Experimenting With Load Size And Direction

FireWalker · Dec 22, 2009

I'm spoiled because the Equinox is large enough to allow a number of options when it comes to loading the firebox.....EW, NS, front door, side door, and combinations like EW and NS in the same load. Well now I've tried them all and I have some strange observations.

For cold nights, load NS thru the front door. For slower/lower fires load EW with big splits/rounds in the back. All burns were done with load charred high heat setting then full off at the air supply.

Here is what makes no sense to me. All overnight burning solutions, 4 splits NS or EW or 8 splits NS (full load) produce the same results......morning house temps of 72 degrees and a heap of coals on the floor of the box. During this last cold snap I have tried this same experiment from one night to the next and what I have found is 4-5 good sized splits in there gives the same result as a full load of wood. This makes me wonder where all those extra btu's went? Filling the box does not appear to make for a longer fire duration which suprises me. I'll believe a full load makes more heat and I can imagine that because I'm asleep I don't notice that at 2am my house is a little warmer than if I didn't pack the wood in to the gills.

So, what have I learned this week you ask? There is absolutely no reason to fill this thing chuck full every time I want a good cold weather overnight burn, thus cutting my wood consumption.

I've noticed a lot of posts lately on load size and suggest others experiment, if your box holds 4 sticks and thats full up, what do you have in the morning if you had left that last split out? Cold house and no coals with 75% full and warmer and more coals with 100% full? Try this, you may be suprised.

Greg123 · Dec 22, 2009

I have to totally agree with your assessment; I have been doing some experimenting of my own with my LOPI 1750. For the over night burns, I would try and cram as much wood N/S as I could fit into the fire box, strategically placing the splits and rounds in puzzle fashion, to use up every available bit of space Once stove got up to temp I would damper down and go to bed. The next morning house was 74 with lots of coals for the next load.

Then one night last week, I was being lazy and only put a little over half of the amount I usually put into the stove, Once stove got up to temp I damped down and went to bed. The next morning house was 74 again but with fewer coals than when I would cram it but still enough to start the next load.

So I got to thinking there had to be something different, outside air temp was the same around 14 degrees, and there was no noticeable wind. I have yet to figure out why, but I have cut my wood consumption tremendously and still get the same amount of heat that stays in my house, I’m not sure where the extra BTU went on the full loads. The only thing I can think off is the stove ran much more efficiently when its not crammed with wood.

46hemi · Dec 22, 2009

Wood Species and Split sizes?

Greg123 · Dec 22, 2009

46hemi said:
Wood Species and Split sizes?

Same wood Species all I have is ASH firewood. Split sizes and rounds are about the same give or take a little.

jlow · Dec 22, 2009

Interesting thread !!!

As an amateur, I have also been trying to load up my EQ @ 10pm and always find many coals to start the new blaze @ 6am when I get downstairs. I find a drop of 5-6 degrees overnight. I have loaded exclusively E/W with 5-6 splits of varying size to try and pack tight. On a couple of the real cold nights last week, I got up around 2am and loaded up the stove. I had chunks in the back of the stove but no flame. I have never packed it full to the brim. I do burn various woods ( elm, ash, cherry, mulberry, maple and some spruce and pine ). It is usually a blend. I am now wondering about N/S if burn time is the same. Will this maybe give me less temp drop?

hareball · Dec 22, 2009

When I load up at night I always add the splits long ways and try to get at least 3 levels. By doing this the incoming air can't slide between the splits making the load last through the night. During the day I load the bottom level straight in then the next level in the opposite direction. This creates more gaps for a more intense burn.

BucksCoBernie · Dec 22, 2009

jlow said:
Interesting thread As an amateur, I have also been trying to load up my EQ @ 10pm and always find many coals to start the new blaze @ 6am when I get downstairs. I find a drop of 5-6 degrees overnight. I have loaded exclusively E/W with 5-6 splits of varying size to try and pack tight. On a couple of the real cold nights last week, I got up around 2am and loaded up the stove. I had chunks in the back of the stove but no flame. I have never packed it full to the brim. I do burn various woods ( elm, ash, cherry, mulberry, maple and some spruce and pine ). It is usually a blend. I am now wondering about N/S if burn time is the same. Will this maybe give me less temp drop?

