It's Official

I'm now a wood burner. First fire in my new stove. I can't tell you how cool this is. When those secondaries kicked in, it was an awesome sight.

You will always remember your first time......

So, quick question: Is it normal to have no real flame on the splits? It looks like the secondaries are flaming right along with lazy flames (like I read about), but it looks like the wood itself is just smoldering. I'm sure it's being consumed, just looks wierd.

Trog04 - nice pics. I'm trying to play guess the stove with tired eyes and a small screen here - what is that unit?

Jack +1 on the "first time" lol. My old original stove - a small Drolet "Little Sawman" that I grabbed from a clearance rack at a Home Depot while visiting family out of town. Heated the original cabin (which is becoming the kitchen in the never-ending renovation / project). It was like a rite of passage. I even recall the flyer I used (Canadian Tire) to help light it up for the first time. That was many years ago. Sorry I'm getting a little verklempt....

Bag of Hammers, it is a Napoleon 1900. My son helped me split some kindling and layed it out in the stove. Great times. I look forward to years of this.

Pretty cool, isn't it? My wife calls them afterburners.

Beautiful. Getting your son to help is the icing on the cake. IMHO making a fire is way up there on the father-son to-do list. You guys will both remember those moments forever.

Awesome sight indeed! Congrats and welcome to the addiction!

Awesome.....congrats

Yes . . . very typical. I tend to either get the lazy flames and intense secondaries above or little to no flames on the wood and "bursts" of secondary burn (typically this is when my air is right on the border of being too low) . . . other folks get the BBQ gas grill effect.

So long as the secondaries are working that is fine. That part is similar to the cat stoves where we can get no flame at all yet get lots of heat.

Stove looks nice.

Way to go...now you went and got yourself addicted to this madness LOL.

Welcome aboard from a newbie myself.

The lack of flame is because the splits are being heated to a point where they are generating flammable gasses, but the gasses are only burning at the top because you have restricted the primary air. Most of us forget this until we start using a woodstove, but no solid material "burns"...only the gases they generate burn. With an open fireplace (or older stove), the gases burn right at the surface of the wood, not 3-4" above it.