What is the longest burn time you can reliably get out of your wood stove?

[nanama72]

Hi there,

Hoping to find out which stoves and which practices promote longer burn times so nobody has to get up in the middle night to fill the stove.

Thanks so much

 

[bbc557ci]

I get a real easy 8 hour overnight with my PE T6 with plenty of hot coals left to start the morning fire. Stove top is generally around 250-350* when I get up.

 

[woodjack]

I think you have to be more specific about what you call "burn time". For me, waking up to a few burning embers and a 100 degree stove, that's not burning. In my house, on a cold day, once my stack goes below 180 I'm not getting enough heat to keep me warm. In my old top loader that usually happens in a few hours.

 

[raybonz]

Hi there,

Hoping to find out which stoves and which practices promote longer burn times so nobody has to get up in the middle night to fill the stove.

Thanks so much

I get 8 hrs. and the stove is still running catalytic unless it's real windy.. Wind increases the draft and make it burn a bit faster..

Ray

Edit: I should note that I primarily burn seasoned oak, good sized splits and packed stove.. Some wood burns much longer than others..

 

[jadm]

Someone had a similar topic here awhile ago. I think BeGreen summed it up by saying that what manufacturers print in their literature and what individual wood burners state as burn times vary greatly and your burn time will be how long your stove/insert burns on a load to maintain the temp. you want in your house.

I can load my insert up in the morning and let that load burn down without adding any more wood and still have hot coals at the end of the day BUT my house temp. will not stay in the 72*-74* range I like. To do that I have to add more wood throughout the day.

From your other topic here I know you are in the market for an insert. Lots of good experience here. I just went through a similar process. One thing you might consider too is a free standing stove or a hearth heater. They seem to throw more heat out than inserts do. I ended up with another insert because of our hearth/fireplace space but I did consider other options during my 'research' time.

Good luck

 

[mikeathens]

Burn time for my hearthstone heritage is 2-3 hoours - that's how often I have to load it to keep the house at 65 F when it's 15 outside, and results in a minimum 400F stove surfae temp.

On the other hand, a Hearthstone Mansfield or PE T6 or Jotul F600 or Morso 3160 (etc., etc.) might do the same job as my heritage when they're at 280...in which case, we're talking 6 to 8 hours.

You need to be more specific, and keep in mind that you gotta' compare apples to apples...

I am hoping to improve my "burn time" by getting a bigger honkin' stove.

Unless you're living in a 1000 SF house, or a perfectly insulated (i.e r-20 in the walls and r-40 in the ceiling) 1800 SF house, my suggestion is to go with a big stove.

I hate to say this, but size does matter.

 

[d.n.f.]

I know two people with a BlazeKing and they can get 12 hour + burns.

Ugliest stove known to man.

 

[woodjack]

Burn time for my hearthstone heritage is 2-3 hoours - that's how often I have to load it to keep the house at 65 F when it's 15 outside, and results in a minimum 400F stove surfae temp.

On the other hand, a Hearthstone Mansfield or PE T6 or Jotul F600 or Morso 3160 (etc., etc.) might do the same job as my heritage when they're at 280...in which case, we're talking 6 to 8 hours.

At the same temperature, different stoves give off different amounts of heat? (assuming they are both steel stoves)

 

[mikeathens]

[quote author="woodjack" date="1205636833] At the same temperature, different stoves give off different amounts of heat? (assuming they are both steel stoves)[/quote]

Yes...they have to. Otherwise, why would the larger Btu stove be...ummmm...larger?

For example, my Heritage is soapstone, rated at 55,000 Btu. The Mansfield is, for all intents and purposes, 30% larger in surface area and firebox size. it is 79,000 Btu (I think). In know that the bigger stove's surface temp. vs. time curve will be roughly the same as the smaller...but it heats a larger area.

 

[Hanko]

Ive only had the F500 going for a little more than a week now but its dipped to 10 a few nights and I was getting an honest 7 to 8 hrs. Posible could do better loading it better. You will have to ask the same question next year and I would have a more accurate answer

 

[burntime]

My wife would say I am always unreliable ;~) Really in my hampton I get 8 hours easy with coals for restart. My guess is about 7-9 hours usable heat unless it is really windy or below 25 degrees. Then you could relight it with coal in 8 hours but no real heat.

 

[fossil]

I think (assuming a sound installation and etc., etc.) a lot of the answer to this question depends on two factors...capacity of the firebox, and the type of fuel you burn. The bigger the firebox, the more fuel you can load. The higher the BTU content of the fuel, the more heat will be available. Then it depends on the operator learning just how much and when to damp down the air supply.

We have a new Lopi Liberty we use to heat our home. Very nice stove, big firebox...but in Central Oregon, hardwood is simply not available. What we get mostly is lodgepole pine, maybe some Tamarack (Larch), and a couple of other varieties of softwoods. They burn hot and fast. That's teriffic for getting the chill off the house in the morning, but not particularly conducive to the elusive "overnight burn". I've tried and tried...loading that box as full as I could at about 10 PM, with a nice hot bed of coals underneath, watching the stack come to life, letting it get going nicely, and then damping down the air to a good slow burn. At 6AM, I'm lucky to have anything approaching a bed of hot coals I can use to get the next day's fire going...the wood simply burns too quickly.

This has been our first winter here in Oregon, and our first season of learning to heat with wood. We do have an electric forced air system in the house, but I can count on one hand how many times we've turned it on since last September. Interesting winter here too...still burning, though not quite as intensely as a couple of months ago.

