I am freezing, glass is dirty, but I am scared I will damage my stove by overfiring.

I recommend you start another thread, something like "new Equinox owner needs help". Then you will get Equinox owners who can give you even more detailed assistance.

oldspark said:

I was waiting for an answer on the lumber, I know she is no where near over firing it AT THIS POINT, best to stick with small hot fires to start out with, if the stove is drafting correctly you will be able to get a good temp out of a small hot fire with out the chance of getting it too hot. Only one thing worse than a small load of wet wood and that is a big load of wet wood, much more moisture to burn off, stick with a small hot fire.

Click to expand...

Yeah.you're prolly right.
But I did say to buy some seasoned wood somewhere.
But being new she should stick to a half load I guess.

Half Moon Ranch said:

ok, I get the wood situation. Too bad I loaded our deck up with Beech

The other wood is split and stacked outside. We have had trees down since last Summer, but not split until about month ago when we started researching woodstoves.

The the rain blows in on the stacked wood, how long before it dries?

I am afraid I am going to have to buy wood--bummer.

No more beech tonight I will only burn the poplar and see what I get. Should I get rid of some of my coals before tonights burn?

Click to expand...

Well, then leave it there. No sense in moving it, unless you need the room

With this wind, the wood should be dry from the rain with in a day or two. If you have it, or can get some, rolls of plastic will suffice for now, covering the top of the stacks. Weight it down with some of the wood. At least it'll be top covered. Separating the ash and single stacking it in the wind & sun (again top covered) should help to season it.

Beware of wood sellers selling "seasoned wood". You have wet wood, so you know what it looks & feels like. Check around. Maybe some Bio/Envi bricks to help.

See, you're learning already

ETA, you can add the Equinox to the title of this thread by editing your very first post.

Half Moon Ranch said:

ok, I get the wood situation. Too bad I loaded our deck up with Beech

The other wood is split and stacked outside. We have had trees down since last Summer, but not split until about month ago when we started researching woodstoves.

The the rain blows in on the stacked wood, how long before it dries?

I am afraid I am going to have to buy wood--bummer.

No more beech tonight I will only burn the poplar and see what I get. Should I get rid of some of my coals before tonights burn?

Click to expand...

This means your wood is wet and not seasoned at all. It will be challenging to get the stove going so you will need start off small and build a good bed of coals in order to maintain and build a large fire. Even then, you will need to crack the side door on reloads and will need to check the chimney often. Keep the hot red coals.

You should also re-split your wood into smaller splits when dealing with unseasoned, wet wood.

BrowningBAR said:

You should also re-split your wood into smaller splits when dealing with unseasoned, wet wood.

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+1. It will season faster.

Dealing with wet wood in a Hearthstone is very challenging and a pain, but it is not impossible to get it to work. It will take a lot more time, but you should be able to see 450-500 degrees if you spend enough time with it.

Run out to your local hardware store and pick up a real stove thermometer. Gather a lot of kindling (a LOT). Work in a lot of kindling and small splits. Create a good base of hot coals and add in more small splits. Slowly build up the fire. With enough fiddling, cracked side door, lots of kindling, and small splits, you should eventually have a nice roaring fire.

Welcome Crystal - as Dixie has mentioned, buying "seasoned" wood is not as simple as going to the store and buying a gallon of milk...it SHOULD be, but it is not. Many wood sellers SAY that they have seasoned wood, but are actually selling wood that was split a month ago. Be sure to ask what kind of wood it is, and when it was SPLIT. Also, smack several pieces together - they should make a loud CRACK, like banging two bowling pins, or baseball bats. Sorry to hear about your "wood woes". Make sure you get next years wood split and stacked NOW, so you dont ever get stuck with green wood again. Good luck.

Welcome! You'll get so much good advice here. This forum has been so helpful to us. Especially your story sounds so much like ours. Our equinox was our first soapstone stove and it took us a year to get the hang of it. We are still learning, but it does a great job of heating our house here in the frozen north. Run your stove for a while to get things worked out. We've found that top down burns are really helpful. We put in a pipe damper last year, it helps hold in the heat when it's really cold out, but we'd run the stove for a while before using the damper. Get some time with your stove first before you do anything. Here's the steps that work for us.

1. Top down burn seems to work well for us.
2. Run the first load hot,every day, to build up coals and reduce creosote. We leave the aircontrol wide open for the first load.
3. We don't use the damper too much, or too early. Mostly just when it is below zero outside.
4. Split the wood a little finer than it is delivered. If splitting is a problem, you can rent the big splitters, or purchase a small electric one for about $300.

Read, read, read. There's a lot of good info out there from really opinionated smart people. The canadians do a good job of sharing information. This is a good link.
http://www.bois-sec-chauffage-firewood.com/dry_firewood/burning_firewood_security.htm#An Alternative – Building a Top-Down Fire

Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:

Half Moon Ranch said:

ok, I get the wood situation. Too bad I loaded our deck up with Beech

The other wood is split and stacked outside. We have had trees down since last Summer, but not split until about month ago when we started researching woodstoves.

