Learning curve - karma

[dlaurinaitis]

So, last week I started feeling like I had my stove down pat and it is pretty much idiot proof. I even bragged to my wife, it doesn't even need much kindling, blah, blah, blah.

The past three days have been a nightmare, that I rightly deserve. I have gotten lazy with kindling, and cleaning. as a result, I have struggled to get it up to temp and get a bed of coals and a decent burn. I finally did tonight, after messing around for an hour. My issues, as far as I can tell are kindling, cleaning and possibly draft.

I need to find a better kindling method. At least a better FREE method. Sometimes, I light my big green egg smoker with a torch, or. a napkin dipped in vegtable oil. Does anyone do that with their stove? It seems that my fire isn't "taking off" as well as it did a week ago.

Could it be possible I need to clean my chimney already after only about 15 burns? My draft seems slightly worse than before, but that could just be in my head, or due to colder weather. Maybe even turning on my ceiling fans too early, screwing up the pressure in the room.

what do you guys do as far as cleaning? Just shovel out the ash? Do you vacuum it also? Can I possibly clog the air intake by not vacuuming all of the ash that builds up under the shelf in front by the glass?

I burn the stove like the instruction manual says to and I am burning one year seasoned cherry.

Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Colder weather should improve the draft. Unless you are getting smoke billowing out the door when you light it, I recommend more paper, more kindling and smaller splits. If you are getting any smoke out the door after you light it, adjust how far the door is open to get the air flow right until the fire takes off.

 

[branchburner]

MrF, what is your chimney setup (flue, liner, height, etc.)?

 

[Beowulf]

I vacuumed my stove out once in the last 7 years, when I re-fire bricked it.

I will occasionally vacuum ash off the ledge or in front of the stove, but I don't feel good about sticking the vac in the stove unless it has been cold for weeks and I really have a need to see "clean" in it.

 

[dlaurinaitis]

MrF, what is your chimney setup (flue, liner, height, etc.)?

Its about 12' high(I am in a ranch) metalbestos 6" double wall pipe.

Fyi, My overnight burn went well. I think I just need to do a better job with starting the fire.

Thanks for the replys.

 

[savageactor7]

Could be your wood is not properly seasoned...I dunno for sure.

But lets say the wood you burned WAS unseasoned well I suppose 15 or so fires could produce enough creosote to reduce your draft.

I would mirror the chimney and check it out. Just take out the pipe and angle a mirror toward the sky, you'll be surprised how effected that is in identifying any obstructions in the chimney.

For free kindling simply take any small cardboard cereal type box loosely stuff with newspaper and good kindling.

 

[branchburner]

A bit more height might help - the 3-2-10 rule: "A chimney shall extend at least 3 ft. above the highest point where it passes through a roof of a building and at least 2 ft. higher than any portion of a building within a horizontal distance of 10 ft."

 

[NH_Wood]

I vacuumed my stove out once in the last 7 years, when I re-fire bricked it.

I will occasionally vacuum ash off the ledge or in front of the stove, but I don't feel good about sticking the vac in the stove unless it has been cold for weeks and I really have a need to see "clean" in it.

I will echo the concern above about vacuuming the stove - if you are burning a lot, the chances of NOT have some remaining hot coals in the ash is low. You may set your vac on fire, leading to the possibility of a house fire. I'd keep the vac AWAY from the stove. Just shovel your ash into an ash bucket, and wait to vac the stove until after the heating season is over and the stove has been cold for many days. Cheers!

 

[My Oslo heats my home]

MrF, what is your chimney setup (flue, liner, height, etc.)?

Its about 12' high(I am in a ranch) metalbestos 6" double wall pipe.

I'm glad someone in the forum asked, this would be my first question too. You may have a weak draft, cold flu.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

So, last week I started feeling like I had my stove down pat and it is pretty much idiot proof. I even bragged to my wife, it doesn't even need much kindling, blah, blah, blah.

Your first mistake; bragging to your wife!



The past three days have been a nightmare, that I rightly deserve. I have gotten lazy with kindling, and cleaning. as a result, I have struggled to get it up to temp and get a bed of coals and a decent burn. I finally did tonight, after messing around for an hour. My issues, as far as I can tell are kindling, cleaning and possibly draft.

