Top down fire starting

I was pretty skeptical when I first saw the video. But tops down works pretty well for me. I don't tie my newspaper in knows though and I usually add a couple of pieces of fatwood to the kindling.

Rich

Top down is pretty effective, but it's really a different process in a stove than in an open pit. Open pit, the air source is the top. air flows down to the flames, heating the material directly below. doesn't work that well IMO. In a stove, however, you esentially rotate the fire 90 degrees. The air enters from the front. You build the fire front to back, from the bottom up. Rear of the stove gets huge splits, followed by medium splits, then small splits, and the front of the firebox gets newspaper with half an egg carton on top of it, and kindling on top of that. It uses both the air path of the primary to heat the wood front to back as well as the natural tendency of the heat of the flames rising to light the bigger pieces above the newspaper. The air sprays directly onto the newspaper and kindling, pushing the heat back. I find this method works well when you have good wood to prevent the back of the firebox from taking off too early, and has the same advantage that top down fires have of the kindling not burning down then getting smothered by the bigger logs, which really never was an issue with me if the fire was built well.

savageactor7 said:

Top downs?

Like what's the advantage to the way we've started fires for the last thousand years that's what I don't get. No dog is this fight ...just ask'en.

...and yeah I saw that excellent video it did convince me that EW stoves were worth a 2nd look....but still not for us.

Click to expand...

The big advantage for me is that once I light the match, I don't have to open the door until well after the stove is warm and the draft is well established - so no smoke spillage into the house.

As well, there is less smoke out the flue, as the fire starts small, and doesn't involve more wood until there is enough heat to keep it going.
There is no way I could use my small Jotul insert without it - I don't have very good draft conditions when cold - I inhaled more smoke with my install before I got my ritual down than I ever care to do again.