How Tightly can the Stove be Packed?

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Gridlock

Gridlock

Member
Feb 13, 2010
223
New Paltz, NY
I just installed a new VC Defiant Catalytic stove, which has a wide firefox. My logs are shorter than the width of the firebox by several inches. To get the longest burn possible, how tightly can the stove be packed with wood?

- Since the logs are shorter than the firebox width, can I squeeze a log or two on the left or right end of the firebox (they would need to be oriented upward since the stove is tall but not deep)?
- Can I pack the stove completely up to the top right under the stove opening (the stove is top and front loading)?
- The andirons are only a few inches tall; if wood is packed high above them, isn't it possible the wood will fall forward as it is burning and rest against the glass above the andirons? Is that not a good idea?
- If it is so tightly packed, will enough air get circulated in the firebox to burn hot enough, particularly with the Cat engaged?

Thanks!
 
i don't have a cat, but i say if you have good dry wood pack it with a plunger. get all you can fit it there. my old defiant has a big firebox. so if it is very cold out and the splits i have are 16 or 18 inches long, i pack it tight up against the right side and then find some 12 inch splits and stand them up vert on the left side at the side door. never have any problems
 
The final answer is for you to try it and see how it works, just keep the wood off the glass. It's no crisis if the wood does touch the glass, just that sap that splatters out onto the glass will leave marks on the glass that can be permanent.

Generally you can pack the firebox as tight as you want.
 
Thanks for the replies. The concencus appears that it could be packed very tightly. Should the tighly packed firebox be burned high for a while before closing the damper and lowering the air control (the stove has been burning for a while and is hot before packing)?
 
The way I have been doing it is to get all "tetris" on loading it, then air full open until all the wood seems to be involved, then air down and cruise.
 
Given a good bed of coals and seasoned wood, I would think 'as tight as you can' would be fine. I've thrown 8"x10" blocks of hedge on top of good coals and done fine. Though if your coal bed is burned down quite a bit, all that cold wood can mean for a loooong warm up/char period or could cause the stove to go out in the worst case. Wet wood would also be harder to light off.
 
I have a Defiant also. I now cut my wood between 20 and 22 inches, but much of this winter i've been burning my leftover 16 inch wood from when we had our Resolute. When I packed it full for the night, i'd lay 16s in one end, then i could usually get four splits standing upright in the other end of the stove. It was pretty full.......but then i would put on my work boots, and stomp on the wood to pack it in even more....... so i could get one or two more pieces in !!

OK..... I'm lying about stomping the wood in with my work boots........ but i really did stand up pieces in the end to fill the stove. I never had any trouble getting an all night burn with it.
 
if your wood is too short, could you load it in north-south instead of east-west? That's how I load my stove and it allows me to pack a much bigger fuel charge in there. This would also mean you don't need to worry about the wood going up against the glass.
 
cozy heat said:
Given a good bed of coals and seasoned wood, I would think 'as tight as you can' would be fine. I've thrown 8"x10" blocks of hedge on top of good coals and done fine. Though if your coal bed is burned down quite a bit, all that cold wood can mean for a loooong warm up/char period or could cause the stove to go out in the worst case. Wet wood would also be harder to light off.
Click to expand...
Are you saying that ALL the packed wood would need to be burning before closing damper?
 
Ductape said:
I have a Defiant also. I now cut my wood between 20 and 22 inches, but much of this winter i've been burning my leftover 16 inch wood from when we had our Resolute. When I packed it full for the night, i'd lay 16s in one end, then i could usually get four splits standing upright in the other end of the stove. It was pretty full.......but then i would put on my work boots, and stomp on the wood to pack it in even more....... so i could get one or two more pieces in !!

OK..... I'm lying about stomping the wood in with my work boots........ but i really did stand up pieces in the end to fill the stove. I never had any trouble getting an all night burn with it.
Click to expand...
Interesting; I'll try this tonight (well maybe not the stomping). Is your Defiant the Catalytic model? If so, is there any issue with lighting off the CAT with the wood so tightly packed?
 
karri0n said:
if your wood is too short, could you load it in north-south instead of east-west? That's how I load my stove and it allows me to pack a much bigger fuel charge in there. This would also mean you don't need to worry about the wood going up against the glass.
Click to expand...
The Defiant is not deep enough for a north-south arrangement; it is a wide but not very deep stove. I was able to put some shorter logs north-south in my previous Avalon Olypmic stove.
 
The key, as always, seems to be those magic words "dry wood." Sort of says it all.

