Anyone Hot Reloading Cat Stove

[Bret Chase]

Have never burned oak, and only burn hickory from time to time (I find it burns hot but fast), but I can vouch that sugar maple, although ti has beautiful green flames, cannot put out the heat that Ironwood does. It is still a good heating wood though. Keeping my home nice and warm.

Oak < Hickory as far as heat goes.... but I like a shagbark's shade so I seldom cut them down... well that and there's probably 10 oaks to 1 hickory in my area...

 

[Cross Cut Saw]

I was going to ask why you were burning so hot, with the temps up, CrossCut, but I see you cut back. I seldom burn with a high burn.

I knew the upper 2 feet of my stove room were MUCH warmer than the rest, but when I put that box fan on low and started stirring up that air it really distributed nicely throughout the house.

I was needing to burn that hot to get so much heat just to leave the room. All of a sudden we're burning 100lower and the house is warmer and it's colder out!

Can't wait to see what this does when it's in the 30's out, we're going to go through a LOT less wood here on out...

Which is good, I'm running a little low

 

[Bret Chase]

it's currently 12 out... and my uninsulated 150 year old kitchen is 70 degrees.. with a stack temp of 400... I shan't complain :D

 

[Flatbedford]

I reload the Fireview hot often. Especially in this super cold (day time 20s, night teens and singles) weather. I open the bypass and the air and rake as much of the burning coals to front of the stove as possible. Then stuff as much wood as will fit in the fire box. I give the new wood a few minutes to become fully engulfed in flame and then close the bypass and adjust the air to "1" or so. This keeps the temps up, but can cause some coal buildup if I do it too often. I try to balance hot loading with allowing a complete burn cycle with up to an hour of wide open burning at the end to burn down the accumulated coals. In extreme cold I have been known to shovel ash and some coals out of the stove to make room for a reload. Ash and coals are always dumped in a covered steel container outside, or dumped into the snow bank at the end of my street when there is one.