Wood stove noobie!

Hello all, I just bought a house this year and it has a built in wood stove with a blower.
I have never run a wood stove before so don't really know anything about it. I got up the nerve today to give it a whirl for the first time. I went out and bought a box of those burning logs for 20 bux at costco and I have a couple of questions.

1.) Is it ok to burn those store bought burn logs?
2.) there are two levers on my stove one right above the other. I know one of them is the flu but what is the other one for? How do i know how to position them? One of them doesn't seem to do anything, but the other one seems to make the fire burn better or worse. I presume the one that controls how hot the fire burns is the flu.
3.) is it safe to put wood in the stove before bed time? If so, what should I do with the two mystery controls before bed.

Sorry for the newbie questions but I want to burn safely and efficiently. The wood stove is a really nice one and I want to take advantage of it and save on electricity for my heat pump.
thanks in advance for the help.


~Pyldrvr

well, its built into a cool rock fireplace and I can't see any brandnames or anything on the stove.

hehe, leave it to the good ol wifey to come through. She found the manual for it. It is a Quadra-Fire 7100 FP. Apparenly one of the levers is called an automatic Combustion Control (ACC). I think it helps get the fire started when it is wide open. The lower lever must be the flu setting.
/continues to read manual

BeGreen said:

The pressed logs from Costco may have a lot more energy then you think. Be very careful starting out. Don't burn more than 3 at one time. What brand is your Costco selling?

We'll need to know a lot more about the stove before we can help out. Can you take a picture of the stove and post it here? That will help us identify it for you.

Click to expand...

The logs I got from costco are Duraflame and are supposed to last up to 3.5 hours. I am only burning one at the moment. Seems to burn well, just wanted to make sure they don't cause more creasote than regular wood. It does claim to burn cleaner than real wood however.
/shrug

BeGreen said:

Nice, big, serious fireplace. I think you will like it a lot. Read up on the wiki postings about compressed logs burning. And let us know what brand logs Costco is selling. What store? (I'm in the NW too.)

Click to expand...

I live in Battleground and the Costco is in Vancouver. I little too far south for you to make the trip I presume Duraflame, 18 bux for 9 logs. Next year I plan on investing in a cord or two of wood but I am just going to tinker around with the fireplace this year since i also have a heat pump. Fun stuff. I think the wife is even getting a little frisky looking at the fire burning through the glass doors

well dang, should I throw away my 20 dollar box of wax wood or is it ok to go ahead and burn it and then buy different next time?
Would be a shame.

BeGreen said:

Get some regular wood and use the duraflame as a starter log. You can break it up into smaller pieces if you want to stretch them out.

Click to expand...

ok thanks. will do.