burn times?

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paulie

New Member
Nov 27, 2007
209
SW Mich.
I know it's been ask before...but when we speak of burn times, is that the length of time a fire is burning? or how long we keep hot coals in box? the homestead claims 8 hour burn time, 12 hour of heat. wondering where I stand on my "actual" burn time. I can have enough hot coals in the morning to restart a fire, if I load her up heavy at night. So is this a 8 hour burn?
 
There is no official definition of this from either the stove manufacturers nor the users. Seems most use from startup until there are no longer enough coals for a restart. I prefer to use temperature and not the fire burning. Maybe a reasonable measure would be from reaching 200 degrees on the stovetop until the stovetop comes back down to 200 degrees. How are you doing with the Homestead?
 
begreen, that sounds like a reasonable measurement...200 to 200 .And in that case,I am doing good on my burn time. And I love the Homestead....this soapstone isn't as tricky as some make it sound. Actually, I find it very easy to get her up to temp, and it just burns great for me. It EASILY heats my 1400 sq ft, and with 21 ft ceilings, and the whole front of the house being glass....I am very impressed with this stove !!
 
Sounds great. What would you estimate your 200 - 200 burn times are averaging?
 
not sure, haven't really ckecked that time line, but, if she is at 450* at 10:00 pm, it will still be 200* at 4:30 - 5:eek:o am....house is still 68* or so, thats with night time temps in the teens, I am happy! keeps the furnace off ! and I have a external chimney....like I said, I really love this stove ! highly recommened for some one with this sq footage. and ofcourse, my home is very air tight, and well insulated, burning well seasoned wood.
 
Hey Guys, I am with you on the burn time question. If I load the stove at 8PM and get it up to temp (500 stovetop) then top it off at 10PM; I can have a stovetop temp of 200 at 8AM no problem. The house temp is going to drop from 70 to 66 by then. From experience I would say that is good and normal.
It seems that there are really two burn times we are dealing with. First there is the time between loads to maintain a good high stovetop. My experience with the Mansfield is 5-7 hours max. At that point, you need to load again if you want to remain constant. Then there is the other time when you are going to burn down to all coals, have 200 stovetop and begin with a new reload. This latter option requires some time to get back up to a good stovetop and heat output.
My experience with cast iron and steel plate is was similar. Just that you had a faster deterioration of the stovetop after the inital burn was done and would then get a lower stovetop faster with the coal burn down stage. But, the time spent gettng back up to temp was less.
Another thing you have to make time for with all these stoves is coal burn time. At some point you need to take a bit of time to burn down the coals that accumulate. I've taken to doing this when I get home in the evening. I'll pull them all forward, make sure the air hole is not restricted by ash, crack the door a bit and let them burn. After a few hours, I'm ready to start the cycle again. This gets my stovetop back up to 300+ and gets rid of the coals so I can make a good load for the late eve. and overnight burns.
I guess, this isn't rocket science, but it does take experience. Woodstove burning is as much an art as it is a science......
 
I resemble that header!!!
 
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