The the rain blows in on the stacked wood, how long before it dries?

I am afraid I am going to have to buy wood--bummer.

No more beech tonight I will only burn the poplar and see what I get. Should I get rid of some of my coals before tonights burn?

Click to expand...

Well, then leave it there. No sense in moving it, unless you need the room

With this wind, the wood should be dry from the rain with in a day or two. If you have it, or can get some, rolls of plastic will suffice for now, covering the top of the stacks. Weight it down with some of the wood. At least it'll be top covered. Separating the ash and single stacking it in the wind & sun (again top covered) should help to season it.

Beware of wood sellers selling "seasoned wood". You have wet wood, so you know what it looks & feels like. Check around. Maybe some Bio/Envi bricks to help.

See, you're learning already

ETA, you can add the Equinox to the title of this thread by editing your very first post.

Click to expand...

+1! Be careful when you are trying to buy well-seasoned wood now - you will likely end up with relatively unseasoned wood and be right back in the same boat. Do you know anyone who burns wood and has a good supply? Trade green (+ some) for seasoned? Buying quality wood is a tough thing - your primary goal for next year should be getting 3 years ahead on wood supply - then just replace what you burn. Also - remember - it takes some time to heat the amount of rock to hot temps - don't be worried if you aren't achieving fast hot temps from a cold start - might take an hour to get nice and hot. Cheers!

BrowningBAR said:

You should also re-split your wood into smaller splits when dealing with unseasoned, wet wood.

Click to expand...

+++

I was going to suggest splitting down that beech and stacking it fully outside. Beech is one of my favorite hotburning woods, and my experience is that it does season fairly quickly when it's well split down.

Half Moon Ranch said:

ok, I get the wood situation. Too bad I loaded our deck up with Beech

The other wood is split and stacked outside. We have had trees down since last Summer, but not split until about month ago when we started researching woodstoves.

The the rain blows in on the stacked wood, how long before it dries?

I am afraid I am going to have to buy wood--bummer.

No more beech tonight I will only burn the poplar and see what I get. Should I get rid of some of my coals before tonights burn?

Click to expand...

No, leave the coals as much as possible. They'll burn and it's a few more BTU. You want a couple inches of ash in the bottom of your firebox in any case.

No worries about rain. Water doesn't penetrate more than a fraction of an inch and dries out really fast. If you have room to stack it near your stove, it'll dry in a few hours. (It'll dry inside the firebox in minutes, so if you have a good fire going, I wouldn'lt even worry about water-wet wood.)

Absolutely do not worry about overfiring your stove. Soapstone stoves are really hard to overfire, and you don't have the superdry wood that would do it. What you need is more heat, not less.

The smaller you can get your wood split, the faster it will season and the easier and hotter it will burn. You can get very good small electric splitters that are all you need for this purpose. I got mine from Northline Express for about $250 on sale last winter and it's made life vastly easier. Nice straight stuff like polar and red oak, you can do it as easily by hand with a $30 maul from the hardware store.

If you have room to stash a lot of your unready firewood indoors, especially near the heat of the stove, it will "season" in very short order, a few weeks.

You can get by burning what you have, but only if you've also got a supply of thoroughly dry wood to get things started. If you've already got a good hot fire going, you can throw small splits (3-4 inches max) of only partly seasoned wood on it and it will burn decently.

My advice-- beg, borrow or otherwise get at least a half a cord of really well-dried wood. Maybe a neighbor? Or check with lumberyards in your area. The big one in mine is now selling kiln-dried firewood at approx. 20 percent moisture, and it burns like a dream. Drier than that isn't so good because it burns too hot too fast, and a good load of that really will risk overfiring your stove.

Get the rest of your wood split down really well. Get it off the porch and out in the wind and sun. Bring as much as you can indoors and stack near the fire. Every day it spends there will make it drier and more burnable. It may not fit well with your decor <ahem> but sometimes it comes down to being warm versus lookin' good. I'll take warm, but I'm in Vermont.

Congrats on your terrific stove. Once you get your wood sorted out and get the hang of it, you're going to absolutely love it.

About that thermometer-- yeah, you do want a decent stove thermometer, but from what you describe, it sounds like the kitchen one you're using now is probably pretty close, so I wouldn't waste time and money on rushing out to get a stove thermo right now this minute instead of just waiting for the one you ordered to arrive.

Took a break from building wood racks to log on because I found myself wondering if Crystal and Co. had gotten warm yet. Hopefully, they're either out looking for dry wood or snuggled up under a goosedown comforter.

Back to it . . .

Hello

When the door is open, If you hear sizzling steaming sounds then you have wet wood. That would explain everything!

What is the sound you hear?