How To Burn A Non-Cat - With Thanks To Member Wildrose

Great video! My firebox has to load E-W due to size and it's small. I'm going to try the top-down!

That is a great video!

Craig

Is that how most light fires!?

They used about a half dozen sheets of paper and about a dozen pieces of kindling. I put splits in the back of my unit, lean 3 pieces of kindling (each is about the size of a pencil) against it tee-pee style, rip off a fiber of wood I haven't loaded and light the fiber and hold it in the tee-pee until it starts to take off. Once it's going I put in a branch piece or bigger piece of kindling vertically to make sure the fire can't collapse on itself and load up the front. I'm surprised to see how much paper & kindling, or the lack of what I use.

One super cedar dose it for me.

Thanks for the link.

John Gulland playing coy.... and a nice super 27 in nickle.

This page has not only the video above, but videos on getting the wood and Advance Woodstove Technology

http://www.ec.gc.ca/cleanair-airpur/Campagne_chauffage_au_bois-WS69573E19-1_En.htm

As I said in another post: Great info, poor acting!

Very very informative, now I see the difference, anybody wanna buy 5 smoke dragons cheap?

Very nice indeed. It is too bad that we could not get a similar item for the CFM VC/DW Eberburn. But, then it would take a long time to make (since they would have to figure it out to explain it) and even longer to download it once they got it. But, I really enjoyed it. There is still a good chance for an Isle Royale or a T-6 in my future.
We need more of that type of info in the industry. If a stoveowner could bring the stove home, learn with it and go back to the DVD to see what they said about different characteristics, it would be a big help.
Perhaps we could get Elk to star in the new film: "The Eberburn, the CAT and the woodpile"
All in fun, thanks again for the post!

The fire starting and reloading procedure works as well with a cat stove, and of course the additional steps of engaging the cat.

I watched the video's on the website and think they are vey good.

One thing I do not understand is the north/south and east/west

North/South - High output, long burn - winter

East/West - lower output, long burn times - fall/spring

I find the East/West to have a much longer burn time, however, it has less heat output.

The North/South is what I use for day fires, but evening, I prefer the East/West because it seems to burn longer.

I'm going to have to do some experimentation since I have a square firebox, but the few E/W loads I burned last year frankly sucked compared to N/S.... requiring a draft setting at mabey 50% to get the same stovetop temp as a N/S load shut all the way down. Overall more up the flue than in the house IMO. Also think you get a cleaner burn do to the better circulation when the air comes at the splits from the end.

Gunner said:

I'm going to have to do some experimentation since I have a square firebox, but the few E/W loads I burned last year frankly sucked compared to N/S.... requiring a draft setting at mabey 50% to get the same stovetop temp as a N/S load shut all the way down. Overall more up the flue than in the house IMO. Also think you get a cleaner burn do to the better circulation when the air comes at the splits from the end.

Click to expand...

I agree, the N/S burns a lot hotter, faster, cleaner and better. In my old Buck stove, the E/W burns were not good at all. The large Isle Royale seems fine with them.

Gunner said:

I'm going to have to do some experimentation since I have a square firebox, but the few E/W loads I burned last year frankly sucked compared to N/S.... requiring a draft setting at mabey 50% to get the same stovetop temp as a N/S load shut all the way down. Overall more up the flue than in the house IMO. Also think you get a cleaner burn do to the better circulation when the air comes at the splits from the end.

Click to expand...

If this is true, I wonder why they aren't all designed to burn this way then?

Really good video, people will learn a lot from it...

Gulland is acting like such a weenie in this video! And I love the canuk chick... "Let me tell you aboot new wood stoves... it's all aboot the technology."

-- Mike

I agree that this video is extremely helpful and needs to be a sticky!

Great info but I really love how they introduce the subject of wood stove heating,

"To effectively eliminate pollution from residential
wood heating, you would have to refrain from burning wood
altogether. This, however, is not a realistic option
for many Canadians. Still, wood smoke pollution can be
considerably reduced if you improve your wood
burning practices. It is also important that you consider
all the available heating alternatives. "

Hmmm… alternatives?… fossil fuel, electric, wood or move to Florida?… now let me think about this?

So I tried an East-West burn like shown in the video (only I cleared the colas in front of the air) and it started great, but it petered out after the "starter" was burned up. I had to poke it around some to give it some air and lay a NS split on top and then it took off.

A couple of questions..

1) With the Englander stoves, like I have, do you still have to clear a little channel in front of the air inlet when you rake all the coals to the front like shown in the video?
2) When loading up over a good coal bed, E-W or N-S, do you normally put the larger splits on the bottom and work up to smaller stuff or the opposite?
3) How long do you leave the door open?
4) I know those splits in the video were not large, but doesn't that still seem like a lot of wood they showed loaded in the firebox?


Thanks!

North, South, East, West
My Morso it burns the best
While you chumps are a measuring and cutting logs
I'll sipping a glass of malt squeezed from bogs


I rather like the idea of 20" long splits stacked high as opposed to 12" long splits teetering on the edge of falling

MichaelS said:

Gunner said:

I'm going to have to do some experimentation since I have a square firebox, but the few E/W loads I burned last year frankly sucked compared to N/S.... requiring a draft setting at mabey 50% to get the same stovetop temp as a N/S load shut all the way down. Overall more up the flue than in the house IMO. Also think you get a cleaner burn do to the better circulation when the air comes at the splits from the end.

Click to expand...

If this is true, I wonder why they aren't all designed to burn this way then?

Click to expand...

Fireplaces & hearth are almost all wider than they are deeper so having wider units will apply to more situations without modifications to ones current hearth, particularly inserts since fireplaces are almost all wider than deep. I think E/W is like a manual transmission and N/S an automatic. Those who try the E/W a few times will find it difficult and picky and quickly want to go back to the easy N/S. But, after a month of doing it you learn the tricks and methods and it becomes second nature... just like driving a manual transmission car a few times you want to go back to an automatic but, if you stick with it after a while it becomes second nature and can get an E/W fire quickly going and maximize the heat to the living space. One reason I think that, I have the opposite view of BB... the fiew N/S fires I burned went up blazing fast, were rather uncontrollable and burned so hot, fast, and furious most of my heat went right up out my stack. Exact opposite of BB, but that's because I've mastered the E/W and not familiar with N/S. Anyone trying to do E/W, the BIGGEST secret and I'm surprised they didn't show this in the video is simply to make sure you push your ashes to the sides before loading so there's a tunnel under the front splits so air can get into the center/back. My unit can take 14" N/S logs, or 24" E/W and I love wide logs they stack extremely high.