Overnight Wood?

[soupy1957]

I was re-reading an old thread moments ago, and one of you folks made a comment that I think is worth re-visiting. It was stated that "overnight wood" was used at night (makes sense......lol).

But it begged the question........is there a type or size or condition for the wood burned overnight that is more suited for the long unattended hours? I haven't taken the time yet (and I should) to learn the different kinds of wood by sight, so if any of you are simply going to say: "use Maple" or "use ____________" then I'm gonna be lost until I get better educated.

Suffice to say it should be a hardwood, (and I rely on my trusted wood delivery person to ensure that every piece he gives me is truly "hardwood"), but does size matter? Round, unsplit -vs- split?

I'd imagine that a good flaming fire before I go to bed, with the added BIG chunk or two, would be logical, but is it that simple? Are there any rules to follow for the way the wood is stacked for an overnight burn? (I can't stack NS in my stove; not with 18" pieces anyway).

-Soupy1957

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Soupy, using the term "hardwood" can be misleading to some folks. Technically, if a tree loses its leafs in the fall, it is a hardwood. If it stays green, it is softwood. Therefore, one wood seller might sell all hardwood with it being, say, oak and hard maple. He is correct in that it is hardwood. Yet another might sell popple and cottonwood and say it is hardwood. He too is correct. Yet, which wood seller would you rather purchase from? Here's one more. One seller sells both hard maple and soft maple. Are these both hardwoods? Yes.

Easy answer on the "night" wood is to burn your best wood at night. Put in some larger splits as they burn a bit slower than if you use all small splits. Oaks are excellent for holding fire as are hickory, locust, hard maple, etc. Burn the softer woods during the daytime.

A couple or even one round is good as rounds burn a bit slower than splits. In our stove we like to put a soft maple in the bottom front and a large piece in the bottom rear. That bottom rear piece quite often is a round. Then we fill the rest of the firebox with ash. The reason we fill with ash is because all of our ash trees are dead or dying. If we had oak then we'd fill with oak. If we had hickory, we'd fill with hickory, etc.

On filling the stove for night; fill it and leave the draft open until a good fire is established (you wood will be charred good). Then dial the draft down. How far depend upon your stove, your fuel and your installation. For example, on our stove, after 10-15 minutes (sometimes shorter, sometimes longer) we dial the draft down to 1 (scale of 1-4). Another 10 minutes or thereabouts we'll dial it down to .25 and go to bed. Next morning, rake the coals and put some fast starting wood in the stove (here that means soft maple).

Most folks will use some variant of the above and everyone has to experiment with their particular stove and fuel to get the right combination. For example, some will split their wood very small because they don't have the proper time for drying and this speeds things up. But small splits burn much faster than large splits. Or one night you might burn some locust and the next night burn some yellow poplar. In that case, you would tend the fire a bit different each night.

As you can see, it is a learning process but just bear in mind that it is not a hard learning process (usually). The number one factor is always the fuel. Good fuel = good fires. Poor fuel = Unhappy wood burner.

Good luck.

 

[begreen]

Nice explanation Dennis. I'm relieved that this is a good hearth question. When I first saw the topic I thought we had been spammed with a Viagra commercial. :coolcheese:

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Well, maybe Viagra has its place too?!

 

[fossil]

Hardwood lasting more than four hours is a serious condition. Seek professional attention. :ahhh:

 

[begreen]

Well, maybe Viagra has its place too?!

I wouldn't know.

 

[rdust]

I typically use my "best" wood for cold overnights. Last season that was hickory, this season will be the same. The 11/12 season will probably be white oak and black locust.

 

[heatwise]

wood i use for overnite burns are just large splits or pieces that wont split well because they are from a section of the tree where a branch was. i typicaly sort these out and stack them close to the house. i need only about 100 pieces i could call overnight wood. today when splitting some oak i found one such piece and decided to leave it alone and will add it to the collection.pete

 

[North of 60]

My overnight burn plan just basically consists of loading it with the pine or spruce splits from my wood pile just as I would do at any other time the stove requires a re-load. Nothing special.

 

[Swedishchef]

As Dennis mentioned, each person has to experiment with their stove to find out the best way to obtain their overnight burns (concerning draft, how far open do you leave the primary air intake, etc). However, when it comes to wood the easiest way to understand (in my opinion) is as follows:

While all wood puts out heat and have about the same energy content per pound; only the densities of different wood types vary. Overall, wood has an elemental composition of about 50% carbon, 6% hydrogen, 44% oxygen, and trace amounts of several metals. Some types of wood are "packed" much tighter than the others. The heat given off by wood is simply the chemical reaction of combustion of these fibers. The main difference regarding the length of a fire is the density (hence why hardwoods last longer: they are much denser).


Andrew

 

[Dakotas Dad]

Being as I am getting older, I don't try for overnight wood anymore. Since I know I am going to be up around 3am.. I just plan for...

2 woods a night.

