How Much Wood To Fill The Stove ?

Many here (myself included) will put as much as you can get in the stove. Within reason!! I do not stuff every little nook and cranny, but I would guess 85% of the volume of the firebox. Just be sure to adjust your primary air control as needed so you don't overfire.

'bert

carlo said:

Wow .... 85% ..... Is your wood packed tightly together when you do this ? I find that my fires burn better when wood is given space or criss crossed from other wood.

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Only if ya want it to burn fast, I pack mine tight, control the air and get all night burns, although some like to play with it a lot more....

Sometimes when I pack it tight with, the wood has a hard time catching, it will get smokey and black. How do you avoid this? Do you do a layer of small splits, let them catch, and then pack it tight? What's your strategy on how to pack it tight?

I only pack it up to the burn tubes for an overnight burn. Won't hazard a guess at percentage cuz doing it E/W, it's not possible to get anywhere close to 100% without it tumbling forward against the glass. Throughout the day it's one, two, or three splits at a time.

Soadrocks said:

Sometimes when I pack it tight with, the wood has a hard time catching, it will get smokey and black. How do you avoid this? Do you do a layer of small splits, let them catch, and then pack it tight? What's your strategy on how to pack it tight?

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For me, a few small splits are often necessary to get a good catch on the bigger stuff. Depends on what's in there. It's always a judgment call, and over the years, my judgement has gotten a bit better. If in doubt, add some small stuff first.

Strategy depends on the stove, I guess. You have to know your own stove and flue and wood, etc. With my old front loading stove with its deep firebox, it could be quite an art to thread 24" pieces all the way back without jamming them in place, but you soon got the hang of it. Boomerangs were a big "no-no" in that stove. I burned those upstairs in the fireplace, or outside in the wife's Chiminea. "Straight as an arrow" pieces is all I'd use to put that one to sleep at night.

With my current top loader, I just drop them in the best I can and adjust them with a long fire poker I made myself. It has a 90º hook on the end, so I can grab a piece and flip it into position from above. It was also useful for grabbing the back end of jammed splits in the last stove so I could reposition them. Sometimes I'd get the poker jammed in as well as the wood. That was always interesting. On at least one occasion I had to stay up and burn the sucker out in order to get the door closed.

I also try to alternate them so they drop down magazine style since the stove was designed to self-feed. Nothing anal about the way I do it. Most of the time I get it right. So far this year, no burnt out bottoms where the wood is jammed way up above the coal bed and can't burn well. That used to happen frequently with the old stove until I got smarter.

The one thing I don't do is to fill the nooks and crannies with small pieces. I don't want to create burn channels through the wood stack, just let them drop into the coals on the bottom as the pieces below are consumed. Burn channels can direct air through the entire mass and burn it quicker than I'd like, or just char the wood if the air is shut way down. A good recipe for a big bed of coals that ain't throwing out much heat. I read here that lots of folks do that, and if it works well for them... that's the secret for their stove. It's an individual art. Lots of right ways to do it as well as wrong ways. You never stop learning.

you have to have a really nice coal bed to pack er to the top most shoveled to the front but leave some under the whole pile thats my opinion

look at pic 3 in this thread, that is a normal load for my stove. For an overnighter, i would try to pack a bit better.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/49426/

During shoulder season I was loading like you described - 3-4 splits at a time. Now that we're into serious 24/7 burning I load it full every time as I would rather not have to visit the stove any more often as possible. Yeah, as much as I love to fiddle with things I generally have other things to do. So, I push coals to the front then stack however many splits I can in there as tight as they will fit each time. I generally have between 5 and 8 that will fit with 6 being the norm at the moment. I turn them this way and that to make the flat faces meet.

As to getting them to burn well I think the keys to have good hot coals in the right place for your stove and dry wood. Any sizzlers in there an put a serious damper on a packed stove right quick.

