First Post, 13-NC, wet wood

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Gunfixr

New Member
Jan 14, 2019
89
Va, USA
So, my first post here. I found this place as it came up multiple times during searches to various questions I had regarding wood stoves. So, I made my choice, purchased and installed the stove early last year, during a renovation. We've since moved in, last July.
This is my first stove, never had a fireplace, so i'm figuring it out. The stove is an Englander nc13. The building is a doublewide. So, I did hook up the intake to outside. Flue pipe inside is single wall, which I chose for the extra heat. The primary purpose of the stove is backup heat, since the furnace is a heat pump. I don't want the auxiliary heat running, and it will give heat when there's no power, as we're rural. If it ends up being more of the primary heat, i'm not against that. We are in se va.
So, this being the first winter, with a brand new stove, we had no wood put away. A friend gave me some, about a face cord, as his dad went to propane a few yrs ago. I did a pretty hot burn a couple months back, on a cold day, to burn off the preservative oil, while the wife was at work, since it was gonna smoke up the house. The wood I got from my friend is apparently quite dry, it lights right up, and burns fast. Friends dad was older, and had it split small.
Some more cold weather a few weeks ago, I don't have enough wood. Got some delivered, but it's not seasoned. And, so begins my troubles. With the older wood, lights right up, I been starting with 1 or 2 pieces, let it get going with the door cracked and air wide open, add a couple more, let that get going. When the flue is so hot I can only bounce my hand lightly off it, and none or only barely any smoke, I close the door. I can start backing down the air not long after, but this small split, real dry wood goes away in just over an hour. So, I got this other, greener wood. I start with the older stuff, just as before. I can put 1 or 2 pieces of the newer stuff in on top of at least 1" of red coals, open the air back up, even open the door, fire dies. I have to put it in while the old stuff is still actively burning, and it can still be a challenge to get the new stuff going. Later, adding more new stuff, is even more challenging, mostly doesn't happen, unless I add more old stuff first.
More searching found something about bringing wood inside, so i've brought some in, it's been about a week. I did get a couple nights of burn with it on either side of the stove, just outside the hearth area, it only got warm. I did set a couple pieces on top, while burning the old stuff, they lit right up, but I had keep a real close watch on them. I don't really like doing that, after doing it once or twice. Was a bit scary.
I think i've listed pretty much everything, hoping someone can maybe point out something I could improve. I'll be getting more wood in the spring, so it can season, but right now, this is what i'm stuck with. With the move, and trying to get the old place to market, finances are tight.
Yes, I am reading posts aimed at new stove users.
 
One possibility is compressed sawdust bricks, called different names, like eco brick and bio brick.

They cost roughly the same as wood, and you can mix them in to lower the average moisture in the load

But.. I would use them alone if all I had was green wood
 
Welcome to Hearth! You can learn a lot here as I have through the years. I too found this place through a search. I wanted to find out what to use to clean my stove glass and I’ve been here since! And I’ve kept a spray bottle of ammonia under the sink since then too.:)

I like double wall black stove pipe. My thinking was that my heat will come from the stove. After that I want the exhaust to be hot yet and go up the pipe and chimney fast and clean with no creosote. That’s also why you don’t want to use one of those stove pie heat exchangers. They cool the flue too much and you can get creosote in the pipe and chimney. As far as the wood situation. If you can’t find dry wood then you might be heating your place with your other heater, be it a furnace or what have you. Next winter you’ll be in better shape with dry wood hopefully. Don’t go for high density wood for next winter but for a few winters out that’d be ok. I mean wood like oak or hard maple. Maybe others but that’s the dense stuff that we have up here that take a few years to dry. Poplar burns a bit fast but it dries fast. I heated my large house entirely with poplar the first winter with my new stove. Find a way to stack your split wood and cover it. If you can keep it on the south where it get more sun all the better. If you don’t have a splitter yet- of any kind do a search about the Fiskars X27 and see what you think. I started out with one and I still use it at times but I’ve moved up to a powerful hydraulic splitter since then. Some swear by hand splitting but I split too much elm for that and me.

Edit- I needed to have double wall stove pipe anyways since my pipe is 11" from the back wall.
 
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Free pallets got me through my first year of burning. The wood is thin and has lots of air movement through them. They are usually very dry.
 
Free pallets got me through my first year of burning. The wood is thin and has lots of air movement through them. They are usually very dry.
That’s an idea but he will need to watch out so he doesn’t overfire his stove on thin dry wood like that if he does burn pallet wood. Be ready to cut back on the air when the wood gets going. And don’t put too much of it in the stove all loosely filled.
 
I would definitely suggest getting a few pallets of Bio bricks or similar. If you can't get any seasoned wood, the bio bricks are equivalent. One pallet is equivalent to a cord of black spruce.
 
