Short splits- short burn times....

Remkel said:

Have the F600 fired up and am getting a little frustrated on the burn times-I have a few rows of 18" wood that I need to go through, and the F600 is eating them alive! I have a bunch of 20"plus stuff waiting, but it will take a while to get there- well, perhaps not too long the way it is going through wood right now.

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Are you packing it full? Are you shutting the are all the way down? What type of burn times are you getting?

The type of birch we have around here burns up just like paper......

How is your chimney? Are you lined with SS or is it an open chimney with no liner?

I am amazed that you can tell the difference between 18 inch and 20 inch splits - it seems like such a small difference in total volume of wood that you wouldn't notice a consistent difference. Maybe the difference is not really the length of the splits, but the quality or species of the wood. Are your splits all very uniform and all about the same size and species? My wood is a lot of different species, different sizes, etc., and each load burns differently from the previous one. No way I'd notice a 10% difference in the amount of wood per split.

Shari said:

The type of birch we have around here burns up just like paper......

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Siver Maple is not the best, fill it up with that Oak and see what happens

I have lots of 16" splits that I cut before I knew what stove I was going to purchase, thats not your problem

Random thoughts . . .

Lord forgive me for this one . . . As a male I would argue that there isn't much of a difference when your wood is only two inches shorter than what you would like it to be. . . . Yes . . . I am talking about firewood. I burn chunks all the time and get good, long burns.

That said . . . it sounds like you're doing everything right with the air control, good fuel, etc. . . . have you loaded 'er to the gills and tried a burn?

In regards to the thermo placement . . . the Oslo said to put one on one of the four corners . . . I experimented a bit and when I got my IR thermo shot the temps many times and in my own case found the corner that was consistently the hottest for me was the right rear . . . other folks have had other corners be hotter for them.

Remi,

I've noticed that I get the longest burns when I get the primary closed at the earliest point in the cycle, as long as the secondaries are firing well. I've noticed that if I forget and leave the primary at 1/2 or 1/3 open for longer than needed, I'll go through the load faster. Not sure if this is enough to see a dramatic difference in burn times. Also, how are you defining your burn time? What is your stove temp after 5-6 hours? Still a big load of hot coals throwing heat? I can burn my Manny during winter in 8 h cycles, and only in the coldest of days will I burn coals down early to load more often (4 loads per day). Are you trying to push a ton of heat fast since it's a basement install? Good luck buddy and Happy Thanksgiving!

Cheers,

Jacques

I load my firelight CB with 14" (16"max) splits to make it easy to load North/South. I get all night fires with pine alone. I manage the primary air pretty carefully. With a full firebox, a long fire will give us 3 to 4 hours of of primary flame, up to an hour of residual secondary, and four hours of very useful heat after that. 'Still have clean glass in the morning. That seems like a satisfactory all-nighter, with pine. Heck, the coals will relight a new load of wood after 12 hours.

Regards,

Dexter said:

I load my firelight CB with 14" (16"max) splits to make it easy to load North/South. I get all night fires with pine alone. I manage the primary air pretty carefully. With a full firebox, a long fire will give us 3 to 4 hours of of primary flame, up to an hour of residual secondary, and four hours of very useful heat after that. 'Still have clean glass in the morning. That seems like a satisfactory all-nighter, with pine. Heck, the coals will relight a new load of wood after 12 hours.

Regards,

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Dexter-I'm impressed, I dont think any way in hell I could do that with my summit and pine.

Dexter said:

I load my firelight CB with 14" (16"max) splits to make it easy to load North/South. I get all night fires with pine alone. I manage the primary air pretty carefully. With a full firebox, a long fire will give us 3 to 4 hours of of primary flame, up to an hour of residual secondary, and four hours of very useful heat after that. 'Still have clean glass in the morning. That seems like a satisfactory all-nighter, with pine. Heck, the coals will relight a new load of wood after 12 hours.

Regards,

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Wow :bug: Your stove is it made like the f-600 ? I don't have much pine but that sounds like a great burn.

Hey guys,

For me, an all-nighter means there are hot enough COALS to relight in the morning. If you add up the hours of burn, plus residual useful heat, I get about 8 of heat -- not flame. I figure when it gets under 180 on the thermometer, it not really heating any more. When I come down in the morning on a really cold winter morning, the house is really chilly after 12 hours -- like, 60 at the other end of the heating area. The real "epiphany" with this stove came with N/S loading, and starting to cut the air early (but almost never quite all the way.)

BTW, the pine is beetle-kill lodgepole. It tends to be on the denser end of the pines, and it's not very sappy, so you can stop the air down pretty well and keep clean glass. The stove is really big, and is virtually identical to the F-600cb. Note that Remkel reports 4-6 hour burns. I assume he means visible flame. That's not shabby at all, and is better than I get. I think that's probably because my elevation is 5350 ft.

Regards,

So Dexter you have better luck with shorter pieces N/S than longer pieces E/W?

"Oldspark"

I tried loading n/s to mitigate an "ash against the glass problem". But 16" is max length this way. It worked, but burned up quicker (hotter), so I started shutting the air quite a bit sooner. That also worked. I burner almost exclusively north south.

More importantly than the length of the splits, is the girth of the splits. smaller, thinner pcs will burn fast. Try loading larger ones, and you will see a def extension in burn times.