RELOAD AT 400 OR SO DEGREES OR 225

[sandie]

So I am thinking about this, my stove is running right now at about 425 degrees and it is dropping and is only red hot charcoals. So why not reload now instead of waiting til it hits about 225? Is it that people feel you are wasting some of the heat since it is still giving off heat at 425 and at 225 it has about stopped giving off heat but is still hot enough to get the new wood going. I am feeling that letting it cycle from going up to about 600 degrees and it drops after an hour or less and holds at about 500 and then once the wood is big charcoals it drops over an hour or so to about 300 and the if I wait another 30 min it will be 200 and that is when people have said to reload but I am now thinking why not reload when the coals are really red hot at about 400 so the cycle is 400 to 600 or higher each time, what am I losing and not understanding?
When do you reload, remember I have a 1985 VC Resolute lll

 

[remkel]

I reload at various temperatures depending on:

1- What I happen to be doing at the time
2- If I am home
3- If I happen to be down checking the stove.

Most of the time i am reloading at 350-400 if it is really cold outside. Helps me to keep the fire, and my flue, nice and cozy. Usually if I am down below 350 I am getting to a pretty low coal situation relatively speaking. I also think the cast iron tends to remain hotter a little longer, but some other people may have other opinions, of course.

A 1985- wow, you are running new equipment! My vigilant was built in 1978.

 

[Big Al]

I reload at 300 or so. At 400, waaaaay to much real estate in the stove is occupied by coaling wood. I'd likely get only a half load in there if I were lucky.

 

[Cate68]

I agree with the others. I reload when it drops below 400, and if there are a lot of coals, I rake them to the front to burn down for a while first. That way you can load more wood for a longer burn. And...I love to watch the blue flames dance across the orangy-yellow coals. Very pretty.

 

[RNLA]

No thermometer, so I don't know what temp. I reload when I can fit about 3 good size splits. I don't let the coals go down too far cause I don't want it to take a long time to lite up. I try to burn hot all the time.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

400-450 degrees is a good spot to open that draft full. The temperature will stay up for quite some time while burning off the coals so you have more room to put in more wood.

 

[Wood Duck]

If I load the stove before giving the coals time to burn down, I end up with accumulating coals. I couldn't consistently reload my stove at 400 because I'd run out of space in the stove. I do occasionally reload at higher temps if I want to heat up a cold house, for example, but in general I wait until coals have burned down. in fact, most of my fires seem to be the type of fire where I put one or two splits on the coals to make them burn up faster.

 

[begreen]

Gotta use your judgment it's not a modern EPA stove. It likes to be hot before closing the bypass, so this will depend on the wood, draft and timing. If the fuel charge is low, add more wood, let it ignite and close the bypass when the temps start to climb again. If there are a lot of coals left over, I'd open the air control all the way and eek another 100 degrees of heat out of it, then reload.