What is considered a "long burn"?

I never could figure that one out. I think its a phrase that came from the oil industry where you set the thermostat and it gives you a long burn all night. I used to own a Riteway Model 37. The firebox on that unit held 6 cu feet of wood. Even in a new structure(for 1986) with R-30 in the roof, and the auto thermostat on the stove(it had a bi-metal thermostat which opened the draft and closed it according to the temperature in the crude secondary burn area) set to low for the night, I rarely had more than a few coals by morning and the house was in the low 60's. But that stove was hard to start up.

The new stoves are a dream to start, and I can have a full fire going in 10 minutes. IMO, this "all-night burn" stuff is just hype to sell wood stoves. I've never been able to figure it out.

Oh boy...Here we go.

m1garand said:

Clearly, several splits are not going to have lapping flames and secondaries for a straight eight-12 hours. So, if you load your stove/insert at lets say 10pm, and you will have good size coals at 6am, is that considered a success?

quote]

Click to expand...

Yes, by my definition good sized coals in the morning means success. The term Overnight Burn has not been officially defined. Quick, somebody write a wikipedia entry!

Looks like the specs for your Regency is a 10 hour burn.

You have a 2.9 cu foot firebox. That 10 hour burn rate for your firebox size is most likely pretty accurate. Depending on type of fuel loaded and how you load your fire box.

If you plan your burns so that right before bed time you can just have enough coals as to rake all the coals forward to front of the box so that the front half of your firebox is the only half with coals. Then the back half load a big log on the bottom so its not got any hot coals under it. Then load up the rest of the stove. If you use good high btu fuel that is dry you should get a 10 hour burn. As in the morning you should have a good coal bed left to start another cycle of full load burn.

Take a look at this thread:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/rake-coals-forward-and-stove-start-up-pictures.80659/

m1garand said:

So, as a new burner, what is considered a "long burn?" I see that a lot of people strive to get an overnight burn, what what do they mean exactly?

Clearly, several splits are not going to have lapping flames and secondaries for a straight eight-12 hours. So, if you load your stove/insert at lets say 10pm, and you will have good size coals at 6am, is that considered a success?

Our coldest spell here in the DC burbs was last weekend. It got down to the upper 30s at night and was mid 40s during the way. I had a good fire that night and woke up up at around 6:30am. The blower was in "auto" and was off but there was some good sized coals. Since the house was chilly, I reloaded and got a fire going very quickly. I only loaded 3 medium-small sized splits. The fire burned for maybe four hours before it was nothing but large chunks of burning charcoal. The blower didn't automatically stop until around 4pm. I was quite impressed. I actually kept checking to make it was still in "auto."

Click to expand...

To me a long burn is 12 hours ,temps in low teens house never drops below 72,stovetop after 12 hours is 400,this makes me happy. This is a walk in the park for a Blaze King.This is all I demand but can easily do twice that if need be.

It does depend on how much wood you put into the stove. My experiences with the old Riteway in filling up the stove to the top with wood were not good, and they could be scary with freak-out burns in the middle of the night setting off the fire alarm and bad back puffing, and coming down stairs to find that the stove pipe was red hot. I tend to be not willing to fill the whole stove up with wood. My PE would burn a lot longer I suppose if I was willing to fill the stove up to the SS secondary burn baffle with wood.

Past experience with another stove keeps me from doing that.

ohlongarm said:

To me a long burn is 12 hours ,temps in low teens house never drops below 72,stovetop after 12 hours is 400,this makes me happy. This is a walk in the park for a Blaze King.This is all I demand but can easily do twice that if need be.

Click to expand...

Do you fill the stove completely with wood before you exit for bed, and how insulated(plus how many windows) is your house?

I thought I knew what a long burn was until I burned a Blaze King! Lol sorry couldn't resist.

Long burn for me is I can load up the stove at 9 or 10 PM go to bed, wake up and go downstairs to reload at 8 AM before going to work and the insert is still blowing out hot air and the downstairs in the 70's, also it is a requirement that I have plenty of hot coals for an easy relight.

10+ hrs of useful heat on a full load is a long burn to me.

For me a burn is long enough when I can rake the coals and throw some splits on them to restart in the morning. An OK burn is if I need some kindling to get it restarted. The stove is out if I have to use newspaper for the restart. My insert has a small firebox, about 1.5 cf, and the manual states it can do 10 hour burns. I am happy when, after 8 hours, I can restart with splits.

KaptJaq

A long burn on my stove would be in shoulder season, when its into say the 40s at night and 60s daytime. I can get 24 hours of heat out of my stove. The last 6 hours is not much but keeps up with heat loss i guess.

When its in the 20s and 30s at night and im really needing heat, i have plenty of coals in the mourn 8 hours later and even some unburned wood so im getting 8 hours and really making the heat. Our normal winter temps will allow me to get 8-12 hours per FULL load. I have a 3.5ish cuft firebox.

But burn time depends upon wood quality, quantity and heating demand at that time.

Really does depend on other things besides the stove: insulation in your house, number of windows, square feet to heat, temperature you accept, outside temperature during the heating, air flow in your house, what the end of the burn cycle has to look like, what level you set the draft controls and air intake for.... many more.

None of these are standardized in the burn time put together by manufacturers.

There is "burn time" and "long burn time" - burn time is discussed several times a year and the term has no legal or generally accepted technical definition (as you can tell from above). Marketing departments of course have used this term quite liberally in selling stove - in some cases folks here agree with them and in other cases a lot of us are left scratching our heads wondering just how the claims can be made.

I like the idea of "useful heat" from the stove being one measure and then "time between reloads" as another. However, as you likely have noticed, there are many variables there and the weather is one of the most significant ones right next to the fuel you are using. Sure - a 200* stove is useful heat for me today (didn't even light up actually, high is near 60 and house is warmer anyway), but come January I doubt I'll let the stove get down to 200* very often as the house will be cooling down at that stove temp. Likewise that will affect the burn time - have to consume more fuel to keep up the heat in January so it won't go as long. You can't have the max output of a stove and the maximum burn time simultaneously.

Now - what is a "long burn time" ? I would say any time I get a significantly longer "useful heat" or greater "time between reloads" than I expected then that would be a "long burn time". "Long" is subjective - will change with the seasons...

If you want a long burn time, don't get the lopi freedom. I have to get up in the night and add two logs or it will be out in the morning with the fan off. I get a four hour burntime of decent heat. Quess I haven't figured something out. Do know because of the low secondary tubes you can't get more than two good size splits in at one time.

Someone on this board stated that half your heat of a load of wood is in the coal stage of the burn cycle.

Personally I consider any burn leaving a scar longer than 3" to be a long burn....wait, I may have misinterpreted your question.

To me a long burn is filling the stove before going to bed and when you get up in the morning the house is still warm. Most folks don't need longer burns than that but it is possible to get 12 hour burns of useable heat from several of the newer stoves.

Any burn that allows me to keep my sanity during January/February is a long burn in my book.

With my woodstock, I feel very comfortable knowing it can go 12 hours without any worry of restarting. The issue is how much heat will I have at that time. Not a whole lot! It is fine from 10 pm until I get up at 6:30 am. That is my normal sleeping time so that is long enough burn for me. Most folks are pretty much the same on that.