First year Burners Update Thread

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Stax

Minister of Fire
Dec 22, 2010
941
Southeastern PA
As a first year burner, I want to update you all and see how other first year burners are doing. I've burned just about 2 cords of an Ash, Silver Maple & Birch mix. I'm making my way to my 3rd cord, all Ash. The insert has worked wonders this winter, barely allowing the heat pump to kick on. My electric usage has fallen off a cliff and I'm loving it. As you know, I love to number things.

1. Ash burns way hotter than Silver Maple.
2. Birch burns pretty hot and fast.
3. Too much kindling or too many smaller splits at the stop of the stove create excess coaling that doesn't allow the wood at bottom of stove to burn completely.
4. Burn times with the Declaration (4-6 hrs) aren't what the manufacturer states (12 hrs).
5. Certain family members avoid the stove room (too much heat!).
6. Loading first row N/S allows my stove to burn cleaner. E/W will block doghouse air and create charred wood in rear of box.
7. Ceiling and floors fans work great in distributing heat.
8. Sweeping your own flue is the way to go.
9. Spotlights are a great way to check that your stack and that you are burning clean.
10. The IR gun is probably the most used stove tool that I have.
11. I'll probably burn close to 3 cords this heating season.
12. My biggest challenge is loading the box (oddly shaped, really wise and short) for the most efficient, clean burn.
13. Heating with wood is a lot work, especially when you have short burn times like that. I'm okay with that, I love sticking it to the electric company.
 
Unlike many here, I am not a full time burner. We were always heavy recreational burners who wanted to be able to actually heat our house when we burned.

Since we only burn evenings and weekends (and this unusually warm winter) we've probably only burned a cord or so of wood.

I couldn't be happier with our insert and how it has turned our fires into a pleasurable experience.....

That is all.....
 
14. In case of power outages, be prepared to house the whole neighborhood. Tell them all there is a cover charge..... food and beer ;)
 
Well, I am pretty happy with my stove choice, even after finding Hearth.com and reading about all the other options I didn't know existed. About the only other stove I think would have gotten serious consideration is the Progress.

We heat exclusively with the stove, have ehhh wood and eco bricks. We've used a bit over a full cord, probably about 4 face cords, and about 50 or so packs of the bricks. We're going to buy a pallet of bricks this summer when TSC puts them on sale even though we should ahve seasoned wood then. They're nice for good long burns.

We've got at least 2-3 full cords seasoning from last summer for next heating season, and probably about that much in rounds scrounged or pending scrounging to CSS in the spring. We need to build a wood shed or two. You get more scrounging if you aren't fussy about species.

We've gotten into a routine with the stove chores and it's just second nature now. I hate visiting non-wood burners, I don't know where to sit (no stove to sit in front of), lol. We manage to keep the house @ 70-74 when we're home/awake and it gets to about 60-64 overnight (on purpose) or on days we don't reload in the am. We get burn times that are about on par with Lopi's advertised times if you consider burn time having usable coals on a relight.

(dry freshwater) Driftwood is an awesome kindling/warm day wood to burn. Burns hot and fast.
 
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