 

[fossil]

Unless I actually happen to have on hand some seasoned Oak or Madrone (which is a rare circumstance where I live) my "overnight burn" wood is exactly the same Pine, Larch, and Juniper as my "overday burn" wood. Rick

 

[soupy1957]

Couple of points here:

A) No allusion to a "woody" was intended (lol)
B) I took a Forestry class MANY years ago, but have forgotten much.
It is clear that I need to re-educate myself in wood identification.
C) I too am up at LEAST once a night, at this point in my life, and
the WIFE is up at least 4 times a night. I'm sure we'll have no
trouble monitoring the fire.
D) I see myself doing most of my ash cleaning, in the morning; you?

-Soupy1957

 

[rdust]

I see myself doing most of my ash cleaning, in the morning; you?

-Soupy1957

I usually load a small fire after I get home from work(6ish) that will get me to my night time load, I usually scoop some out then. If I neglect it my wife will usually scoop some out in the morning when she loads the stove.

My wife typically tends the stove more then I do during the week since she works from home. I get the after work load and overnight load.

 

[North of 60]

Ash removal every 3-4 weeks when the fewest coals are left usually after being away for a day at work and have my outside clothes on to dump the hot ash in the snowbank beside the compost.

 

[Swedishchef]

I agree with north of 60, I clean my ashes every 2-3 weeks. Ashes actually INSULATE coals. You can stir up the ash and sometimes find coals that are up to 24 hrs old (my experience). Whenever I clean my ashes out my coals are much quicker to disapear.

Andrew

 

[soupy1957]

Cleaning out ashes every 2-3 week, or every 3-4 weeks seems amazingly long, to me. Thinking back to last season's burn, I suppose it was true that I didn't pull ashes out EVERY day..............in fact, I'd say perhaps every 3 days or so, and THAT'S was not a 24/7 burn season for me, but close to it. We'd light er up at 5 AM and the last load was allowed to burn itself out, til 10 PM or so.

If you can wait to empty ash as long as 3 weeks (avg. of the two) you must have one HELL of a deep ash bin!!

-Soupy1957

 

[begreen]

The less I have to dump ashes the better. We don't use the ashbin. If it is cold outside and the stove is burning hard, ashes may need to be removed every weekend. During milder weather, I can get away with 2 weeks between dumpings.

 

[rijim]

I have an Jotul F400 Castine so the fire box isn't hugh. One of the biggest problems I had when trying to get the longest burn at night was to not ad wood too often during the evening but instead let it burn way down so I didn't have a hugh bed of ashes that reduced the amount wood I could load. We only burn nights and weekends so I start the fire at about 4:30 when I get home, about 5:30 the kindling is all gone I add 2 or 3 more splits and that is it until about 10:30. I keep the draft set for a stovetop temp of between 400 and 500, on a cold night I had to learn to resist the temptation to add more wood if temps started to drop at around 9:00. We usually wake up to a few embers (no bed of coals) but most important is the house stayed warm all night and we don't have to touch the Tstat when we get up. So for us learning to plan made a big difference.

Jim

 

[Backwoods Savage]

In the coldest part of winter we probably pull some ash out every 4th day. Other times we'll go a week or a bit longer.

Some of this depends also on the type of wood you burn. Some will simply give you more ashes than others.

 

[North of 60]

Cleaning out ashes every 2-3 week, or every 3-4 weeks seems amazingly long, to me. Thinking back to last season's burn, I suppose it was true that I didn't pull ashes out EVERY day..............in fact, I'd say perhaps every 3 days or so, and THAT'S was not a 24/7 burn season for me, but close to it. We'd light er up at 5 AM and the last load was allowed to burn itself out, til 10 PM or so.

If you can wait to empty ash as long as 3 weeks (avg. of the two) you must have one HELL of a deep ash bin!!

-Soupy1957

Soupy, I dont use my ash bin. Never have. I remove my ash from the fire box. The stove runs a 6" deep lip from door bottom/opening to base of fire brick.

 

[Swedishchef]

I guess I forgot to mention the most important addition to my comment: I only burn 2 fires a day. Not 24/7. But yes, my stove does have a HUGE ash bin although I never use it: I simply use a steel bucket and a scoop. I only empty it when I have about 1-1.5 inches of ash on the bottom.

From my humungous learning curve last year, it also depends on the quality of your burn and the wood. If the wood isnt' burning hot, I end up with big pieces of unburned wood.

Andrew

 

[SolarAndWood]

It seems like you get a lot less ash when you burn 24/7. Use a lot less kindling too.

 

[thewoodlands]

Nice explanation Dennis. I'm relieved that this is a good hearth question. When I first saw the topic I thought we had been spammed with a Viagra commercial. :coolcheese:

Some of you oldtimers out there is viagra good for the overnight burn? ;-P


zap

 

[madrone]

In the coldest part of winter we probably pull some ash out every 4th day. Other times we'll go a week or a bit longer.

Some of this depends also on the type of wood you burn. Some will simply give you more ashes than others.

Species is a huge part of how often I have to clean out. Doug fir leaves virtually nothing in the stove, whereas Cottonwood needs frequent ash removal. I'm also not a 24/7 burner, so I'm emptying every 2 weeks at the most but always leaving about a 1/2" layer of ash.