How do you stack?

I stack with all wood separated by species. I label it with the date it was stacked and by species. For one, I like to see how different woods perform. Two, I want to know if I'm grabbing a chunk of hardwood or softwood. Three, I want to know how long that split has been there seasoning. I aint anal bout much, but when it comes to my farwood , I reckon I am.

Looking on the Highvalley site they quote 72% efficient so maybe not as efficient as you thought.

http://www.highvalleystoves.com/woodstoves.php

I think insulation must be the big difference as that amount of wood would last use at least 2 days on the 15 kw stove and 3 days on the 5kw. We normally start a fire at 4pm and the last log goes on at 8 pm. The house then retains the heat for the rest of the day.

Bragging about our wood and showing it off is what we boys do best. More than one specie of wood at times.

Thats pretty impressive if you can only run a fire half the day and keep the heat in the house the rest of the day. How long after the 8pm loading is your stove still putting out heat?

keep in mind I am heating 2500sqft with this stove some times.

ur right I looked it up 72% I thought it was closer to 80% but did think that I saw the list of all stoves and non cats were like 80 and cats were 90? Oh well shows my memory

16" is the "standard" length here in the US. Of course if you cut your own wood, you can cut at whatever length fits in the stove. 6" or 8" lengths in a kiln, yeah, that'll get pretty dry in a hurry.

Fire normally stays in overnight and then we dont bother to mend it in the morning. Being an old stone house the stove is surrounded by a floor to ceiling stone fireplace which acts like a masonry stove retaining heat and giving it off all day.

This my first season stacking by Btu output. Hard woods 21-30 btu goes in one pile. 16 -20 btu go in another pile. Guess I could also say it is organized by dry time. I'm not sure it is useful. I'll find out in a few years.

huh u mean "21-30" MC? or 16-20MC?

By btu/heat content of wood by the chord. I base it on the chart on chimney sweeps BTU chart

http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm

That I like!

I stack three rows deep, about 4.5'-5' high and overall about 95' long on pallets. The wood id stacked chronologically with usually ends up being by species as well because that's the way the scrounges come. I'm a wood snob, so there is no "shoulder wood" to keep separate, and being three years ahead now, species isn't that important either.

my answer is: poorly...

Oops.

ive had some of those spills!

Yup...been there

Guess some guys are sensitve about the size of their wood .

I buy my wood by the grapple truckload and as it is 100% Ash, no worries about sorting by species. 12 cord fits in my shed and what doesn't fit, gets stacked on pallets outside only to be moved to the shed later.

I take from one side of the shed at a time, so the wood on one side could be from a different year or the same year only to have spent more time outdoors waiting to get laid up.

My Wife preffers shorter wood.....has a hard time loading bigger stuff.....she's got some thing about "the wood is'nt supposed to touch the firebrick"

I would be cutting it short then

HAHA I could say some things!!

But what does touching the firebrick mean? It has to sit on it and then touch the walls?

My wife thinks it shouldn't touch the walls either. I cut the wood 2 inches shorter.

As for sitting on it, there is a bed of ashes.

haha!

The added benefit of shorter splits is that drying times can be drastically reduced. With the use of our solar kilns the timber is below 20% MC within 3-6 months depending on time of year. It also allows drying of wet timbers like willow and poplar without it going mouldy.

John,
by solar kiln, do you mean a greenhouse or polytunnel ?.

Billy.