I'm worried about the new guys!

Lets see now, (as the woodstove turns, general woodstove, all my wood stoves)

Logs of Our Lives. As the Log Burns. All My Firewood. Splits Miami. Amazing Splits. This Old Wood.

Yo Rick, remember dark shadows? how about dark wood stoves. Things are getting really weird around here. Heres the best one Desperate wood stoves!

I forgot to add Im worried about you, dont burn up

fossil said:

This Old Wood.

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LOL Soooo many jokes... Soooo little time...

-SF

Seems to me the newbies should get huge kudos for coming here in the first place...

It's those who haven't visited this forum that deserve worry.

Amen, Elfin!!

Definitely a legit concern (I'm one of the newbies). Been hanging out, reading, learning and enjoying this forum since March. If it wasn't for this forum I'd still be burning the old Fisher that was in this house when I bought it, wouldn't have ever considered purchasing an England stove from a box store (typically concerned about box store quality) but I did and so far very pleased with it. Would have thought smoke coming out of your chimney was a good thing, the list could go on. Thank you everyone for your advice, instruction, humor, etc. Oh and yes my wood is seasoned, even bought a moisture meter to prove it.

Here's to my first full winter of burning and learning Cheers!

Thanks for the comment Savage, and all the knowledge I have gained in the past 4 months or so. This is the first year we are trying to actually heat our house with fire as opposed to weekend ambiance etc. To do this we actually bought a new stove - the last stove was in another house and in this one it was a big moneypit of a fireplace. We have learned a ton from the folks here. It is a bit of a catch 22 - if you have a new stove and you have no idea how the thing burns, drafts, reacts temperature wise etc yopu have to burn a little fuel to figure these things out. It makes some sense to me to take a stove on a few test drives (when the stakes are low as opossed to waiting until the temps are hitting -20) and then trying to get the thing to work optimally. A few fires a little to ROBUST for the temperature now are giving me some geat insight (I think :-S ) for the heart of the season. Thanks again for all you comments - as a soapstone owner I am particualrly intrigued with this "species" of stove - as they do seem a bit different.

Hi there. Just joining this thread, if that's okay. I couldn't be more grateful for these threads, and this one in particular. We had our Heritage installed in front of our fireplace last week and have been working through the learning process. Sort of like the first baby.... nothing seems normal, no matter how many times you read the manual! Panic and anxiety have run rampant in the middle of the night Can't call the dealer then! Hands on experience, with re-assurance from folks like you, helps keep our courage up. We are newbies, though my husband grew up with a Jotul Combi, but that was a few decades ago (!). We live in Northern Vermont and will be burning maple primarily. Most of it has been seasoned for years, as we didn't use our fireplace much unless power was out.

Anyway, I want to thank you for making us feel welcome. And thank you for describing things in a simple way tfor us newbies to easily understand. Will try to learn the woodstove lingo once I learn how to use the stove properly and efficiently

Newbie here as well... First year with our new Heritage. The weather has been getting down to upper 30s at night here, and stays in the lower 40s until 9am or so. We've just been heating the stove up to 350 or so at night, loading it about 1/2 way, and turning the air-intake down to about 1/8 from closed. This creates a nice glowing bed of coals that keeps the kids rooms warm at about 70-72 all night. Then, in the morning, I throw a few more logs on, open up the air-intake, and let the fire get hot again and clean-up the chimney. My wife tends the fire during the day by throwing a log on every few hours with the air-intake about 1/8 from closed again. She says the temp (measures with a magnetic therm on the center top stone) stays around 200-250. When the night comes, I start the whole process over again.

So, being a newbie... am I doing anything wrong here? I understand we are not running the stove anywhere near capacity, but I was told this is a good way to run it when you just need to take the chill off of the house during the fall. I'm a little confused about some comments on this thread... Are we not supposed to be running our stove until it gets very cold outside?? Is there a problem with running it like this during the fall?

Thanks

Backwoods Savage said:

the panic and anxiety running rampant along with people trying to burn their stoves full tilt in early fall that this thread was made.

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So what do I tell the two wood stokers I just hired?

Backwoods Savage said:

rwilson, it sounds like you are doing just fine.

The only thing I question is when are you turning the draft down? If you are doing it as soon as you put the wood in, then you are closing it too soon. Wait until the wood gets started good before turning down the draft.

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I don't turn the air-intake down until the fire really gets going. I haven't messed with the damper on the pipe yet, as I don't think I'm getting the stove hot enough yet to deal with that.

Denis, in reference to "cleaning out the chimney", my Heritage manual suggest we run the fire at with the air supply wide open for 35-45 minutes, twice a day to clear out any creosote from stove and chimney? I think that is the most confusing part... book knowledge vs. first hand know-how. So it prob depends on the type of wood you burn? Oh how I cannot wait to have one heating season behind me. Thank God for this forum!

Peg481 said:

... the most confusing part... book knowledge vs. first hand know-how. ... Oh how I cannot wait to have one heating season behind me. Thank God for this forum!

