oslo almost got away today

[tonymm]

Got home today from being away for five days. 56 degree house=not happy wife. Started small fire then loaded E/W, N/S and then E/W thinking faster fire. Backed it down all the way at 550 degrees center normally what I do. Then will climb to 600 degrees. Today temp keep climbing got to 800 center 680 back corners ir temp gun. Opened side door moved wood E/S only. After that the temp started to come down. First time this happen first time loaded like this. Went through 1 1/2 cords last winter in this stove with most of it burning 24/7 no problems. Was the N/S E/S the culprit.

 

[begreen]

Hard to say without being there. Sounds like it should have been backed down a little sooner. But it could have been too much air space between the splits, too dry wood, too small splits, etc. Also make sure the ash pan door is tightly closed.

Was the wife happy you were home and the house got toasty quickly?

 

[adrpga498]

That could call for an amber alert if it got away. Gezzzz that was a poor attempt at humor now that I read it.

 

[BrotherBart]

That E/S loading confuses the stove. :coolsmirk:

 

[tonymm]

I think your right too much air space.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I'm going to have to get a compass to see how I load my stove. %-P

 

[Battenkiller]

I just checked mine with a compass. It was running NNW, then SWbyW, then WSW.... and burning awesome! A little on the fringe of hairy, but I'm on top of it. Had to get it raging, we're babysitting the grandkids and the house dipped to 58º this morning. A 3-year old princess will let you know it's too cold faster than any wife will.

Up to 72º now, so time to open the top load door, reach down in there with my fire management tool, shift those logs all to E-W and shut 'er down before I'm cleaning molten cast iron off the basement floor.

When I finally get an EPA stove, I'm gonna miss how you can abuse the crap out of these old stoves.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Batten, you can abuse most anything! But I doubt you will abuse a good stove. You are too smart for that foolishness.

 

[firefighterjake]

Hard to say without being there. Sounds like it should have been backed down a little sooner. But it could have been too much air space between the splits, too dry wood, too small splits, etc. Also make sure the ash pan door is tightly closed.

Was the wife happy you were home and the house got toasty quickly?

While it could have been anything from wood that was wicked dry to small splits I am guessing that it simply was the case where having extra space between the splits (due to the north-south loading . . . in the Oslo loading the stove this way would result in quite short chunks of wood) led to the fire cranking up faster . . . something I do this time of year by using my chunks in a similar fashion . . . however the key is to watch the temps and realize that more surface area/space means that things will move a lot faster . . .

Which is why having a flue thermometer is wicked handy . . . when dealing with smaller splits (my chunks) and punky wood (my punks) I tend to react a lot quicker and dial down the air sooner rather than later . . .

 

[vvvv]

2much air between splits = 2 much surface area of the wood to gasify