sappy
Member
I've found the drier the better, as Dennis always states. As long as the wood has substance to it, not too punky.
Learn this Rake Your Coals Forward Technique that alot of people use.
The reason to rake the coals forward is to have more room in the back of the stove to load a bigger log on the bottom of the stove and not load it on hot coals. This gets you a longer burn time. It also gets you more head room to load more wood in the back of the stove were there are no coals to load on. Then the stove kinda burns in a front to back fashion and not all wood burning at once. The small stuff in the front takes off rapidly on the front hot coals up by the air inlet and gets your temps up quickly in the stove so as once the temps are up in the stove up can get the air shut back down and get the stove set for a long nights burn mode. With not so good wood sometimes it takes a while to get temps up before you can get the stove shut down for the night and by then you have just burnt up a bunch of your wood trying to get that temps up but you need all the un burnt wood you cant get so as to get a long over night burn.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/rake-coals-forward-and-stove-start-up-pictures.80659/
And....it wasn't a fluke. That same load from 6:30 this morning burned until almost 1pm! To think of all of the wood I've wasted over the last year, oh the humanity! I loaded it up again when my flue thermometer hit about 350 and BAM shot right back up again, I love this method! It's been about 2 hours now and it's still coasting around 700. This has changed my life, really. I even called my husband at work to tell him of my new method and it's results and while he was no too enthused, when he gets hime and it's warm in here, he will be impressed I'm sure View attachment 86638 View attachment 86639
No, Granted I've only done this twice now but the wood in the back eventually turns to coals too. This is the status now from the 1pm load, ghost logs and coals in the front but back is still going, flue temp at 500 still, totally dampered down for almost 3 hours now. I left a nice layer of ash on the brick too, figured it would insulate the logs, not sure it that made the difference. My stove small and is non cat too but doesn't burn smoky until it gets below 200, then I open to reload and get a face full of smoke. My glass is pretty clear and the bricks are always white so I have to think it's burning efficiently since I don't get sooty build ups and my chimney sweep was impressed for a new burner, just fluff in the pipes, no creosote build ups. I also make sure I put "the good wood" back there to get a longer steady burn time. Try it again, I swear, I can't believe these results!Mistress, when your load burns down and the only thing that remains in the stove are the two back logs you placed on the brick, do you get a smokey burn? Please let me know. I quit doing this because I found the late stages of the burn where dirty and had blueish smoke coming from the chimney top. Mines a non-cat so it wont eat up the smoke when the temps drop Thanks.
No, Granted I've only done this twice now but the wood in the back eventually turns to coals too. This is the status now from the 1pm load, ghost logs and coals in the front but back is still going, flue temp at 500 still, totally dampered down for almost 3 hours now. I left a nice layer of ash on the brick too, figured it would insulate the logs, not sure it that made the difference. My stove small and is non cat too but doesn't burn smoky until it gets below 200, then I open to reload and get a face full of smoke. My glass is pretty clear and the bricks are always white so I have to think it's burning efficiently since I don't get sooty build ups and my chimney sweep was impressed for a new burner, just fluff in the pipes, no creosote build ups. I also make sure I put "the good wood" back there to get a longer steady burn time. Try it again, I swear, I can't believe these results!View attachment 86645
There have been times when I would check the stove after doing this and the bricks where clean and then there where times the back bricks where black. My wood is around 17-22% moisture. My splits have also been reduced to coals when I would get up at 4am. I will try this again with some black locust tonight stuffed in the back and see what happens. I will also try this again tomorrow to monitor the end of the burn during the day. Thank You
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