I need to find a better kindling method. At least a better FREE method. Sometimes, I light my big green egg smoker with a torch, or. a napkin dipped in vegtable oil. Does anyone do that with their stove? It seems that my fire isn't "taking off" as well as it did a week ago.

Yes, you need to find a better way of kindling that fire. For the first time in my life I read on this forum about someone actually using a torch to start a fire in a wood stove! Now I have learned that there are more folks like that. Okay, it will work but I'll leave the torch out in the barn. There are many ways to start a fire.

For years I used the simple crumbled up newspaper, kindling on top of that and then once it got going add some splits. It worked well for me for many years. I've since taken to using the Super Cedars. These thing work so well that my wife can even start a fire very easily. We break them into quarters and use a quarter of a Super Cedar per fire.

I lay two splits on the bottom forming a slight V in the wood. On that V I lay a super cedar in the center and light it. Then I add the kindling and on top of that add a couple more small splits. Then the door is closed and the fire gets going very easily. Many on this forum prefer the top-down method. It works okay.

btw, for kindling I made it out of soft maple, splitting it into approximately 1" x 1" size. I use soft maple because it is easy starting and hot burning.



Could it be possible I need to clean my chimney already after only about 15 burns? My draft seems slightly worse than before, but that could just be in my head, or due to colder weather. Maybe even turning on my ceiling fans too early, screwing up the pressure in the room.

In colder weather you will gain draft. Turning on the ceiling fans should not affect the fire. Turning on a fan on a range hood or running a drier or the overhead fan in the bathroom could have some effect.



what do you guys do as far as cleaning? Just shovel out the ash? Do you vacuum it also? Can I possibly clog the air intake by not vacuuming all of the ash that builds up under the shelf in front by the glass?

As for cleaning the stove, during the coldest part of winter we empty ashes maybe every 4th day. This time of the year it is maybe every 2 weeks. Also, when I say clean the ashes, we always leave at least 2" of ashes in the stove. The only time we completely clean the stove is usually some time in June. That is the annual cleaning and inspecting time.

There is no need to vacuum ashes from the stove other than the annual cleaning and then some times you don't need to.

On clogging the intake with ashes, I suppose it could be possible but if you think about ashes, how light they are and how, if you are dumping them outside, how they blow so easy, would it not also seem likely that the draft itself would keep the ashes from the inlet? Air is coming in there and not out. But, depending upon your stove, you may have to rake a few ashes away from the inlet and that would be easily done when loading the stove each time.



I burn the stove like the instruction manual says to and I am burning one year seasoned cherry.

If that cherry has been cut, and split for a year it should be ready to burn. Still, you do need to check the chimney. With someone new to burning wood I highly recommend checking the chimney once per month. That will give you peace of mind and would also catch the chimney in time if creosote was building up in the chimney. You could then clean it before it became a very serious problem. You do not want a chimney fire!


Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

Yes, sometimes we all can be our own worst enemy. But we usually have enough smarts to learn from mistakes.

Even though you state the cherry is a year old, many times we find new wood burners insisting their wood is dry. After all, they've been told that by their wood supplier. If you have purchased this wood, there is about a 99% chance the wood is not properly seasoned! If you buy wood, you need to buy it a year before you are ready to burn it. If it happens to be oak, you need to buy it 2-3 years before you will burn it.

Also, if a tree has been down for a year, but not cut to length and split, it will not dry. The same thing goes for standing dead trees. Indeed part of a standing dead tree might be ready to burn but in most cases, the bottom part of the tree still has a lot of moisture in it. The only way to dry it is to cut it and split it. After splitting it should be stacked out in the open where wind will hit the sides of the stack. The wood also needs to be elevated off the ground. This will insure good air circulation to dry the wood.

Do read other posts on this forum on how folks run their stoves. Generally the accepted way is to build the fire and leave the draft wide open until the fire gets established or the wood becomes a bit charred. Then the draft is partially closed. This can take from 5 minutes to maybe 20 minutes depending upon your wood and your draft. You will then continue to close the draft a bit more as the fire requires. Normally when you have a good fire you can dial the draft down to maybe 10% open; sometimes more, sometimes less. You have to experiment with it.