Cash flow is too tight to buy the bio bricks, guess I should've done that instead of the wood. I have a couple packs I had picked up to try, but hadn't yet.
I can look for pallets. I have a small pile of lumber scrap from projects (I know not to burn treated, or things like plywood, with lots of glue), my wife works retail in a good sized shopping center, I can start there.
I have it stacked, covered from the weather, but I had to improvise until I can build something proper. The greener stuff is inside a semi-open shack, so not a lot of wind or sun exposure. I could tear out a wall, on the side that gets the most wind. I'm tearing it down at some point anyway.

I hadn't heard of "overfire" until last night, here. Seems you tell it by temp, with a thermometer?
This should be high on my "to get" list?
Been keeping a small pan of water on stove top, since it's a dry heat. Goes away pretty quick, can do a couple pans an evening. It's about a 1, 1 1/2qt pan.

I normally don't run a fire to capacity (manual says not above top of fire brick), just gets too hot in the house. I can look into a double wall flue, not sure how quick it will happen.

Since I realize I know little to nothing about this, I research just about everything, but, everything has almost equal amounts of love and hate. Makes a choice difficult at times.
I appreciate the help here already.
 
Cash flow is too tight to buy the bio bricks, guess I should've done that instead of the wood. I have a couple packs I had picked up to try, but hadn't yet.
I can look for pallets. I have a small pile of lumber scrap from projects (I know not to burn treated, or things like plywood, with lots of glue), my wife works retail in a good sized shopping center, I can start there.
I have it stacked, covered from the weather, but I had to improvise until I can build something proper. The greener stuff is inside a semi-open shack, so not a lot of wind or sun exposure. I could tear out a wall, on the side that gets the most wind. I'm tearing it down at some point anyway.

I hadn't heard of "overfire" until last night, here. Seems you tell it by temp, with a thermometer?
This should be high on my "to get" list?
Been keeping a small pan of water on stove top, since it's a dry heat. Goes away pretty quick, can do a couple pans an evening. It's about a 1, 1 1/2qt pan.

I normally don't run a fire to capacity (manual says not above top of fire brick), just gets too hot in the house. I can look into a double wall flue, not sure how quick it will happen.

Since I realize I know little to nothing about this, I research just about everything, but, everything has almost equal amounts of love and hate. Makes a choice difficult at times.
I appreciate the help here already.
Things will get better with time. There’s a lot to learn in the first year and some the second year too. You can get a stove pipe thermometer. I had one the first 5 years of burning and it help me learn what to shoot for. It’ll tell you when your in the sweet spot for getting your tubes to kick in to burn the smoke and that’s the right temperature to burn at for a cleaner chimney too. And if you overfire the stove you can damage it by possibly warping it and /or having a chimney fire if there something to burn in it. I don’t want to scare you from using your stove but I’m just saying it’s important not to do it.... but I did once, I didn’t get my ash plug put back in tight and I had loosely filled dry wood like pallet wood and whoa— The next thing I knew my place was filled with smoke and I saw smoke coming from the stove pipe and all the alarms in the house were going off. Damn! Lol... The stove seemed ok after that incident but I leaned much from it. After I moved and put in a new stove I didn’t get a thermostat again, I can pretty much just eyeball it now. As far as where your wood or stacked now it’s not as important in the winter as it is in the summer. The sun isn’t real strong now but it’s good to take advantage of it in the summer months.
 
You never stop learning. Experience doesn't stop exciting things from happening, it just teaches you how to turn it into a non event that you don't remember. This morning I forgot to turn my stove down after loading. The excitement lasted from when I smelled hot metal until I could get to the stove, figure out what was going on, and fix the issue.

You're going to burn the wood you have. You need to stay warm. Gather pallets and compressed sawdust bricks when you can. Check and clean your chimney often to keep fire risk to a minimum.

You'll make out fine and be ready for next year.
 
Bring as much wood as you safely can inside your house. Your humidity level will increase and your wood will dry super fast. Obviously this is a fire hazard and proceed at your own risk. I am doing this as all of the seasoned firewood I can get was in a field without any kind of top cover. It is all frozen solid so I've brought in probably four times what I normally would so I can dry it fast.

This is our first winter with wood as primary heat and we have learned tons. My family had a stove for a few years when I was a kid, but we didn't live in that house long and it was just a supplement to our electric heat. Our wood situation is a lot like yours, but I was able to cut a cord and a half of standing dead wood. It still isn't very good and takes a lot of work to keep the stove hot with it.
 
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Welcome to the forums !! I too, was searching 10 years ago, and this site kept popping up. Finally started reading here, and been here ever since :)

The 13 is a stove that runs better on seasoned firewood. Game, set, match. You'll drive your self nuts with wet wood in that stove, and, unfortunatley, thats what you have.

Been there, done that ;)

Bio bricks, pallets, scrap untreated lumber will help get you through. Grab some pine if you can, it seasons quickly.

Get ahead, it's the only way to avoid the issues you are having.
 