My experience with the FV is that once the cat is engaged the flames typically go out in the firebox pretty soon thus the temps right around the wood seem to fall (relatively speaking of course) - except where the air is flowing and near the top where the cat is situated on my stove. So I get a nice glow in the front near the glass (airwash blowing) and the top clearly is hotter based on the observed charring that happens. The back bottom of the box the splits seem to just sit there with little in the way of changes for hours on end so I assume they aren't doing much until the front/top splits have been consumed.

Now, when I have put in less dry wood the whole process slows a lot more and then it cools down much faster in the firebox and the cat just doesn't get fed as well - lower peak and sustained temperatures on the surface where the cat is and unless I increase air it will want to run at a very cool temp (350 range) - lasts forever it seems, but not what I want in the cold part of the winter!.

While I haven't done extensive observations or organized experiments to confirm this, my general sense is that if I were to pack the firebox with the marginal/less dry splits and then engage cat/shut down as much as I normally do it could lead to a stall condition where the cat simply cools down too much and the firebox can't sustain the temps required to keep burning (I've heard of this happening but have not actually had it happen to me yet). However, with my better stock I have generally put in as much as I can and found that it does rather well - although the initial warm-up time takes longer as one would expect given that air (and flames) can't flow through the stack and heat up all surfaces of all that wood to get it all up to temp.
 
I don't worry about ALL the wood being involved, I just make sure it has good flames with some secondaries going and that my stove top temps are where I want them before I turn the damper down to let it cruise. My stove is a non-cat stove so it may be different with yours, but I'm pretty sure there is a temp that you will need to hit before activating your cat. If you don't have a thermometer I recommend the investment.
 
breezewood said:
I don't worry about ALL the wood being involved, I just make sure it has good flames with some secondaries going and that my stove top temps are where I want them before I turn the damper down to let it cruise. My stove is a non-cat stove so it may be different with yours, but I'm pretty sure there is a temp that you will need to hit before activating your cat. If you don't have a thermometer I recommend the investment.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I use a stove-top thermometer and will be installing a pipe one shortly.
 
Slow1 said:
The key, as always, seems to be those magic words "dry wood." Sort of says it all.

My experience with the FV is that once the cat is engaged the flames typically go out in the firebox pretty soon thus the temps right around the wood seem to fall (relatively speaking of course) - except where the air is flowing and near the top where the cat is situated on my stove. So I get a nice glow in the front near the glass (airwash blowing) and the top clearly is hotter based on the observed charring that happens. The back bottom of the box the splits seem to just sit there with little in the way of changes for hours on end so I assume they aren't doing much until the front/top splits have been consumed.

Now, when I have put in less dry wood the whole process slows a lot more and then it cools down much faster in the firebox and the cat just doesn't get fed as well - lower peak and sustained temperatures on the surface where the cat is and unless I increase air it will want to run at a very cool temp (350 range) - lasts forever it seems, but not what I want in the cold part of the winter!.

While I haven't done extensive observations or organized experiments to confirm this, my general sense is that if I were to pack the firebox with the marginal/less dry splits and then engage cat/shut down as much as I normally do it could lead to a stall condition where the cat simply cools down too much and the firebox can't sustain the temps required to keep burning (I've heard of this happening but have not actually had it happen to me yet). However, with my better stock I have generally put in as much as I can and found that it does rather well - although the initial warm-up time takes longer as one would expect given that air (and flames) can't flow through the stack and heat up all surfaces of all that wood to get it all up to temp.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. I had a similar experience where closing the damper with wood that wasn't seasoned well enough seemed to cool things off too much. It seems to help if I get the stove very hot (700 degrees F) before closing the damper. Opening up the ash pan slightly seems to help getting the stove hot quicker, particularly when the wood isn't seasoned well enough.
 
I used to overload my stove, but now I follow the recommendation of the manufacturer. VC recommends 18" wood as a maximum size for the Vigilant, so that's what I use. I have loaded it up with longer splits but haven't gotten more heat or longer burns. I've been told by numerous experts to leave some space for the gases to expand into. The turbulence created helps to mix in oxygen from the air, and you supposedly get better ignition and more complete burns. When I load my stove up to the very top (barely get the griddle closed), I find it burns worse for me and leaves me with more coals than I'd like in the morning but no more heat during the night. I figure the designers must know more than me and that they have their reasons for their recommendations.
 
Battenkiller said:
I used to overload my stove, but now I follow the recommendation of the manufacturer. VC recommends 18" wood as a maximum size for the Vigilant, so that's what I use. I have loaded it up with longer splits but haven't gotten more heat or longer burns. I've been told by numerous experts to leave some space for the gases to expand into. The turbulence created helps to mix in oxygen from the air, and you supposedly get better ignition and more complete burns. When I load my stove up to the very top (barely get the griddle closed), I find it burns worse for me and leaves me with more coals than I'd like in the morning but no more heat during the night. I figure the designers must know more than me and that they have their reasons for their recommendations.
Click to expand...

that says it all. my manual for the old defiant i thought was crazy until i tried it, and it works great. it says to get a fire going to make a coal bed. after a coal bed has been established throw in more wood bring the stove up to temp then top off and close the damper for the long burn. doing it the way the manual says gives me 8 hours of heat. 8 hours later the stove top is 350 to 400 degrees. so yes on following the manual.
 
