What to do with a sizzler

[Ashful]

Did you try just poking things around in there? [...]
Also, oddly enough, putting some smaller dry stuff on top of whatever isn't burning right seems to draw the flame upwards to engulf the misbehaving split and get it going better than if you put the dry stuff underneath it, which is intuitively what you'd do.

Yeah, getting in there and moving stuff around does often help. I'm often torn between letting it ride and going back in, as it's often the splits on the bottom of a 3 cu.ft. firebox that need rearranging, and with a deep coal bed my only access (without dumping hot coals out the front of the stove) is thru the top-load door. It's easy enough to move the splits on top, but hell to get at the ones on the bottom of a firebox that big and full.

I've not tried putting dry stuff on top! As you suggest, I figured that if I didn't do the preemptive move of putting them on bottom before loading, it was too late to do much about it. I'll try this next time.

I also do not do a full reload I do it in two stages so the stove is hot and have a good draft before topping it off.

I like this idea, as I almost never have trouble getting light-off with half loads, only when I stuff the stove full. This will mean committing more time up front to my re-load, wait, engage cat, lower throttle cycle, but it may actually save some time in the long run.

 

[gyrfalcon]

I need to poke things around as well. My fire box is 24" W but only a bit over a foot deep so mostly have to load E/W and the air from the dog house doesn't always get to where it needs to go even with an ash channel. I do a lot of arranging splits to try to promote air flow but still needs a poke sometimes.

When I have shorter splits and can load even part of the load N/S it helps a lot. Been thinking to cut some splits down and do a full load E/W and see what happens, exciting stuff right?

You'n'me both. EW definitely creates this problem more than N/S, especially since you can sometimes even accidentally partially obstruct both the primary and secondary air inlets. I have to get my wood c/s/d, and haven't quite had the nerve to ask my supplier to cut 4 cords to 12 inches or less for me instead of 16, and not to mention the difficulty of making stable stacks of wood that short. I have a small supply of 12-inch or smaller ends, which I save to stuff in one end of the box on really cold nights, but with the early stretch of single-digit to below-zero weather we've been having (-12 last night when I went to bed, -6 when I got up), it sure would be nice to be able to do full loads N/S.

 

[ddahlgren]

If wood is not known to be perfect why pack it tight. This is my second year burning marginal and too close together is a no no.. Always put the 'good stuff' on the bottom is something I learned early on and pack loose so enough heat gets to the marginal wood and dry it out.

 

[jharkin]

I like this idea, as I almost never have trouble getting light-off with half loads, only when I stuff the stove full. This will mean committing more time up front to my re-load, wait, engage cat, lower throttle cycle, but it may actually save some time in the long run.

You know last week I was firing a big load off and it took a while to heat up - not the times you are seeing but a good 30-40 min. When it got to light off temp I opened the griddle to peek and the load had shrunk enough I managed to stick one more split on top and then just shut the bypass...

Which got me to thinking, I wonder what would happen if you did your idea with a tiwst: fill a half load, fire to lightoff temp, then fill the rest of the way and immediately close?

I wonder if it would slowly cook the fresh load till it took off halfway through the cycle promoting a real long slow burn... or would it just start to steam and smother the cat....

 

[Ashful]

You know last week I was firing a big load off and it took a while to heat up - not the times you are seeing but a good 30-40 min.

I wonder if it would slowly cook the fresh load till it took off halfway through the cycle promoting a real long slow burn... or would it just start to steam and smother the cat....

I suspect the latter, but it may be fun to experiment.

My loads do normally take off much quicker... this was a very rare exception. Usually, I have the cat engaged in 10 - 15 minutes on smaller loads, and 20 - 30 minutes on full loads.