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I couldn't agree more w/ your statements. I'm having a lot of similar issues / anxiety w/ my new Heritage - trying to balance airflow, wondering if I'm doing 16 different things wrong I need my neighbor to come over - his father reportedly has had one for years. Similar to the experienced writing here, I can't wait to learn from his observations first hand...

i've been getting the hang of my Dutch West...it's not soo bad!

i leave the air on full for about 15-30 mins or until the couple logs inside are burning up.... stove top temps are in the 600 range before i turn the air down to almost closed and throw more wood on...

this morning i needed to get a nice bed of coals before i went to woerk, so i left the air on full and kinda heated the stove top up a tad too high... 750 closed the air and dampener and it dropped back down to 600ish rather quickly

How do you know if you damaged your stove from burning too hot?

i am getting 7hr burns with the dampener closed and the stove loaded full.... im also burning my junk wood, which is too well seasoned, so keeping the stove top temps in check is tough when some of the wood burns very hot and some doesn't...



one other thing... when it's not soo cold out and i'm buring one log at a time, the stove top never gets over 400-500 and the stove pipe temp stays around 300- 350ish.... does this kinda of buring create creosote?

OK, another silly question. We have an air intake handle at the bottom of the stove. we have the hang of that. Now there is also a handle on the stove pipe about 4 inches from the top of the stove. The stove installers said just leave that open at all times. Is this a damper? Were they right - do we just leave that alone? It is going to be colder over the next few days so we will get to load up a bit more and try for an over night burn.

Listen folks.... Stop worrying. It really isn't all that hard to burn wood OK in a modern wood stove.
It can be hard to do it with great efficiency, nice even heating, and really long burns.

Things to do,
Burn it hot every fire.
Adjust the heat output by the amount of wood put in.
A bunch of little pieces burn better than a few large ones.


Things to not worry too much about.
You will wake up cold on some mornings.
The house will be hot as heck sometimes.
You will burn dirty smokey messes.
You will get the stove too hot.

This is all part of using the wood stove. Enjoy your adventure.

forgot to add

YOU WILL EVENTUALLY BURN YOURSELF (FINGERS/ HAND)

so far i'm on burn blister 3

trailblaze said:

i've been getting the hang of my Dutch West...it's not soo bad!

i leave the air on full for about 15-30 mins or until the couple logs inside are burning up.... stove top temps are in the 600 range before i turn the air down to almost closed and throw more wood on...

this morning i needed to get a nice bed of coals before i went to woerk, so i left the air on full and kinda heated the stove top up a tad too high... 750 closed the air and dampener and it dropped back down to 600ish rather quickly

How do you know if you damaged your stove from burning too hot?

i am getting 7hr burns with the dampener closed and the stove loaded full.... im also burning my junk wood, which is too well seasoned, so keeping the stove top temps in check is tough when some of the wood burns very hot and some doesn't...



one other thing... when it's not soo cold out and i'm buring one log at a time, the stove top never gets over 400-500 and the stove pipe temp stays around 300- 350ish.... does this kinda of buring create creosote?

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Trailblaze,

I've read you post in the past and I keep wondering why you are running that stove sooooo hot. We have not even started the heating season yet. Is your thermometer reading internal temps or stove top temps? My DW (cat stove) had a probe thermometer that read temps in the combustion chamber. My internal probe thermometer went all the way up to 1300 degrees F but the stove top rarely got hot enough to bring a pot of water to a rolling boil.

Your stove is a convection heater, it has an outer iron jacket surrounding a fire box with an air space in between. It's the hot air circulating thru this jacket heating your space not so much the hot iron you stand next to. If you are showing high temps on the outer layer iron components just imagine what the inner layer (firebox) temps are reading! Be careful with that thing it's not going to last long if you are brining it up to the edge of overfiring regularly.

If your burning super seasoned wood you should have no issues with creasote build-up unless you are smoldering a fire which you are not. Find a happy medium between too much and not enough.

my theromometer is reading "outside" stove top temps.... i don't know why it's burning soo hot? under a what looks to be normal burn, the stove top reads anywhere from 550-650, but if i leave the air up it goes into the 700's

even last night i was burning 1 log (smaller split) and the stove top was in the 300's, but then since it was 28 outside and i wanted to get the thing loaded up to burn all night, i turned the air up and threw more wood in to get a nice ash bed.... the stove top temp went 650ish, the stove pipe was 450-500 ish and thats when i loaded it full and closed the dampener....

the temps then dropped, stove pipe was 350-400 ish, and stove top was 400-500 ish...

i been getting it so hot, so i can get the everburn working to give me heat all night....

what am i doing that could be wrong?? maybe it's my super dry and light (weight) wood??

just as a side note... i don't let it get past the 650 mark for very long... in fact once it gets that high i either close the dampener and or the air control...

but even soo... i find myself at a 550-600 degree stove top during most burns, unless it's the one log burn....


it's been cold around here at night, and my house is drafty... to i need to heat it otherwise it's 50 degress inside in no time