My First Overnight Burn !

[carlo]

Lost the power last night around 9:00pm. I told my wife we're gonna heat the house with the stove. My daughter also had 2 friends over. Usually I just use the stove to supplement my gas heat and enjoy the smell and flames from the stove. I usually only have 1 or 2 splits at the most in the stove.

From reading this forum, I decided to pack the stove on a nice bed of coals and turn the air down very low for a long overnight burn. In the past when I would try to turn the air down with a split or two, the fire would smolder. Well, I put 4 splits in (5/8 full stove) on a nice bed of coals and turned the air down. The fire was dancing (I guess the splits like friends). I kept waiting for it to go out, but it kept on going. Looked like 100 little ghosts flying around in the box. It was the most beautiful burn I have ever had. Didn't even wanna go to sleep, but eventually fell asleep. The stove which is on the main floor warmed the upstairs bedrooms at around 66 degrees .... not bad and very manageable. The fire lasted 4 hours, I set the alarm and then I reloaded with 3 more splits which lasted another 3 hours

My stove is a Hampton 300 ... 1.7 cu ft ..... I thought the time of the overnight burn considering the size of the stove was efficient, or do some of you folks think I should of got more. Maybe filling the stove 90% full would give me more time, but I was a little concerned with too much wood and little air that the fire would smolder when sleeping.

 

[ChillyGator]

You are well on the road to wood stove nirvana. With good coal bed, pack that puppy full of wood with the air open, let it blaze away for 10-15 min then turn down the air (maybe in two stages 5-10 minutes each) to reach that final light show. Burn till only coals remain (stove top temp 300-400) and repeat.

 

[sunglider]

Same stove here. I was initially timid about really loading it up. I finally put four good-sized splits in one night before bed and damped it down and didn't actually get to bed for another hour because I was mesmerized by the light show.

I also discovered that with a good coal bed, I can completely close the primary air and the secondary burn will just take off by itself like crazy.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Carlos, you made an excellent discovery. Now load that thing up full and enjoy it! Like ChillyGator said though, it is best to get the fire burning good before dialing down the draft. This will assure that the moisture is cooked out of the wood which your chimney will like very much.

 

[carlo]

Carlos, you made an excellent discovery. Now load that thing up full and enjoy it! Like ChillyGator said though, it is best to get the fire burning good before dialing down the draft. This will assure that the moisture is cooked out of the wood which your chimney will like very much.

I had a nice hot bed of coals, so I didn't think I needed to get the fire going good, but I will try that the next time, and I'll load the stove to 90% capacity. It just doesn't seem safe loading it real full, but I'll have to get over that.

And I'll load it like this during the early evening when I usually burn. One load should last the whole evening, instead of adding one split every hour or so. Plus the "flame show" vs the regular one split at a time should be great to watch while I'm awake.

I guess I've been really babying this stove ..... it's time to become a "wood burning man" ...lol

 

[carlo]

Same stove here. I was initially timid about really loading it up. I finally put four good-sized splits in one night before bed and damped it down and didn't actually get to bed for another hour because I was mesmerized by the light show.

I also discovered that with a good coal bed, I can completely close the primary air and the secondary burn will just take off by itself like crazy.

lol ..... I was trying to stay up as long as I could too, so I could watch the flames. I felt like Ralph Cramden trying to stay up and watch the TV he was sharing with Norton. I kept closing my eyes and then forcing them wide open..... lol ..... thank goodness everyone was asleep, they woulda been making fun of me.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

The problem if you don't let the fire get started good with lots of forcing flames is that you will tend to create creosote in the chimney. Yes, you can do a fire like you did but if you leave that draft full open for a bit, at least let the wood get good and charred then the stove will burn much cleaner and you will actually get a much better fire. So give it a try; even with a big bed of coals. That moisture has to get heated out of the wood to get the best fire.

 

[carlo]

The problem if you don't let the fire get started good with lots of forcing flames is that you will tend to create creosote in the chimney. Yes, you can do a fire like you did but if you leave that draft full open for a bit, at least let the wood get good and charred then the stove will burn much cleaner and you will actually get a much better fire. So give it a try; even with a big bed of coals. That moisture has to get heated out of the wood to get the best fire.

Gottcha ..... I think I'll be trying it tonite. It's gonna start getting warmer up here according to the weatherman, so let me get some practice in so I'm a pro for next season.

 

[firefighterjake]

Welcome to the Church of Successful Secondary Burning . . . we welcome you Brother Carlo as one who has seen the light . . .or rather the lights of the secondary burning . . . one of the three Holy Trinity: the Northern Lights (flickering bursts of flames in the top third of the firebox with very little to no flames on the wood), the BBQ Propane Grill (jets of blue flame shooting out of the secondary burn tubes) or the Bowels of Hades are in my Woodstove (pretty much self explanatory . . . lots of billowing flames coming out of the top third of the firebox . . . looks like your stove is about to go Chernobyl.)

To achieve this wood burning nirvana one needs many things: 1) well seasoned wood, 2) enough wood in the firebox, 3) hot enough firebox temps and 4) a firm control of the air. Once you have a nice bed of coals you can add wood to the firebox (I try to always add 3-5 sticks) . . . don't be afraid to fill up the box if you need the heat. Open the air. Get the flames roaring and once the temp on the stove climbs to around 400-500 you can start dialing back the air in quarter increments . . . closing it 3/4, 1/2, 1/4 and to reach the Great Hearth in the Sky Moment you can even in some cases turn it all the way down . . . and yea, thy eyes will be open to the wonders of secondary burning. Generally, you want to wait 5-10 minutes at each stage when you dial things down . . . just to make sure the fire doesn't suffocate.

