And folks think I'm nuts

No common sense at all.These are people that just need to slide the thermostat up or down.

Q: Is it "safe" to do things that are potentially dangerous, and thus inherently unsafe?
A: It is "safe" as long as your luck holds out and you escape the law of averages.

Q: If my luck doesn't hold out, are laws, lawyers, and government going to save me from myself?
A: No comment. See Ashcan.

Aside from the smoke, smell, risk of flashover, danger of storing diesel soaked corncobs in my home, or chimney fires, is there any other reason that I shouldn't be able to use tractor diesel to start a fire in my woodstove?

Aside from the smoke, smell, risk of flashover, danger of storing diesel soaked corncobs in my home, or chimney fires, is there any other reason that I shouldn't be able to use tractor diesel to start a fire in my woodstove?

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Just make sure to put in about 5-10 gallons. Start by pouring it down the chimney from the roof. You want to make sure to get as much as possible in the chimney so when you light it you get a lot of heat up the chimney creating a good draft! After you establish a good draft you want to get about 10 gallons in the stove! This will insure the logs you just cut down will catch fire! Make sure you use the pine needles as tender, they really help the fire to get hot. Once you have a large fire going you will want to throw in about a gallon of diesel every 20-30 min for the first hours to get a really hot stove going for that over night burn. Once you get that done put in 4-5 freshly cut down logs (Unsplit works best) and turn the damper down all the way to get that long overnight burn.

At this point in the burning process you should have no worries about diesel harming your stove.

Butcher said:

And folks think I'm nuts.

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There's no doubt that you are, but he is way nutser than you.

What happens if the fireplace gels up because it's too cold? Would it be safe to heat it up with a heat gun?

Glad this isn't my neighbor!

Just another reason I am extremely grateful I found this site before I got my stove. Kindling dipped in Diesel is how I learned and how I thought till I came here. Fortunately ever since I started burning here I found Super Cedars which are much better and safer the Diesel.

I'd like to bust on them, but before I "seen the light" on here, I would have done the same, sadly.

Education is King!

trust me , in my line of work every time you think you have heard the craziest thing ever, the phone rings again

had a guy several years ago who called in at our request as he had tried to order a gas orifice and listed a woodstove as his model (we vet these things and contact when something doesn't jive to ensure the customer is ordering the proper part for their model.

I took the call and pulled the order and questioned him as to what part he needed, he said an LP orifice part number yadda yadda anyway, I said , ok, but the model you listed is a woodstove not a gas stove which is why it got flagged, "do you have a gas stove as well?" thinking maybe he just plugged in the wrong model number. he said no, but he used to have a gas log set in his ZC fireplace , didn't get enough heat so he pulled it out. im like "ok" so are you looking for a cap for the gas line? , he says "no, I bought this woodstove and I couldn't get it to start up , fire kept dying, so I drilled a hole in the back of the woodstove and piped my LP into it but the gas comes too quick out of the pipe so I need an orifice to slow it down so I can light it better.

guy had a 24-icd catalytic woodstove sitting in front of his ZC wood fireplace that he took the log set out of, he piped it out the back of the stove and up into the bottom of his chimney (not sealed just dumped up n there) so when he tried to light the woodstove obviously with no draft at all it wouldn't light, so, he pipes in his gas with a ballcock valve right behind the stove thinking if he lights some paper and then turns on the gas it would burn the wood enough with the gas to get it started. didn't work he couldn't get it to light that way (which is why he was alive to talk to me) I dunno why it wouldn't light maybe the paper went out before he got around to the back to cut the gas on.

I didnt sell him the orifice , I did tell him he was lucky to be alive and still have a home and that he needed to weld the hull shut where he drilled it out and to have a sweep come out and look at what he needed to do to have a proper flue system installed so the stove would burn. dunno if he heeded my advice or not though I never heard of anyone in his neck of the woods having a woodstove come crashing through their roof so maybe he either fixed his issue or gave up.

true story folks

People doing dumb things keep me and my wife (nurse) in business.

Common sense ain't so common