Overnight burning

[Turfguy]

Hey guys, any tips or trick for a solid overnight burn. Typically this is the time of night when I just let what I have burn out. But after reading a lot of post's many of you say that you burn overnight. What can I do to make this last till say AM?

 

[BrotherBart]

Put a few more splits in. And then practice the long burn on a weekend when you are home all day.

 

[soupy1957]

yea, and when you can stay up all night!! (lol) I've had a few of those nights!! I used to wonder why a buddy of mine sleeps on his Lazy Boy during the winter. Came to realize that it's easier to wake up, add a log, and go back to sleep, that way!! (lol)

-Soupy1957

 

[corey21]

For me wake up every 4 to 5 hours stoke the fire back to bed.

 

[Dune]

During the evening, seperate out your best wood. Rounds burn longer than splits. Use some splits too though. Since you have a top-loader, stuff the thing. Fill the gaps with small pieces. Set the air inlet as low as possible after estabishing good flame.

 

[Todd]

Try and time your reload schedule about an hour or two before bed, fill it full and gradually bring the air down to your lowest setting or sweet spot for a long burn.

 

[Turfguy]

During the evening, seperate out your best wood. Rounds burn longer than splits. Use some splits too though. Since you have a top-loader, stuff the thing. Fill the gaps with small pieces. Set the air inlet as low as possible after estabishing good flame.

Thanks for the advice. I think thats my biggest problem for night/long burning. I can't seem to get my wood stuffed in the stove well enough. I alqways seem to have some awkward peaces that screw things up.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Turfguy, eveyone has those awkward pieces. Most folks burn those during the daylight hours. We have a pretty solid rule here (my wife brings night wood in) in that we want as many square or rectangle shaped pieces as possible. For sure the bottom rear piece is the biggest piece so either good sized square or a round works great there. Then just fill from that point.

The point is, if there are knots you just can't put as much wood in that space so burn those during the day. Also be sure to save your best hardwood for night burning.

 

[Fsappo]

On my stove (Has a 3.4 foot firebox which helps) I just load front to back (n/s) and arrange the splits so every inch of firebox is full, and shut down the air all the way. Woke up to a warm house and a bed of coals after about 8 hours.

 

[soupy1957]

I LIKE the "awkward" pieces.............they have such CHARACTER!! I'm always interested in how they're going to burn!! They give such personality to the fire!

-Soupy1957

 

[lillyrat]

I am going through the same process of working up to a good overnight burn. I started slow and last night was my biggest overnight attempt as of yet. Started 5 good sized splits of Oak at 1930 last night on a good coal bed. Fire was very hot and rapid for the first hour and a half , I never let the flue get over 475. Finally settled in about 2100 hrs with the air shut all the way down and secondaries going, flue temp down to 300 and stovetop cruisin at 550 with the blower on medium. Woke up at 0345 with stovetop at 320 and nice coals in the back, raked em, added 3 good sized splits and watched em take off. This was the first time that I was able to throw splits on a coal bed in the morning and have them ignite. House was at 67 degrees and outside was 3 degrees, first time this winter the heat stayed off all night. It felt like an accompishment.
I think the easiest way to learn this is to start you overnight burns early in the evening so you can monitor them and trust the stove and then as you start trusting it, you can move your start times back to later in the evening. The start of the overnighter is definitely the most tense since you have all that fuel in the box. I have found that the coal bed has to be just right for the moisture content of your wood. To big a coal bed and to dry wood and too much air makes for a really rapid and sometimes scary start. Not enough coals and to much moisture makes for a slow start and you just have to wait and wait for it to get going and sometimes may never get a good burn out of it. My advice is that if you have good wood, don't get the coal bed too large, others may say you want a really large coal bed, but for my setup, too many coals make for a hairy start.

 

[Mecheng]

I put in an osage orange log that is about 8 to 10" in diameter before going to bed. 8 hours later the coals are still hot enough to start a new fire.

 

[Turfguy]

Well the last two nights I've tried the overnight burns and burning during the day while at work. What I am find is that by getting the stove filled(10pm)the best i can and shutting the air down I seem to have decent coals in the AM round 5am. but the house must cools off so much that the furnace usuall kicks on round 5am cuase the house temp dips down to 63, usually in the mid 70's when I go to bed. So i reload it around 5am and shut the air down again and by the time I get home from work around 2:30 or 3 still enough coals to get it going again but house has cooled off to low sixties again which causes the furnace to go off untill I get the stove going. Not sure if thius is supposed to be how it works or not?

 

[trailrated]

Well the last two nights I've tried the overnight burns and burning during the day while at work. What I am find is that by getting the stove filled(10pm)the best i can and shutting the air down I seem to have decent coals in the AM round 5am. but the house must cools off so much that the furnace usuall kicks on round 5am cuase the house temp dips down to 63, usually in the mid 70's when I go to bed. So i reload it around 5am and shut the air down again and by the time I get home from work around 2:30 or 3 still enough coals to get it going again but house has cooled off to low sixties again which causes the furnace to go off untill I get the stove going. Not sure if thius is supposed to be how it works or not?

A lot of factors play a role in this. How well your house is insulated to hold the heat, good hard well seasoned wood, etc. When you shut the stove down (damper closed) your fire won't burn as hot but it burns slower. It doesn't put out as much heat. I think of it like setting the furnace down low at night. At night we don't need it 70 degrees in the house while we sleep. The goal is to have enough hot coals for a easy restart in the morning.

 

[CountryBoy19]

I don't have much of a problem with overnight burns. I only sleep 5-6 hours a night anyways so I normally have a good, hot bed of coals at a minimum in the morning. I normally put my overnight load in around 10-11 and get up a little before 5. I get up and first thing I do is load the fireplace up. Then I go get ready for work, check the fire, get my lunch ready, close the air control (if it's going good enough), then leave for work. The house is normally warm when my wife gets up an hour after I leave and nobody complains to me.

 

[krex1010]

One of the tricks I learned real fast when trying to
get long burn times is to always have a couple inches of ash in the stove. My stove really is notthat big (2cu ft firebox) and if I have a few inches of ash in there I will have coals for a long time. For instance on Monday I packed the stove full at 10pm and didn't add any wood until I got home from work the next day at 4pm, I raked around the ash and there was plenty of coals buried in the ash , which is 18 hrs. I do not have a cat stove either. Now I am not saying I had good heat he whole time ( house was 61 when I got home). But anyways, leave some ash in there, pack that stove as full as you can get it, let the fire establish itself'and let the wood get nice and charred, then start backing down the air, and close it all the way before you go to bed.