fire science: demonstration of smoke burning

Two lessons here:

1) smoke is a fuel

2) candles give off more smoke than you might think

Oh ; Thats cool !

This is brillant!

AND!!

This should be made a permanent "sticky" at the top of RMH forum for anyone thinking that "wood burning masonry heaters" are not the best form of wood combustion and fulling integratable into holistic, sustainable, and healthy natural building practices. Because of what is demonstrated in the video, these types of wood burning devices capture more fuel out of every piece of wood burned...and...do not... contribute to the often claimed "indoor air pollution" so many modern builders suggest we dwell on.

Excellent demonstration of the uses in "regasificationary burn!"

THANKS PAUL !!

YES ! Candles are a source of Soot and Nano Soot production that is hard for most people to understand as more than an intellectual exercise !

Frequent burning of candles inside a house comes with a guarantee that those spider webs up by the ceiling that you never saw before now will
be outlined in black !

Frequent use of (especially of petroleum based candles) candles will highlight this Arachnid Artwork faster that escaping smoke form well tuned
heating appliances !

The Important thing in duplicating this experiment is to use a used candle with a previously burned/carbonized wick !

Yes I tried it both ways, the used candle always works best, the Candles in my '' Oops, the power just went out '' are all pre-lite, with Carbonized
wicks! This is where I keep a stash of Empty Lighters that can still throw a hot spark !

After I get The House-Core lit- that is soon enough to trim wicks for longevity, the shorter the wick the less smoke particles I THINK

For the Good Of the Craft ! Big AL !

allen lumley wrote:
Frequent burning of candles inside a house comes with a guarantee that those spider webs up by the ceiling that you never saw before now will
be outlined in black !

Frequent use of (especially of petroleum based candles) candles will highlight this Arachnid Artwork faster that escaping smoke form well tuned
heating appliances !

Al, did you know these webs aren't actually caused by spiders? Every time I see a fire (I do property insurance claims), the wife is mortified at all the webs that she never noticed before. She didn't notice them before because they weren't there! It's the smoke itself- it ionizes and sticks to itself, forming long chains. Intuitively, it seems like it must be new smoke getting stuck on existing webs and making them visible, but it's not. Brand new webs, built out of smoke.

Here's a decent photo from a recent job. There are little carbon chains hanging down from the ceiling every few inches.

Am i gonna be nitpicky or what?


Well, is this smoke or parafin steam? Actualy, what do we call smoke?

I leave you to find the reply, as i am not scientificaly oriented enough. And drunk as a skunk (duh, not that much, i can type! )


Best regards.

Max.

Heck, I've noticed that whole smoke being flammable thing before. There have been a few times that I've tried to light a candle in a breeze and had the wind blow it out before I even moved the lighter to far away from it, but as soon as I got the flame within an inch or so of the smoking wick it would almost seem to jump to life again. Never did it on purpose before or from that high above the candle, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Mike Cantrell wrote:
Here's a decent photo from a recent job. There are little carbon chains hanging down from the ceiling every few inches.

Wow, that is something. I don't know if I've ever seen that, but I haven't been in too many houses after they had an indoor fire.

Although, there was that time I got confused about the flu on our basement stove and turned the stairway into a second chimney. . . I don't recall seeing those hanging from the ceiling then.

Mike : You just know Neater people than I do ! What I was referring to was the Cobwebs that spiders make that are web shaped, Generally Cobwebs are easy
to find if you know where to look for them, if I cant find them in a house that person never burns a candle !

yes I have not only seen the carbon ladders, but have even watched them form at the County Fire Training center where all new recruits get to go through a
live fire exercise, mostly to learn how dark a house fire REALY is !

For the Good of the Craft ! Big AL

allen lumley wrote:YES ! Candles are a source of Soot and Nano Soot production that is hard for most people to understand as more than an intellectual exercise !

Frequent burning of candles inside a house comes with a guarantee that those spider webs up by the ceiling that you never saw before now will
be outlined in black !

Frequent use of (especially of petroleum based candles) candles will highlight this Arachnid Artwork faster that escaping smoke form well tuned
heating appliances !

The Important thing in duplicating this experiment is to use a used candle with a previously burned/carbonized wick !

Yes I tried it both ways, the used candle always works best, the Candles in my '' Oops, the power just went out '' are all pre-lite, with Carbonized
wicks! This is where I keep a stash of Empty Lighters that can still throw a hot spark !

After I get The House-Core lit- that is soon enough to trim wicks for longevity, the shorter the wick the less smoke particles I THINK

For the Good Of the Craft ! Big AL !

Yep...back when I was an HVAC tech, once in a while we'd get someone calling complaining about their (insert whatever heating appliance here) making soot in their house. First question we'd always ask was...
"Do you burn a lot of candles?"
The answer was yes almost 100% of the time. It was only an extremely rare case when they had soot in the house that wasn't caused by them.

I've heard about this relighting of a candle of a candle many times before, but have never been able to replicate it, no matter how many times I've tried. I must be doing something wrong, as this makes sense scientifically, but just doesn't seem to work with me.



What materials have you noticed cause those carbon chains? I've always associated them with the burning of plastics, as you can easily see bits of thread fly up when burning it, but have not noticed such a reaction with other things.

I just did that candle 'trick' with my girls to show them the fundamentals of fire science. Really understanding the basics of fire is the 'trick' to building a better rmh. Here, in his latest youtube, Paul talks about the three types of heat transfer.