 

[firefighterjake]

Random thoughts . . .

As usual I agree with Dennis . . . just re-read everything he wrote and you should be all set.

Vacuuming: If you are going to vacuum out your stove do so once . . . in the Spring . . . after not using the stove for several days . . . as others have said, unless you are using a special made ash vac there is a fire risk if you suck up a hot coal. Not only that . . . but you want to have 1-2 inches of ash in your firebox . . . it insulates the firebox and preserves coals.

Cleaning: I have an ash pan on my stove. I clean out the stove 1-2 times a week . . . but again I always leave 1-2 inches of ash in the firebox.

Making a fire sounds simple . . . all you need are three things in the fire triangle -- heat, fuel and oxygen. The problem is you need to have the right amount of all those things in the right ratios. Assuming your wood is seasoned . . . you will want to have good, decent kindling and a bunch of it . . . there are lots and lots of possible kindling sources . . . buying Super Cedars is one solution . . . or you can make up your own kindling by whacking some wood into kindling sized pieces or even better find some scrap wood in your garage or basement. As Solar mentioned . . . be generous with the kindling. Kindling is usually pretty cheap to come by.

By using a bunch of kindling you will be able to achieve the second goal of setting a fire -- heat. Well technically, that is accomplished with a match or lighter . . . but to get a fire to really take off you need to raise the ignition temp of the wood . . . and you can do this by first lighting the easy to ignite paper . . . and then if you have a small cereal box as mentioned . . . the heat from the paper will raise the temp enough so that the combustible gases in the cardboard will off gas and catch on fire . . . and this will cause the kindling to off gas and catch on fire and providing you have enough and the wood is seasoned the kindling will set the splits on fire . . . kind of a chain reaction dealy thing going on here.

So if you've got plenty of good fuel and you've got the heat the only other component you're missing is the air -- or more specifically the oxygen. Gotta love those Os . . . we need it, animals need it and even fire needs it to survive. Make sure your fire is getting plenty . . . cracking the fire door a bit and leaving the air control open all the way to start your fire helps. Of course, having a good and free chimney to keep the draft going also helps as the draft is what helps to bring in the fresh Os . . .

It's possible to have a chimney clog up in 15 burns . . . but not likely . . . unless you have been burning too cooly and burning lots of crappy, wet wood. That said . . . it never hurts to take a look at the chimney and see what things look like . . . just to rule this problem out.

Also, as mentioned . . . usually the draft improves with cooler weather . . .

This all said . . . I would take Solar's recommendations and Backwoods' recommendations . . . try using more kindling and follow their advice.

 

[branchburner]

Its about 12' high(I am in a ranch) metalbestos 6" double wall pipe.

If the burning tips don't give the fix, try adding a temporary 3' section of cheap pipe. Manual for the current model Answer says 15' min. chimney, so that may be the answer.

How close are you to meeting the 3-2-10 rule?

 

[dlaurinaitis]

Its about 12' high(I am in a ranch) metalbestos 6" double wall pipe.

If the burning tips don't give the fix, try adding a temporary 3' section of cheap pipe. Manual for the current model Answer says 15' min. chimney, so that may be the answer.

How close are you to meeting the 3-2-10 rule?

I meet the rule. My installer checked my draft and said it was great. I just thought it may have diminished. It was fine before the past couple days.

By the way, my torch comment was meant as sarcasm to my situation.

Thanks for all the replys and info!

 

[Beowulf]

Its about 12' high(I am in a ranch) metalbestos 6" double wall pipe.

By the way, my torch comment was meant as sarcasm to my situation.

Thanks for all the replys and info!

Sarcasm aside, a little plumbers torch with a pizeoelctric ignition button is pretty handy to light a fire... I wouldn't be with out it.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Yup! Here is another fellow who starts his fire with a torch! Glad it works for you Beowulf.

 

[tlingit]

Try a top down fire. We've just made the switch and they really are working well for us. Look at this photo essay and there is lots of info on the intertubes about them. http://www.woodheat.org/tips/topdownsteps.htm