I'm using my new Clydesdale for the first few times this week (had 5 fires so far). I'm trying to understand what I may be doing wrong. I've been reading these forums for hours, and searching. I even watched the crazy canadian fire video (which was helpful). I still think I'm missing something. Here's what I've done today:
Left remaining 1/2 inch of ash from lastnight's weak fire in place. Build a teepee with small split kindling and about 1/4th of a starter log and some of that cool twistied and tied newspaper I saw in the Canada video. One tiny match and I had a good blaze going with the door closed and damper open. It burned well for almost 45 minutes and about that time my blower kicked on. I think I had good success with starting the fire. Not complaints here. After the flames were gone, I tried to load the firebox.
I raked the coals forward. I put in 5 logs east-west at the back of the box stacked 2 high coming forward with one across the rear of the coal bed (maybe 1/2 into the coals). The splits were about 3 inches at their thickest. Closed the door and watched with the damper full open. That was about 3 hours ago and I've had a pretty slow burn which is now almost all coals. During this time I never had a single log completely engulfed. Most of the time there was flame on about 1/3 or 1/2 of the closest log to the coals. There were times with flame between the front log, and the next log behind it. But the wood never burned like I expected it to. With the door cracked a little, it will easily blaze up to a full burn, but I know it's not right to do it this way, and there's the potential for overfiring. All morning today I've left the door completely closed. I've played with the damper trying to get the secondary burn going with no luck at all. Unless the damper is full or 90% open, the fire starts to smoulder. A few times I had to open the door to rearrange the logs to get them to burn better, and had a significant amount of smoke come out the front once I had the door open wide enough to work with the logs.
The wood is a mix of cherry, oak and maple and seems reasonably well seasoned. There is no hissing, bubbling ends, or poping at all, and I'm not getting smoke out of the chimney (or very very little).
I would appreciate any tips you all could offer. I'd like to be able to load the logs for an extended burn of 4-5 hours without messing with it. Also, would like to keep the smoke down when I open the door (though perhaps I shouldn't need to open it, if its loaded right). How do the subsequent logs in the rear burn, once the ones towards the front are coals? Is the fire just supposed to catch as the coal bed moves backward with each log's burn completing?
How do I get the entire log to burn, instead of 1/2 of it. The log is laying on a complete coal bed, but it seems like the fire is concentrated on just one part of the log. I seem to NOT be able to build a big enough (hot enough) fire to get the secondary burn.
So, there's enough rambling for now. Sorry for the disjointed post. I'll be quiet now and hope someone can offer assistance.
-Nick
Left remaining 1/2 inch of ash from lastnight's weak fire in place. Build a teepee with small split kindling and about 1/4th of a starter log and some of that cool twistied and tied newspaper I saw in the Canada video. One tiny match and I had a good blaze going with the door closed and damper open. It burned well for almost 45 minutes and about that time my blower kicked on. I think I had good success with starting the fire. Not complaints here. After the flames were gone, I tried to load the firebox.
I raked the coals forward. I put in 5 logs east-west at the back of the box stacked 2 high coming forward with one across the rear of the coal bed (maybe 1/2 into the coals). The splits were about 3 inches at their thickest. Closed the door and watched with the damper full open. That was about 3 hours ago and I've had a pretty slow burn which is now almost all coals. During this time I never had a single log completely engulfed. Most of the time there was flame on about 1/3 or 1/2 of the closest log to the coals. There were times with flame between the front log, and the next log behind it. But the wood never burned like I expected it to. With the door cracked a little, it will easily blaze up to a full burn, but I know it's not right to do it this way, and there's the potential for overfiring. All morning today I've left the door completely closed. I've played with the damper trying to get the secondary burn going with no luck at all. Unless the damper is full or 90% open, the fire starts to smoulder. A few times I had to open the door to rearrange the logs to get them to burn better, and had a significant amount of smoke come out the front once I had the door open wide enough to work with the logs.
The wood is a mix of cherry, oak and maple and seems reasonably well seasoned. There is no hissing, bubbling ends, or poping at all, and I'm not getting smoke out of the chimney (or very very little).
I would appreciate any tips you all could offer. I'd like to be able to load the logs for an extended burn of 4-5 hours without messing with it. Also, would like to keep the smoke down when I open the door (though perhaps I shouldn't need to open it, if its loaded right). How do the subsequent logs in the rear burn, once the ones towards the front are coals? Is the fire just supposed to catch as the coal bed moves backward with each log's burn completing?
How do I get the entire log to burn, instead of 1/2 of it. The log is laying on a complete coal bed, but it seems like the fire is concentrated on just one part of the log. I seem to NOT be able to build a big enough (hot enough) fire to get the secondary burn.
So, there's enough rambling for now. Sorry for the disjointed post. I'll be quiet now and hope someone can offer assistance.
-Nick