Wow! A 5-6 degree drop overnight? Thats amazing. I drop about 20 degrees from 10:30-11pm to about 6am. I stuff my I3100 up with Mullberry, get it up to 550-600*, shut it down and go to bed. I do leave the blower on all night. I wake up to a house in the low 60s with a nice bed of coals but i would definitely trade the coals for warmer waking temps. My home insulation must suck even more than I thought.

SolarAndWood · Dec 23, 2009

Do you get up and check stove temps in the middle of the night? Maybe your results are just coincidental with wind speed and overnight lows? I would try your experiment when you are awake and around to find out if those BTUs are heating the outdoors or your house. I dial how much heat I want in the house by the type of wood I load and where I set the burn at. I keep an eye on the forecast and choose the wood/burn rate accordingly.

madrone · Dec 23, 2009

My experience agrees with this. Over 3/4 full, i don't seem to get much increase in burn time, just an increase in peak output. There seems to be a max threshold for efficiency based on percentage of firebox filled. If I want a longer burn, I load bigger pieces. I don't try to pack a tight full load, because 3/4 seems to be enough. If I'm home during the day, 1/2 is good.

LLigetfa · Dec 23, 2009

FireWalker said:
This makes me wonder where all those extra btu's went?

Probably three factors here.
1. More heat went up the flue.
At a stage of the burn on a full load it likely burns hotter with more heat going up the flue. Flue draft is a product of heat. More heat, more draft. More draft, more combustion air drawn in resulting in more heat. We call that "going nuclear".

2. Stove efficiency was lower resulting in less overall heat produced.
Every stove has its sweet spot. A fire in a stove loaded to the gills will spend less of its time in that sweet spot. When the stove is not in the sweet spot unburned hydrocarbons are wasted up the flue.

3. A warmer house loses heat faster.
The rate of heat loss is commensurate with the temperature differential. If it's colder outside you lose more heat. Inversely, if it's hotter inside you also lose more heat. When a full load goes nuclear in the middle of the night, some of that extra heat would spike the inside temps but by morning it would have all been for naught.

FireWalker · Dec 23, 2009

Greg123 said:
I have to totally agree with your assessment; I have been doing some experimenting of my own with my LOPI 1750. For the over night burns, I would try and cram as much wood N/S as I could fit into the fire box, strategically placing the splits and rounds in puzzle fashion, to use up every available bit of space Once stove got up to temp I would damper down and go to bed. The next morning house was 74 with lots of coals for the next load.

Then one night last week, I was being lazy and only put a little over half of the amount I usually put into the stove, Once stove got up to temp I damped down and went to bed. The next morning house was 74 again but with fewer coals than when I would cram it but still enough to start the next load.

So I got to thinking there had to be something different, outside air temp was the same around 14 degrees, and there was no noticeable wind. I have yet to figure out why, but I have cut my wood consumption tremendously and still get the same amount of heat that stays in my house, I’m not sure where the extra BTU went on the full loads. The only thing I can think off is the stove ran much more efficiently when its not crammed with wood.

And here I thought I would be the only one. So this theory holds water, packing the firebox is not necessarily the way to go. I'm gonna guess it has something to do with the inefficiencies of sheding moisture from a given load of wood, the larger the load, the more time it takes to get rid of the water and even though the wood is burning, the burning process is not happening at a level that is particularly efficient/clean.

