Here on TreeHugger we are quite enamoured of stoves, whether they burn wood or pellets or are of the rocket variety. Nevertheless, not all stoves are built equal, and this design by Dutch duo Michiel Martens and Roel de Boer had us scratching our heads a bit.

© Michiel Martens and Roel de Boe

Seen over at Dezeen and unveiled during Dutch Design Week, the Spruce Sstove is made to burn trees whole, without the hassle of having to chop trunks into smaller logs. Consisting of a horizontally-laid oil drum and a portable rolling stand to hold the tree's length, it features a serrated opening that adapts to the thickness of the tree. Say the designers, it's

A new approach of burning wood, you can feed this stove a complete tree trunk. The opening is a diaphragm and encloses seamless around the tree.

During the firing you need to gently push the trunk inwards into the stove until the last part disappears. The fire is in directly connected to the length of the tree log. The longer it is, the more you can enjoy the comfortable heat of the stove.



© Michiel Martens and Roel de Boer

Though the design certainly looks neat, we wonder about the efficiency and safety of the thing, not to mention how long it would take to properly "season" or dry a whole long tree trunk like this, in order to prepare it for burning.

© Michiel Martens and Roel de Boer

Dry firewood burns easier, cleaner and produces more heat than wood that still retains its water content. Burning unseasoned wood creates more creosote -- a flammable residue that coats chimneys (can you say chimney fire hazard?). Seasoning firewood properly also takes time -- several months at the least -- and requires wood over a certain diameter to be chopped and split in order to expedite the process. Commenters also note that there could be "boiling sap" coming out of the trunk as it burns -- yikes. Looks nice, but let us know below if you think it would work. More over at Dezeen.