Loading for the overnight burn

24/7 with full loads is the only way, once you let up, temp will drop if your not burning oil or gas.....

Which PE insert do you have?

Watch out adding a few splits to a hot stove. It can get real hot real fast that way. Burning a small load down to coals so th can load it up before bed is a better way to go.

Full loads all the time until the weather warms up outside. No need to have partial loads during the day. Once you get it going, it should be very easy to regulate.

The problem I have found loading a few more splits on right before bed, is the amount of coals it adds before the next reload. This will throw my loading schedule off waiting for the added coals to burn down. If I have to go on the road the next morning, then I just load it up with what I can fit, and let it go. When I get home, I pull the coals forward and let them burn down, sometimes adding a few splits of soft wood on to get it to the night time reload.
I load 12AM / 12PM.
If It looks like for some reason I won't have enough coals for reload(rare), or I need a little boost of heat between the loads, I add a few splits of soft wood, which adds fast heat, but leaves less coals at time for reload, than say oak or some other hard woods.
It is a matter of how much temp swing you're willing to accept. ON the single digit nights, teens days, I may see an 8 degree temp swing between loads.

drewmo said:

With some great advice here, we're doing much better at getting longer burn times between reloads as well as managing the coal bed. I usually like to get the overnight load in sometime around 10 to give it time to catch while I fiddle with the air. Problem is our weekday schedules sometimes get in the way and it's hard to babysit the stove like we can on the weekend. On some weekdays, I need to do partial loads to keep the house temps up while still being ready for the overnight load around 10-ish. I've also done the overnight load earlier, then added a few splits right before bed. Is there a better way to do this?

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I only fully load my stoves on overnight burns or if we're going to be gone for awhile. During the day it's always 4 splits, back off the air at 600 degrees,fully open the air back up at 400 then load 4 more pieces when stove gets down to about 250.

drewmo said:

We have the Super. Very, very happy with it.

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Love my Pacific. If I had a wish, the fire box wood be a tad larger.

I don't baby sit my stove. Any more

For over night burns in the Pacific, I start with a sufficient coal bed to ignite the nights load (enough to light it off, but not a coal bed filling more than 1/4 of the box). Normally cold nights 15F - 30F, I load N/S, with a 2 -3" round in the bottom middle of the bed, and load regular splits around it to the top of the fire brick. Wait for fan to kick in and keep running, a good char going, and kick the back 1/2 way. wait for secondaries to be constant, and temp to at least 500F, then slowly cut the air back to maintain secondaries.

Once it's almost cut fully back, the temps will get up to 700F or so (thermo over the top right of the door mounted to stove front), maintain for an hour or so, then slowly drop down over the course of 5- 7 hours.

On really colder night I load E/W with 2 rounds at the bottom of the back & splits to fill the void, again to the top of the fire brick.

The worst I've come home to was 10 hours later, outside temps at - 10F with the windchill, and a house at 60F. Takes about an hour or two to bring house up to 70F ish or so.

Lather, rinse, repeat