And as a note I am and during my experimenting I did use same wood species.....oak, birch, maple.

iceman · Dec 23, 2009

in another thread i thought you should never load up pat your fire bricks......... i was told to pack it in for longer burn times .. well my times are not that much longer but there is a hell of alotta coals left!! i was burning e/w before and seemed to get just as long with same temp range! i personally believe that the more airspace in the stove the better for secondaries... you will burn more complete! i cant get rid of a 2.5 inch coal bed which in turns gets some coals to cool off compared to burning less wood less coals -- to restart with BUT more of a useful burn

Greg123 · Dec 23, 2009

iceman said:
in another thread i thought you should never load up pat your fire bricks......... i was told to pack it in for longer burn times .. well my times are not that much longer but there is a hell of alotta coals left!! i was burning e/w before and seemed to get just as long with same temp range! i personally believe that the more airspace in the stove the better for secondaries... you will burn more complete! i cant get rid of a 2.5 inch coal bed which in turns gets some coals to cool off compared to burning less wood less coals -- to restart with BUT more of a useful burn

I think that is it, I get much better secondaries with less wood. My Lopi really throws the heat once secondaries kick in. I just think the stove is way more efficient with less wood. Basically the stove just does more with less.

Black Jaque Janaviac · Dec 23, 2009

Sounds like what you fellas are encountering is the Point of Diminishing Returns. This is a principal, or perhaps an axiom, that applies in just about any area of reality.

In my other hobby, shooting, we speak of the Point of Diminishing Returns all the time. That simply means that you can't simply keep adding more gun powder and expect commensurate increases in bullet speed. For every gun there is a sweet spot and once you exceed that, additional powder only makes more noise, more recoil, less accuracy, for very little extra velocity.

This Point of Dimishing Returns applies in medicine - we call it overdosing. Too much "cure" won't heal you any faster, it only creates problems of it's own.

I'm sure if you're a car enthusiast there's a limit to the horsepower that a car can handle. Adding extra cylinder volume doesn't necessarily translate to faster acceleration - only faster tire wear.

In college I learned about the Point of Diminishing returns on the weekends. A few beers was great, a lot o' beers didn't make my evening any more fun and made the next morning a whole lot worse.

So why wouldn't the Point of Diminishing Returns apply to wood stoves?

iceman · Dec 23, 2009

good point... but i believe many in here think we should be packing in the stove... hell pe even told me it was ok! but like mentioned earlier by someone.. draft... if i pack mine in tight most of the secondary burn is happening above n going up the flue... when you have space that burn is right above your wood .... if i pack it in tight the only way i get more outta of it is let it get real hot like 600 then close it down which will make my stove sipke anywhere from 750-850 which i really dont like.. BUT it settles at 700 for awhile ... but how much did i lose up the flue getting it there?

FireWalker · Dec 23, 2009

Greg123 said:
iceman said:

in another thread i thought you should never load up pat your fire bricks......... i was told to pack it in for longer burn times .. well my times are not that much longer but there is a hell of alotta coals left!! i was burning e/w before and seemed to get just as long with same temp range! i personally believe that the more airspace in the stove the better for secondaries... you will burn more complete! i cant get rid of a 2.5 inch coal bed which in turns gets some coals to cool off compared to burning less wood less coals -- to restart with BUT more of a useful burn

Click to expand...

I think that is it, I get much better secondaries with less wood. My Lopi really throws the heat once secondaries kick in. I just think the stove is way more efficient with less wood. Basically the stove just does more with less.

+1 on the secondaries, when they all get going on the Eq., this is when we are getting the btu's!

begreen · Dec 23, 2009

BucksCoBernie said:
jlow said:

Interesting thread As an amateur, I have also been trying to load up my EQ @ 10pm and always find many coals to start the new blaze @ 6am when I get downstairs. I find a drop of 5-6 degrees overnight. I have loaded exclusively E/W with 5-6 splits of varying size to try and pack tight. On a couple of the real cold nights last week, I got up around 2am and loaded up the stove. I had chunks in the back of the stove but no flame. I have never packed it full to the brim. I do burn various woods ( elm, ash, cherry, mulberry, maple and some spruce and pine ). It is usually a blend. I am now wondering about N/S if burn time is the same. Will this maybe give me less temp drop?

