Shoulder season break-in fires question

[gyrfalcon]

How often do you need to do break-in fires during shoulder season, when you're not burning every day, but maybe just for a day or two every week or even couple of weeks before settling into daily or 24/7 burning?

A week or so ago, we had several days of really chilly weather, so I did my break-in fires and then kept the stove going pretty good in the evenings to take the worst of the chill off. Then we had a week of mild weather when I didn't need the stove at all. Now we've got another bout of cold coming.

After the stove is sitting unused for a week or more, as happens with the variable weather here in NE, do I need to go through the break-in fires again? IOW, how long are the break-in fires good for before you need to do them again? Dumb question, I guess, but I don't know how long the effects last.

 

[begreen]

Not a dumb question at all. You're in the early burning season now, the stove has had it's fall wakeup. Burn em if you need to.

 

[gyrfalcon]

Not a dumb question at all. You're in the early burning season now, the stove has had it's fall wakeup. Burn em if you need to.

Thanks, BeGreen. Supposing we had a real early cold spell and it was a month or six weeks before the stove got used again. Still OK?

My feeble understanding is that the break-in fires are to gently drive the humidity out of the stove, in my case soapstone. Safe to assume it takes a number of weeks of a cold stove and fairly high humidity to make another break-in fire necessary? (Come to think of it, do people in humid climates, like parts of the NW, need to do them more often in these circumstances?)

Actual real-life circumstances never quite fit the bare instructions, so I'm trying to understand the principles involved so I can adapt as needed.

 

[begreen]

Your understanding is correct. If you have a really damp, but mild fall with no burning for over a month, then a sudden cold snap, I would probably do a smaller fire to dry out the stones first. But if you've already started burning, the stove is probably not going to soak up tons of moisture before you burn again.

 

[efoyt]

I thought that the only time a fire needed a break in fire was when it was new, so what I'm reading here says you need one every year???

 

[Jags]

I thought that the only time a fire needed a break in fire was when it was new, so what I'm reading here says you need one every year???

Its a darn good idea. Even firebrick can hold some moisture.

Note: NEED is a very strong word. Will your stove crumble with out one? Probably not, but I kinda like to be nice to my stove, so that in turn, its nice to me.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

It's more important for a soapstone stove, Rex.

 

[fossil]

The only kind of "break-in" fires I'm familiar with in connection with woodstoves are the series of 2 or 3 moderate fires recommended by some manufacturers for curing the finish on the stove/connector pipe/furnace cement (if used) system. Done once...unless you do a lot of refinishing at some point. I did some touch-up painting after my stovepipe disassembly/reassembly for sweeping, and I could (as expected) smell that paint curing during the first subsequent fire. Lighting a fire in a woodstove shouldn't be a violent thermal event, unless you're crazy enough to use some sort of accelerant. It's not like cutting in oil through a boiler burner tube and all of a sudden there's big-time fire in there. You build a stack of wood, and you ignite it, and the fire starts really small, and it slowly builds in intensity, and all the materials in the system begin to heat up. I think the danger of some sort of "thermal shock" is pretty minimal. I'd say the time it takes your stove to get up to operating temp is your "break-in". Rick

 

[gyrfalcon]

It's more important for a soapstone stove, Rex.

Yeah, the Hearthstone manual says to do it, and I figure they probably know better than me. Good to know, though, that I don't need to obsess over it.

 

[paulie]

excellent piont Rick, and you are correct. By tthe time everything takes to heat up hot moisture etc has disapated, I believe it even more so with soapstone because it does take longer to heat.