Keep in mind that I'm running a cat stove here as well - thus I do have the ability to turn it down and burn it cooler/longer on days I don't need the heat as much and give it more air (thus feed it more often) on days I do need more heat - thus the decision to load it full is a bit more separate from the question of how much heat I need from the stove.

brokeburner said:

you have to have a really nice coal bed to pack er to the top most shoveled to the front but leave some under the whole pile thats my opinion

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If i'm packing it to the top, the bulk of it isn't on top of coals. I rake the coals forward and put the large pieces on top of the ashes in the back. Meduim splits in the middle and small split on top of the coals in front. The fire then burns front-to-back and top-down.

Slow1 said:

I turn them this way and that to make the flat faces meet...

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Ja, I do the jigsaw puzzle thing for my overnighters but couldn't be bothered to dig through my wood box to find the right puzzle pieces three times a day. Also, I don't care for the cyclical nature of a full load when I'm awake. Tossing in 1,2, or 3 splits of various sizes at whatever frequency lets me maintain more consistent temps to match the demand.

I have a small stove, so I have to pack it in for overnight burns. But during the day, I don't worry about it too much. During the day, I do try to fit four splits in minimum - one larger one, one smaller one, and two medium ones. This seems to be the right balance of getting a fire going fast and lasting a long time also.

For overnights, I'll try to time it so that my firebox is down to about 400 degrees stovetop with coals only about 15-30 minutes before I want to go to bed. Then, I'll plan out my split stack in front of the stove. Yes, it sounds anal, but it does ensure that I can fit the most in, and I don't want to be fumbling for splits as the wood is starting to smoke or catch fire and/or pouring smoke into the house. If I plan the split placement in advance, I can load the box in about 10 seconds and have the door closed before it catches. By re-loading at 400 degrees stovetop with coals, the stuffed firebox catches fast and maybe only dips to 350 degrees before beginning to rise again in 10 minutes. 15 minutes later, it could easily be at 500 degrees stovetop and rising fast, so I start choking the air down. In 25-30 minutes, it has settled into a nice stable secondary burn and I am headed to bed.

As others have mentioned, it is good to rake the coals forward and leave a few at the back to provide an airspace underneath the wood in the back. I also try to leave about 1/2" between the back of the stove and the back pieces of wood to avoid smoldering overnight. I also try to leave room underneath the secondary tubes for air to travel.

I haven't tried N/S burning yet, but will next year after some short and fat pieces of hickory are finished seasoning.

I fill probably 80-85% of the firebox. I have a square firebox and so I can control the heat output by either loading wood left to right (slower cooler burn) or front to back (hotter faster burn). Still, with front to back in my 2.1 cubic foot firebox, I will still have enough coals to restart the fire up to 10 hours later.

Try going here: http://www.woodheat.org/

The videos are a little wooden (no pun intended), but there good information. The articles are good too.

P.S. When you do pack the firebox, pack it tight. If you put too much space in there, the fire can take off.

I have a Jotul 602 with a small firebox. When I am home I burn a small hot fire adding one piece of wood about every 1/2 to 1 hour. At night I pack it full and let it burn slow. This keeps the fire but is not as efficient and it makes creosote. I have a buck stove with a large firebox. I keep the fire on one side and stack logs standing on end on the other side. The fire cooks the standing logs so when I lay them down on the fire side they really burn good. If the fire goes out the cooked logs will almost light with a match.

On a typical fire . . . I probably load it up 75% . . . on an overnight fire, maybe 85-90% leaving some room at the top of the firebox . . . and some room at the front so the wood doesn't roll up against the glass which typically leaves it temporarily blackened.

One big armload. Pack it tight as I can- it burns better, secondaries light better, and it burns longer that way for me.

I have a Jotul 602 as well. 2 regular splits and maybe a smaller one on top of the two, fills it right up. Always worried I'm going to knock off the top baffle if I pack it too much. Once it gets good and hot, though, I can let burn almost two hours before i have to reload it.

Tight to the top every load.