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Ran the stove night before last, yesterday all day, last night.
The wood I brought in a week ago definitely burns better than it did when I first brought it in. I'll keep doing that.
I can't seem to get an all night burn, I think I read somewhere this stove just doesn't have a big enough firebox (1.8 cu ft, iirc). Night before last, woke up in the middle of the night for the call, down to a really good coal bed. So, stayed up about an hour to build it back up. Got up next am with less coals than before, but enough to quickly restart it. Last night, woke up only an hour after going to bed, too soon. I did throw a piece in, but that was all I could do. Woke up to it barely warm, auxiliary heat running. Power people had a party today, on my dime(s).
I cannot seem to get a big piece to burn. A big piece, like difficult to get through the opening (not length but width). No matter how hot, it just fizzles out. Doesn't matter if it's a 2" or more deep red coal bed, or some thin pieces fully blazing on a coal bed. Guess i'll have to split one more time the really big pieces, there aren't too many.
Picked up a flue thermometer today, at one of the box stores. It was the last one, as in opened, and put back, minus the instructions.
 
The big splits take longer to dry and longer for the heat to get into the piece to get it up to burning temperatures. That’s my theory anyways. It’s good that you can do some burning now. My LP furnace takes over for a few hours every night. I used to keep the fire going all night but propane is cheap here. I’ll burn about 325 gallons of LP this year for heat, range and HW @ $1.10/G
 
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I can't seem to get an all night burn, I think I read somewhere this stove just doesn't have a big enough firebox (1.8 cu ft, iirc)

This is true.

But, if you get up at night, you can throw a couple of splits in it, and get an "over night".

Worked for me for 4 years, when I heated with wood, only ;)
 
This is true.

But, if you get up at night, you can throw a couple of splits in it, and get an "over night".

Worked for me for 4 years, when I heated with wood, only ;)
Yeah, worked great the night before last, when I awoke at about 0330.
Last night, at 0100, not so much.
A lot of times, it's around 0500, which would be too late.
I'd hate to be setting an alarm. I may have a choice, alarm, or give money to the power company.
Last winter, still working on the house, not living here, and the heat set at least 15 degrees cooler, 2 months bill paid for the wood.
Wood is cheaper, as a whole.
 
Going in 5 weeks with my new stove and can commiserate that wet wood sucks. I over paid for a whole cord of it. I have found reloading sooner and not cleaning out the ash have helped get things burning hotter and quicker and a blower up the back of the stove at night on its lowest setting keeps the back corner cooler and thus burning slower resulting is more coals in the morning. That said more coals in the morning mean less heat at night but an easier and faster relight. I have been re-splitting big pieces and store stacking near a dehumidifier in the garage. Seams to be helping. I resorted to scrounging dead wood yesterday. I’ll burn anything bigger than 1” just to get fast heat to get the wetter stuff burning. My when I reload now I put a big handful of dry kindle on the bottom and then a few more pieces on top. It gets the secondaries going faster. I can get sopping wet poplar dried out in about two weeks for kindling if I split it really small nothing bigger than 1”. I keep telling my wife that burning wood usually isn’t this difficult and time consuming.

Hope that
 
So, I picked up the thermometer. It's an imperial, goes from 100-850 degrees, says it's a "burn indicator". It was the last one in the store, had been opened, no instructions. Going online, all I can find is an answered question on amazon about where to put it. One says 14" up, several say 16"-18", or 18".
Can anyone confirm this?
 
Confirm with the stove manual. If it doesn't say anything, I think 12" is fine. My stove manual specifies 8" above the stove top.
 
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It's an imperial, goes from 100-850 degrees,
Is this a magnetic, or probe type? If magnetic, put it anywhere...you can move it as needed.
If probe type, it says at least 18"

"Installation: Punch or drill a 1/4 inch (6mm) hole in the flue pipe at least 18 inches (46cm) above the top of the stove. Position the hole where the thermometer will be easy to read. Slide the eyelet and magnet onto the stem of the thermometer, then insert it into the hole. Before you clean your flue pipe, remember to remove the thermometer. When used on horizontal pipe, add 6% to the readings due to lower heat transfer."

https://www.fastreplacementglass.com/imperial-stove-pipe-thermometer.html
 
I like double wall black stove pipe. My thinking was that my heat will come from the stove. After that I want the exhaust to be hot yet and go up the pipe and chimney fast and clean with no creosote.

+1
 
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It's magnetic. Currently 17" up from the top of the stove.

I can change to double wall pipe, but it's not happening this winter. I'd need to replace the pipe, and the adapter at the ceiling box. I just got too many other things going on right now.
 
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It's magnetic. Currently 17" up from the top of the stove.

I can change to double wall pipe, but it's not happening this winter. I'd need to replace the pipe, and the adapter at the ceiling box. I just got too many other things going on right now.

"too many other things going on right now" is the story of my life.