firts fire of the fall,your best method for fireing storage

[sweetheat]

Is this the right way to go? any input is helpful. do I do small fires to start with over a couple of days to bring storage temps up to 160 °F 180 °F adding more wood each new fire. zone will not need heat after the thermometer and slab are warm. thanks sweetheat

 

[flyingcow]

I'm newer at this than you, but i just fire it up, bring storage up to 165 in the summer and 180 in the winter. But i assume you're able to satisfy your zones(slab and t-stat) fairly quickly, so is that the question? Short fires will mean more wide open burns, which obviously is a more efficient burn. Tonight my tank was 110ish. house was chilly, started fire. Plan on driving tank up to 180ish, but house will be satisfied fairly quickly. The innova will idle a little, but I'll take that over doing another fire.

 

[stee6043]

As long as you're not idling excessively I see no reason not to stuff the firebox full after you have a good fire going and let her scream. It takes a long time to get cold water storage up to useable temps. It takes me 2 days of burning all day to get my 1000 gallons up to snuff. That's starting with water temps of 59 degrees and ending with 180 top to bottom on my tanks...

 

[Nofossil]

I'll usually wait until storage is pretty much depleted. I'll build a fire that will heat the house if necessary, heat the hot tub, superheat the DHW tank, and I'll load it enough to get storage hot enough to last a couple of days. I'm burning once every two or three days at this time of the year. Typical fire might be 5 to 7 hours of burn time.

Below is a graph of my system for the last three days. Near the bottom you can see the system switching between 'wood mode' and 'tank mode'. My basic approach is to build hot fires and run flat out when necessary, and to use storage to space out fires for my convenience.

 

[stee6043]

Love that graph. The "crazy up and down" when your boiler is running is exactly what I see. Very neat to see it in graph form...

 

[kabbott]

To bring my storage up to temp for the first time in the fall I just burn when it is convenient, Just like I do in the dead of winter. I could burn wide open
for prolly 2 days to get my tank hot but no need to do it all in one shot. This is only my second season with storage but I have heated with or lived
in a home heated with nothing but wood (or coal for a few years) since 1979. I am no longer a slave to filling the stove and I don't care if it was LESS
efficient, I am not going back to filling the stove when it needs it. I do when I want to..... So in short I say do what works for you...end of problem

As far as the rest of the season I fire in the evenings every day or 2 days(or 3 when mild) This is the best part of storage as far as I am concerned
Wood savings aside the convenience of not feeding the beast 3 or 4 times a day is priceless.