Regarding stalls with a cat stove and wet wood... I have found you simply have to keep the air control higher. With really dry wood, I can't leave it above .5, but with damp wood, I'm forced to run it at 1 or even higher, and of course the quality of the burn is different and you don't seem to get as much out of the cat. It's amazing how much better the cat works with dry wood, even if you let the damp stuff burn for, say, 40 minutes before engaging the cat.
 
Gridlock said:
The andirons are only a few inches tall; if wood is packed high above them, isn't it possible the wood will fall forward as it is burning and rest against the glass above the andirons? Is that not a good idea?
Click to expand...

I always loaded my VC cat all the way up. Twice in 4 yrs burning 24/7 October to May, I found cracked glass. Luckily, my dealer was very friendly and pulled replacements out of floor models.

Also, cracking the ash pan to get the fire going is playing with fire unless you are right in front of the stove watching it with no distractions. I would start with a smaller load and crack the front door if the fire wont take off on its own.
 
fbelec said:
Battenkiller said:
I used to overload my stove, but now I follow the recommendation of the manufacturer. VC recommends 18" wood as a maximum size for the Vigilant, so that's what I use. I have loaded it up with longer splits but haven't gotten more heat or longer burns. I've been told by numerous experts to leave some space for the gases to expand into. The turbulence created helps to mix in oxygen from the air, and you supposedly get better ignition and more complete burns. When I load my stove up to the very top (barely get the griddle closed), I find it burns worse for me and leaves me with more coals than I'd like in the morning but no more heat during the night. I figure the designers must know more than me and that they have their reasons for their recommendations.
Click to expand...

that says it all. my manual for the old defiant i thought was crazy until i tried it, and it works great. it says to get a fire going to make a coal bed. after a coal bed has been established throw in more wood bring the stove up to temp then top off and close the damper for the long burn. doing it the way the manual says gives me 8 hours of heat. 8 hours later the stove top is 350 to 400 degrees. so yes on following the manual.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info; I realized my splits are generally 14-18 inches and the recommendation for my stove is 24 inches, so I had enough room to stand up a couple of logs next to the east-west logs. There was still enough room around all the edges and on top for plenty of airflow. I heated the stove to around 650 (stove top), then closed the damper and lowered the air control. The fire burned all night and was still over 400 degrees with some nice hot coals after over 8 hours! I packed it up again and got it quickly back up to 650. Very Cool!
 
dreezon said:
Regarding stalls with a cat stove and wet wood... I have found you simply have to keep the air control higher. With really dry wood, I can't leave it above .5, but with damp wood, I'm forced to run it at 1 or even higher, and of course the quality of the burn is different and you don't seem to get as much out of the cat. It's amazing how much better the cat works with dry wood, even if you let the damp stuff burn for, say, 40 minutes before engaging the cat.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Opening the ash pan for a bit to get the blaze going seems to work for me if the wood is not very dry.
 
SolarAndWood said:
Gridlock said:
The andirons are only a few inches tall; if wood is packed high above them, isn't it possible the wood will fall forward as it is burning and rest against the glass above the andirons? Is that not a good idea?
Click to expand...

I always loaded my VC cat all the way up. Twice in 4 yrs burning 24/7 October to May, I found cracked glass. Luckily, my dealer was very friendly and pulled replacements out of floor models.

Also, cracking the ash pan to get the fire going is playing with fire unless you are right in front of the stove watching it with no distractions. I would start with a smaller load and crack the front door if the fire wont take off on its own.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this helps me a lot as well. I've been using this method for a few minutes initially to get things going. I realized that it's not a good idea to do this if there is a lot of hot wood in the stove and it can a VERY hot blaze; it actually sounded like a jet taking off with the fire drawing so much air; I won't do that again!
 
Heh - another advantage of not having an ash pan - I'm never tempted to jump-start the fire by opening it :)

I used to do that on occasion with my old stove - it's rather like drugs as it sure does work well and is a hard habit to kick since even when it isn't really necessary it sure is nice seeing the fire BLAZE away in just a few seconds isn't it?

Now I just put the air up to 3 or 4 if I need that extra kick when starting from less than a fist full of coals and set a timer to remind me to move it back below 2 in a reasonable time period.
 
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