Legally, as far as driving is concerned, these are quite serious events.

Lesson: maybe to stay-away from stinky logs in a cedar forest. Certainly, don't saw-up and burn such logs.

[ggirod]

Re: The British invention kills BATTERYs!

I hope you have recovered, none of those symptoms sound very nice or particularly easy to attribute to any one cause.... but they are most certainly scary. I have to say that anything I did on the day all that happened to me would not be repeated in the near future...

[raja]

Re: The British invention kills BATTERYs!

Since this thread seems to have irretrievably morphed into a wood burning thread, here's my 2 cents . . . .

We have a wood-burning furnace about 50 feet from the house. It heats water, which is then circulated by a pump through underground insulated pipes to heat exchangers in the heating system ducts, and the fans blow it out the floor and ceiling registers in the house.

Advantages:
Fill once or twice a day.
Keep smoke and wood debris out of the house.
No fire hazard.

I, too, appreciate the exercise afforded by feeding the furnace. In fact, since moving to the country I have ceased running nowhere (jogging), and lifting heavy object to no purpose (weight lifting). Instead, I carry bales of hay and feed bags, dig fence posts, and occasionally run after resistant animals. All this puts healthy food on the table and keeps me fit.