Vanessa is full of poo!

[Adam_MA]

Thank you for the link!

 

[Adam_MA]

I like the site too, but it is a real pleasure if you call and talk to them. An actual person answers the phone, and they are super nice and go out of their way to answer your questions.

 

[fbelec]

i use the top down also. if your burning a stove that has the baffle to redirect the smoke to the bottom of the stove you might not notice any difference to a stove starting from the bottom up having the chimney draw from the top of the firebox. the top down method works great if you have a pre epa stove. starting a fire from the top you build your fire, but before lighting it off you stick 1 or 2 crumbled up into a ball pieces of news paper on top of everything light that and close the door almost completely. that get the chimney draft going. then it lights the rest off from there. no smoke into the house. the trick is this method can fool you if you work your stove via the thermostat on top of the stove. when i get mine going that way after about 1/2 hour 45 mins. the cook plat on my defiant says anywhere from 600 to 800 depends on how much kindling i put in. yet the bottom of the stove not underneath. the bottom of a door is cool enough to put your hand on. this method just makes for a light it and not have to play with the fire to get it to burn right. on my stove i have a spring on the primary so i don't have to touch the stove until it's ready for a load wood. when it get the stove hot the primary spring starts shutting down. the advantage to the top down method for people running a pre epa stove is that while the chimney and stove come up to temp anywood that starts burning sends the smoke it makes thru the fire above it and it gets cleaned up a little. if you do a top down start go outside and gauge how much smoke is coming out of your chimney then the next day do a bottom up and gauge the smoke coming out of the chimney and you will notice a difference. the smoke is cut down to a quarter of what it would be if starting cold using the bottom up way. i've had the plat on top of the stove in 1 half a hour running at 800 degrees the stove bottom just warm and i go outside and notice no smoke just heat waves.

to each his own, but this works for my non epa stove to make it burn a little cleaner and keeps the chimney reasonable.