I have a nice little CFM stove in my workshop I burn every day as well, and wife & I are both retired, so I'm burning two stoves all day every day, and the Lopi well into the evening. We've been through a LOT (nearly 7 cords) of wood this season. This spring I'm planning to build a woodshed that will hold 8 cords under roof, and we've got a covered porch outside the workshop that'll hold another 3. I'm already getting next year's wood delivered. I'm 59 and generally falling slowly apart, so I buy CSD...which typically means a lot more hand splitting anyway (LOVE my Fiskars splitting axes!) That's enough of that type of "woodwork" for me, I've got plenty of other stuff to do in my workshop.

Stove capacity, type of fuel, operator attention...those are the ingredients to the answer to your question, and it will be different depending on where you live, methinks. Rick

 

[Hogwildz]

Speaking of coals, I loaded the Summit around 8:30 AM yesterday, it got kinda warm outside near 60 or so, so I let it burn and didn't bother filling. Today about 4:00 PM i cleaned some ash out and woot, there was still some coals glowing after stirring it up. Enough for a restart. From 66 to 71 in about an hour, just maintaining now. Couple large splits since. My home setup and the insert location & very high vaulted ceilings is just a perfect setup for wood burning. Of all the crap I am dealing with in this place, I am grateful to be able to heat with the Summit and total heating bill (wood) cost me $300.00 this year. I didn't even bother getting the oil tank filled. Had under between 1/4 and 1/2 tank left from fill up September of 06 I think I got it, and still have about a 1/4 tank left. Yes I have double middle finger wave directed right to big oil, GWB & OPEC.

 

[mikeathens]

Yes I have double middle finger wave directed right to big oil, GWB & OPEC.

Amen, brother.

 

[Money pit]

I recently put a deposit on a PE summit and I can not wait to turn away the oil. Not only that, having the house at a reasonable tempurature is going to be nice as well. It'll be fun!!

 

[RedRanger]

Well its getting late in the year,but I had to go out today, and loaded up my old beast with nothing but cedar slabs, and shut down the primary, and almost closed off the secondary,and left the damper wide open. And when I got home 6 hours later, still lots of wood in the insert,rec-room still reading 78f :lol: but boy-oh-boy was that chimney smoking.

It is kinda giving me a new appreciation of my old "low-milage beast". and maybe next winter now that I am cleaning my chimney myself, maybe I will really stack it up burn hot, and then shut it down. now I`m thinking easy 8hr burn.

Nice, you think-well I already know that the creosote will be building like crazy, so if this is want I want to do, then it likely means at least 3 chimney cleanings per season. but maybe it is better than those new-fangled things that are hard to control.

:lol: Specially when BB has cautioned me against buying one cause he said it might burn my house down. but then he could just be a silly old man, or else think that I am.

 

[vtdavid]

I can fire our PE T6 after 14 hours with the coals in the firebox. Soapstone is radiant heat and steel/cast are convection heaters. From what I've seen, the convection heaters have a higher BTU output with similar size fireboxes. We went with the T6 for the long burn time - had a Super 27 before. With outside temps in the 20's and 30's we run two fires a day. The most was 4 loads a day when it was -20 outside and it took more to heat the foundation walls as well as the house.

 

[TMonter]

My 3100i can go 12 hours and still be restartable with coals, I get about 8-9 hours of usable heat. My Englander 13NCL seems to get about 6-8 hours usable heat and about 8-10 hours total burn time where it's restartable.

 

[northwinds]

I filled the firebox of my Isle Royale at 9:30 p.m. last night. At 3:30 p.m. this afternoon, I raked the hot coals forward and
did an easy re-start. I didn't check the stove when I left this morning at 5 a.m., but the house was 71, and the stove
window clean at re-start.

 

[BurningIsLove]

The longest ever I have gotten out of my stove (Dutchwest/VC 2479 large non-cat) is 12 hours, although the average is closer to 10 hours. I define "burn time" as the range where the stove temperature is about 300+, and where there is a decent bed of coals to throw fresh, large splits into w/o excessive measures. Also keeping in mind outdoor temps & conditions will affect effective heating times, but generally I use 15-25 degrees F as my basis of measurement.

 

[Hanko]

I know two people with a BlazeKing and they can get 12 hour + burns.

Ugliest stove known to man.

they get 12 hours cause you can load a whole oak tree in them. they have a huge wood capacity, so its not a comparison to to say one burns 12 hours on 6 big splits and another 8 hrs on 3

 

[swestall]

8 hours, 12 hours coals.

 

[tuolumne]

Our Hearthstone Mansfield (previous house) would do 8 hours of good heat output and would still be restartable from coals after 10-12 hours. Our new house has a giant steel Timberline stove that just gobbles up wood. The firebox is a bit bigger, but it will only put out good heat for 4-5 hours, and will be restartable up to 7. That means starting a new fire most mornings. On the other hand, when we come home to a cold house this stove can go from 0-800 in less than 15 minutes. This results in good radiant heat making happy children. The soapstone stove took a while to make a change in the room temps. For heating a home continuously my vote is the Mansfield.

 

[Jimbob]

I get a real easy 8 hour overnight with Summit, with plenty of hot coals left to start the morning fire. Stove top is generally around 250-350* when I get up.

 

[North of 60]

.[/quote] they get 12 hours cause you can load a whole oak tree in them. they have a huge wood capacity, so its not a comparison to to say one burns 12 hours on 6 big splits and another 8 hrs on 3[/quote]
You can fit an Oak tree in a 2.8cuft fire box? News to me. :wow: