Can you reload with 1 piece of wood??

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Swedishchef

Swedishchef

Minister of Fire
Jan 17, 2010
3,275
Inuvik, Northwest Territories
Howdy!

Just a quick question: my friend and I were discussing reloading a stove once a nice bed of red coals is formed from the previous load. I told him that I can never ever put just one piece of wood on top and get it going well. Yes the wood will burn but it will be slowly and my stack temps will never go high. Perhaps 200-300 degrees TOPS. My buddy doesn't agree (never believes in burning hot, burns green wood since it burns "longer", etc), he often adds just one big piece to his furnace.

However, if I add a few small splits under one big piece, I get it cooking just nicely.

Your thoughts?

Andrew
 
Not my way of running, unless it is mild outside. You can do just about anything. Burn green wood, smolder a fire, smoke up the neighborhood. It may not be right, but that doesn't stop fools from trying.

My wife likes 1-2 stick cruising fires once the place is warmed up. When it's cold outside she may go up to 3 pieces. But at least she opens up the air and gets it burning hot before closing down the air again.
 
If we have a hot coal bed, adding one piece will produce some heat. Mainly from the secondaries on the furnace. If the coal bed is small, it will basically do nothing but smolder. We always load 3 pieces at a time, two on bottom and one on top. Our firebox is too large to add a couple of pieces and maintain temperatures in the firebox. With our old furnace, one piece would sit and do nothing. It always took a few pieces, but even then they wouldn't burn well because the firebox design consisted of a baffle and a few firebrick. In order to burn cleanly, the air under the grates had to be open a bit and the wood would dissapear before your eyes.
 
I figure that you need at least 3 pieces as laynes69 said. One on top and two on the bottom. The bottom 2 create enough heat to help ignite the top. Otherwise, dont you promote creosote since the stacks temps dont rise enough?

A
 
Did it this morning. Got the stick going, then shut the door. Burned quite well for a little over an hour, and got the stove to almost 500.
Burned down the coal bed too. Win, win.
Seems to me burning wet wood is counter productive. Smokes out the yard/neighborhood, and creates crap in the flue I have to deal with later. Duh.
However, my first year, I did that before realizing how goofy it is. You CAN teach an old dog new tricks. Sometimes.
 
One piece on a bed of coals is a good way to get rid of the coals. As far as heating its just a way to keep the fire going on warm day. You could just burn hot in morning and let it go out. Some are lazy [that's me sometimes] and just keep a fire going so they do not have to start one up later.
 
Once the house gets up to a desirable temperature I'll place one log on just so I don't get the house too hot. With only one log, I have to keep the primary air open at least halfway otherwise I get too much smoke. I never get a good secondary burn going.
 
For small fires I use two splits on coals E/W with an inch of space between them. Most of the burning action takes place between them.
 
Depends on the stove more than anything. Mine will do perfectly fine with one piece added to a real hot coal bed, but I always add three while I'm down there, just so BG don't call me a fool or anything. It's bad enough that I burn green wood just to post YouTube vids of me smoking out the countryside. :lol:
 
I started a thread not long ago that discussed how putting a couple of small splits on a large bed of hot coals produces a very intense burn that in turn yields a lot of radiant heat. I have noticed that if I do this with just just one split, it doesn't work nearly as well. Some critical mass is needed to get an energetic burn going. As BK says, I'm sure it depends on several variables: stove, stack, wood species, moisture content, ...
 
My wife tries to add only one piece on reload. I keep telling her; wood needs friends!
 
I think the keyword here is "furnace"

A wood furnace is a different beast than a wood stove.

In certain occasions I will load only a few pieces: 1 gargantuan and 2 small

but that is usually if I have a very large coal bed, I'm home and feel safe leaving the air open much further than normal, and I don't need much heat in the house.

Basically, I'm burning down an ugly piece of wood and the coals so that I have room when I need to load her up.

pen
 
Every morning, and occasionally during the day, I have a big bed of coals I want to burn down. I usually add one medium-sized split, keep the primary air fully open, and it burns nicely; the stove top thermometer reads maybe 450 to 500 at the peak, I see secondaries, and the coals burn down. After an hour or two depending on the size and type of wood I have to reload. Sometimes I have to do this a couple of times before the coals are sufficiently burned, so I guess that half of the reloads involve only one split. So in my stove, yes, you can reload with only one piece of wood.
 
Always reloading with at least three pieces. Seems to light up pretty quick.
 
johnstra said:
I started a thread not long ago that discussed how putting a couple of small splits on a large bed of hot coals produces a very intense burn that in turn yields a lot of radiant heat. I have noticed that if I do this with just just one split, it doesn't work nearly as well. Some critical mass is needed to get an energetic burn going. As BK says, I'm sure it depends on several variables: stove, stack, wood species, moisture content, ...
Click to expand...

One BIG stove parameter is thermal conductivity of the firebox. Lower conductivity translates into higher firebox temps, which in general keep combustion efficiency high, and also aid in keeping a small amount of wood burning cleanly.

That's why so many stoves now have insulation "belt" around the firebox, like fused vermiculite or firebrick.

Experiments have shown that metallic (e.g. cast iron) liner inside stove merely serves to protect exterior, and does not improve insulation.
 
This continues be a most interesting subject. Last night it was 13* here and I experimented with small, intense loads. My house was totally overheated and I used very little wood. I kept a hot bed of coals and I added wood twice: once at 4:00p and once at 8:00p. The stove room was about 80* and my central hallway, that is usually right at 70*, was 75*. The stove really poured out the heat. I would burn the small loads fairly quickly and then just let it sit and coal for 2 or 3 hours before reloading with the next small load.

There's something really cool (or rather hot) going on here. I need another round of sub-zero weather to really test this technique out, but at this point I'm convinced that if I need lots of heat the small loads are the way to go. I still load the stove full for overnight burns and if I want to not have to reload for 6-8 hours, but I've very happy to have found a way to make serious heat.
 
johnstra said:
This continues be a most interesting subject. Last night it was 13* here and I experimented with small, intense loads. My house was totally overheated and I used very little wood. I kept a hot bed of coals and I added wood twice: once at 4:00p and once at 8:00p. The stove room was about 80* and my central hallway, that is usually right at 70*, was 75*. The stove really poured out the heat. I would burn the small loads fairly quickly and then just let it sit and coal for 2 or 3 hours before reloading with the next small load.

There's something really cool (or rather hot) going on here. I need another round of sub-zero weather to really test this technique out, but at this point I'm convinced that if I need lots of heat the small loads are the way to go. I still load the stove full for overnight burns and if I want to not have to reload for 6-8 hours, but I've very happy to have found a way to make serious heat.
Click to expand...

With a soapstone stove a fraction of the size of yours, I have to agree. Stuffing the stove totally full is something I do only for overnight burns when I want a longer burn time and don't mind a lower temperature. Fire requires air, and jamming the stove full to the brim hugely restricts air flow around the wood. A small load in a small stove doesn't get you much, but I do find that a smaller than full capacity load maximizes the heat I can produce in it.

It's about zero right now outside, and I have a nice not-full load of dry beech and apple with first-rate secondaries going. Ahhhhh.
 
As long at it's not warm out (upper 30s or higher) I fill the stove with as much wood as I can fit in it. Load it usually 2x a day.
 
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