Putting a measly 1-2 sticks of wood into the firebox is playing with the fire . . . you can do that in a campfire. To really get those high temps you need to add more wood to achieve secondary combustion . . . which is really the goal in most cases . . . since this is more efficient, producing more heat. That's not to say there isn't a time and place for putting in a stick or two . . . on days which are on the warmer side, but still a bit cool I may do this just to keep the fire going, but I also tend to run the fire hotter . . . better yet though is to get a nice, fast hot fire and then just let things go to the coaling stage . . . and then rebuild a fire if necessary many hours later . . . much more efficient.

Don't worry about the fire . . . your stove is built to contain fire . . . and most folks do not have wood that is too dry or seasoned too much unless they're loading it up with pallet pieces or slabwood that has been dried for years . . . just be sure to pay atention to the temps on the stove and flue . . . and be sure to turn the air control down . . . I think most problems with runaway stoves are when folks forget to turn down the air while they're taking a long, hot shower . . . not that this has ever happened to me last Fall . . . or the Fall before that . . . I'm just saying it could happen.

 

[carlo]

Well .... just checking in to let you know I've loaded the stove pretty tight on 2 occasions and had the air open full throttle during the first 15 minutes of the burn and then turned it down by 1/2 for another 10 minutes and then shut it down after that. My burn lasts 4 hours and gives me the best heat in the house I've had since I have the stove for 2 seasons so far.

I don't have a thermometer on the stove, but tonite with the stove loaded and the wood sitting on a bed of coals with the air wide open, i started smelling hot paint like I did on my first few burns when the stove was new. I quickly turned the air down and the smell went away. I guess I got that puppy pretty damn hot with all that wood in there ! I will never go back to 1 or 2 splits unless like someone said you want a small fire or if the weather isn't too cold. A loaded stove is much less maintenance, not as much ash mess and not as much wood splinter mess. I likey, and so does the wife.

 

[madrone]

Awesome! Your chimney will be cleaner, too.

 

[savageactor7]

Nice going carlo...real nice to have your own heat source in a power outage.

 

[pen]

A loaded stove is much less maintenance, not as much ash mess and not as much wood splinter mess. I likey, and so does the wife.

Congrats on re-learning your stove. I think lots of people don't realize the difference.

That quote is perfect. So many people think burning 24/7 is so much work. I'm fairly certain that on an average day, I spend about as much time hands on with my stove as I do brushing my teeth. Purely speaking day to day operations, I load the stove full in the morning, partially at 4pm and full at 8-9pm. After each load, I come back in a few minutes and turn the air down to the appropriate setting and am good to go.

Otherwise I only need to bring in wood once per week and that takes about 30 minutes. I remove ashes from the stove 1 to 2x per week at a total of a 5 minute commitment. And I clean my chimney more often than most at once every 4 weeks, and that only takes me about 20 minutes.

The key is having this little work will ONLY happen if the operator is using seasoned wood. If the wood is at all damp, be prepared to have to fiddle and mess with that frustrating black box for hours.

The real work comes in that first year when you need to get 2 years ahead on wood. After that even, it's not all that hard.

pen

 

[carlo]

I'm not a 24/7 burner, only during the blackout did I do my first 24/7 and overnite burn. Don't have enough wood to burn 24/7 unfortunately. But next season I will get more wood and burn much more. My goal for next season is to burn from morning wakeup till I go to sleep. I work from home, so I can control the whole thing. The problem with the overnite burn is that my stove is too small (1.7 cu Ft). It gives me 4 hours of good heat and probably 1 hour of decent heat as the coal bed dissolves. This is not enough to get me thru a nights sleep w/o waking up to refill. I'd rather not hassle with that, so I'll just turn up the gas heat at bedtime.

But from 8:30am - 11:30pm I'll have that stove filled up every 5 hours, which will involve loading it only 3 times a day (set it and forget it !) My burns these days are dependent on my wood pile. I have maybe 30 splits left, so i have to use them wisely. Loading up the stove is the wisest way to use them I have now found out. My gas bill was $500 in Jan and $390 in Feb. I used to get gas bills of $750+ in cold winter months before the stove. I believe Feb was colder than Jan, so as time goes by I'm learning the efficiencies of the stove. I'll bet by next winter by loading the stove 90% full and burning with the air down most of the day I can reduce my gas bill to under $300. Let me remind you again ..... I'm supplementing heating a 4,000 sq ft home with a 1.7 cu ft stove...... a bill of $300 ish is not bad at all. When the kids go down the basement the gas heats has got to go on down there, gas clothes dryer and setting thermostats to 65 account for most of my usage. Of course at bedtime the thermostats get raised a bit, and on extremely cold days the thermostats get raised, but outside of that it's pretty much the way I do it. I'm very comfortable with temps maintained at 67 degrees. If you asked me 2 years ago that the house would be maintained at 67 vs the 70 I was always accustomed to I woulda said you're crazy. But once you get used to it it's actually very refreshing as long as you have a heavier shirt on.

I got no problems paying the utility company. In fact, I like the utility company because I believe they provide a valuable service to people. What pisses me off when I get the utility bill is the gov't tax add ons to the bill. I will do everything in my power to not pay knee jerk taxes by our gov't to support a ridiculously overbloated entity. The stove has helped me with this endeavor. I've also switched my phone service from verizon to my cable provider because the taxes on my verizon bill were comical. Now ..... if I can only start a cash business ....... ?