Click to expand...

Wow! A 5-6 degree drop overnight? Thats amazing. I drop about 20 degrees from 10:30-11pm to about 6am. I stuff my I3100 up with Mullberry, get it up to 550-600*, shut it down and go to bed. I do leave the blower on all night. I wake up to a house in the low 60s with a nice bed of coals but i would definitely trade the coals for warmer waking temps. My home insulation must suck even more than I thought.

Hope we're talking room temperature drop here and not stove temperature?

BucksCoBernie · Dec 23, 2009

BeGreen said:
BucksCoBernie said:

jlow said:

Interesting thread As an amateur, I have also been trying to load up my EQ @ 10pm and always find many coals to start the new blaze @ 6am when I get downstairs. I find a drop of 5-6 degrees overnight. I have loaded exclusively E/W with 5-6 splits of varying size to try and pack tight. On a couple of the real cold nights last week, I got up around 2am and loaded up the stove. I had chunks in the back of the stove but no flame. I have never packed it full to the brim. I do burn various woods ( elm, ash, cherry, mulberry, maple and some spruce and pine ). It is usually a blend. I am now wondering about N/S if burn time is the same. Will this maybe give me less temp drop?

Click to expand...

Wow! A 5-6 degree drop overnight? Thats amazing. I drop about 20 degrees from 10:30-11pm to about 6am. I stuff my I3100 up with Mullberry, get it up to 550-600*, shut it down and go to bed. I do leave the blower on all night. I wake up to a house in the low 60s with a nice bed of coals but i would definitely trade the coals for warmer waking temps. My home insulation must suck even more than I thought.

Click to expand...

Hope we're talking room temperature drop here and not stove temperature?

yeah I was talking about room temps. my insert is usually around 200 degrees when I wake up, according to my rutland thermometer anyway.

begreen · Dec 23, 2009

Our house normally will drop about 5-7 degrees by 6:30am, with an ambient of ~25 outside unless it's windy, then it could drop 10 degrees depending on when the stove was last tended. This usually is about 11pm for me. Although we have tightened it up a lot, there are still some leaks that are built in to this old house that are going to be more expensive to fix. And it has a lot of glass area from multiple remodels.

BucksCoBernie · Dec 23, 2009

BeGreen said:
Our house normally will drop about 5-7 degrees by 6:30am, with an ambient of ~25 outside unless it's windy, then it could drop 10 degrees depending on when the stove was last tended. This usually is about 11pm for me. Although we have tightened it up a lot, there are still some leaks that are built in to this old house that are going to be more expensive to fix. And it has a lot of glass area from multiple remodels.

I consistently drop 20* over night. I go to bed around 10:30-11pm and the insert room is 80*, I get up around 6:30am and its 60* in the same room. Oil furnace is set to kick on at 58*. I just finished putting up some weather stripping around the front door and sprayed some "great stuff" in some gaps around the house, hopefully that helps. I definitely need some more attic floor insulation but probably wont get to that until spring.

iceman · Dec 24, 2009

BeGreen said:
Our house normally will drop about 5-7 degrees by 6:30am, with an ambient of ~25 outside unless it's windy, then it could drop 10 degrees depending on when the stove was last tended. This usually is about 11pm for me. Although we have tightened it up a lot, there are still some leaks that are built in to this old house that are going to be more expensive to fix. And it has a lot of glass area from multiple remodels.

hey begreen, how do you load up at night???? n/s e/w fully packed or not?
whatever you do (n/s..e/w) try the opposite and try not to pack the stove all the way to the top... try to give your self 2inches or as close to the top of the firebrick... its ok if you go a little higher than the brick

reload at 300-350 so thats its still hot .... run as you normally would but cut your startup time in half or by a 1/3 (if you run it wide open for 15 try 8-10) then do what you normally would and report back please.... i am curious to see if you will get the consistant heat i think you will.... then tomorrow do the opposite way of loading but keep the height down.....

Hell, everyone try it and report back !!!

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