Resurrected the fire from coals this morning

[LLigetfa]

This is the first Saturday morning this season that it is cold enough (-6°C) to really want a fire. The high today is forecast to be just above freezing. It's still not cold enough to stoke up the stove for overnight. It was 74°F inside last night so I tossed on two splits and went to bed expecting a cold stove in the morning. Having slept in, I certainly didn't expect to find any coals.

Funny how that works out sometimes... try as you may, you stoke the stove as full as you can and if you sleep in, struggle to pull together enough coals in the morning. Other times you don't even try and find a nice surprise.

Happiness is not having to build a fire from a cold start.

 

[North of 60]

Well if thats all you have been looking for , Do I have a stove for you. Cmon take a guess. Never to restart a fire in the AM again. :coolhmm:

 

[BrowningBAR]

This is the first Saturday morning this season that it is cold enough (-6°C) to really want a fire. The high today is forecast to be just above freezing. It's still not cold enough to stoke up the stove for overnight. It was 74°F inside last night so I tossed on two splits and went to bed expecting a cold stove in the morning. Having slept in, I certainly didn't expect to find any coals.

Funny how that works out sometimes... try as you may, you stoke the stove as full as you can and if you sleep in, struggle to pull together enough coals in the morning. Other times you don't even try and find a nice surprise.

Happiness is not having to build a fire from a cold start.

Yeah, I've been testing out the Intrepid to see what it does and how it handles an overnight burn. I went to bed at 2am, woke up at 8:20am, and the stove was sitting at 350-400* with a really big pile of coals/burning chunks. I dropped in a good size split (well, for an Intrepid, at least) and it instantly caught. I probably could have gotten 7.5-8 hours out of it and still be able to restart the stove from the remaining bed of coals.

 

[ROBERT F]

Heck, Even burnin pine I still have plenty o coals in the am to ignite fresh splits! Then again I also have a one year old that takes her first bottle of the day at 4:30 am, so the stove gets loaded every 5 hours overnight.........

 

[LLigetfa]

I didn't mean it to come across that I cannot get good overnight burns. Last Winter I did a lot of 24/7 burning. It's just that if I sleep in, the first thing that comes to mind is "can the fire be resurrected?".

My stove has a thermostatic control so it's the outside and inside temps that decide how much air it gets. That in turn, determines how long the load lasts. With my stove, the air can only be shut down so far and so there is a slight runaway factor... the more the stove is stoked, the hotter and faster it burns. This stove is not well suited to being stoked full in mild weather as it will cook us out of the house.

 

[begreen]

Today was a sleep in day for me also. I went through the same resurrection ritual this morning. We are still in shoulder season weather. I had a nice fire yesterday and into the night. The last logs were put on shortly after 7pm, madrona and cherry. I was ready to go to bed by 11pm and the fire was still doing well, so I just let it idle.

This morning at 8:30 am, I checked the stove (before coffee). Just warm, so I stirred the coals to the middle front. Then I put 2 medium alder splits, N/S on both sides of the glowing coal pile. On top of the coals I put 3 small scraps of cedar shingles, then I put another 2 alder splits E/W across the top of the bottom splits and with a 2" air gap between them. By the time coffee was ready, there was a cheery fire burning. I won't be able to be so laid back when winter arrives, but this sure was a nice, relaxed way to start a morning.

 

[savageactor7]

Huh? ... LLigetfa just surprised to hear you haven't been burning right along I figured it would be colder up there.

Except for a couple a 3 days or so we've been burning about a month now. Kinda in your position though cause we're using a couple sticks at a time of dry punky wood for shoulder season. No coals with that either sometimes during the night we'll catch it and throw on a few sticks of good wood just for the coals.

 

[LLigetfa]

While we are just North of the 49th, there is a bit of a micro-climate here. I've only kept evening fires up until now. It just hasn't been cold enough to warrant overnighters. Last night the house was 75F and normally I would have let the fire go out but they were calling for -7C so I tossed on a couple of splits before going to bed. The -7C low never happened so it got too hot in the house and had to keep a window open all night. Woke up this morning to a warm house, an inch of snow, and lots of coals to resurrect the fire.

 

[savageactor7]

Yeah nothing like hot coals to make a good working fire quickly. As far as having to open the windows it sure it can be a hassle ...but we wood burners should considered that a luxury our oil burning neighbors would never do.

btw lucky you for having a micro climate here we have to depend on 'el nino...and that's every 7 years or so.