Wood-Burning Newbie: Fireplace & Woodstove Tips Anyone?

[thinkxingu]

Hello!
My fiance and I bought a new home in Southern New Hampshire, and it has both a fireplace (upstairs) and woodstove (downstairs). We're going to burn the woodstove only on weekends as a means of reducing our electric heating bill, and we'll use the fireplace for decoration.

The woodstove is an old Pro-Former Z (Gooserider has one, too).
The fireplace is a standard unit (no insert).

Any tips or suggestions (especially on the following) would be great!

-Quickest fire starting method
-Amount of wood needed
-Keeping clean
-Longest burning tips
-Fireplace usage: glass doors open/closed? What are the pins on the top and bottom of the surround that I can pull in/out? Keep wood holder thingie?

Shawn

 

[jtp10181]

I could not gather if you were looking for any tips on the gas unit? Do you know what brand or model it is? I would suggest you contact a local dealer and have them come do a once over and cleanp on it to make sure it is safe, clean, and fully functional.

Was the wood chimney cleaned or inspected as part of the home sale? If not you should have a sweep come inspect / clean it before having any fires in it. Who knows what the pervious owner did with it.

 

[Harley]

Hello!
My fiance and I bought a new home in Southern New Hampshire, and it has both a fireplace (upstairs) and woodstove (downstairs). We're going to burn the woodstove only on weekends as a means of reducing our electric heating bill, and we'll use the fireplace for decoration.

The woodstove is an old Pro-Former Z (Gooserider has one, too).
The fireplace is a standard unit (no insert).

Any tips or suggestions (especially on the following) would be great!

-Quickest fire starting method
Many options here. Just some newspaper and kindling work real well - start small and build your way up until the fire is going well.... If you don't want to deal with the kindling wood or cutting that.... the Super Cedar starters do work really well (and smell nice, too.

-Amount of wood needed
If you are only planning on burning for supplemental heat during the weekends in Southern NH.... that's going to depend a lot on the house itself and the setup, but I'd guess not much more than a cord of good seasoned hardwood - I'd probably get at least 2, it won't go to waste, and you may find that you will start using it more on than on the weekends.

-Keeping clean
Get it inspected and the chimney professionaly cleaned before you light the first fire. I'm not sure if you mean the chimney, or the house when you say keeping clean.... burn good hot fires to keep the chimney clean, read the manual for the stove and run it within it's temperature recommendations.

-Longest burning tips
Not familair with the model, so I'm sure Goose will be along for some better tips. Again - getting some good seasoned hardwood shouldn't be a problem in your area. From a safety and clean standpoint - don't just load the stove up and then choke it down before you go to bed (I think that's a problem that a lot of people do)

-Fireplace usage: glass doors open/closed? What are the pins on the top and bottom of the surround that I can pull in/out? Keep wood holder thingie?
Personally, I wouldn't use it at all, unless its just for a little "atmosphere", and then, I'd probably keep the glass closed (and the damper open!). As far as the "pins"... can you post a picture of what they are? That may help to identify what you have there - just can't picture what you mean. The wood holder thingie... I'm guessing that's a grate in an open fireplace - if you are going to use the fireplace - you would probably want to keep it. It shold be holding the splits up off the bottom of the fireplace, where a good bed of coals would gather underneath and help the fire keep a good amount of air to let the logs burn rather than smolder.

Shawn

Welcome to the Hearth, Shawn. If you can post a little more detail as to the house layout (and we love pictures as well - You'll be able to get a lot more specific advice, which will help you burn safely, and save some money in the process.

 

[jtp10181]

-Fireplace usage: glass doors open/closed? What are the pins on the top and bottom of the surround that I can pull in/out? Keep wood holder thingie?
Personally, I wouldn't use it at all, unless its just for a little "atmosphere", and then, I'd probably keep the glass closed (and the damper open!). As far as the "pins"... can you post a picture of what they are? That may help to identify what you have there - just can't picture what you mean. The wood holder thingie... I'm guessing that's a grate in an open fireplace - if you are going to use the fireplace - you would probably want to keep it. It shold be holding the splits up off the bottom of the fireplace, where a good bed of coals would gather underneath and help the fire keep a good amount of air to let the logs burn rather than smolder.
Shawn

If his gas fireplace is what it sounds like... which is a wood unit with gas logs in it. He should NOT burn it with the doors closed. This is based on the fact that it has doors that open. Only B-Vent gas unit I have ever seen with doors was a Superior and I pretty much condemned it due to the giant crack down the middle of the burner pan. Closing the doors for 90% of the gas logs I have seen is not allowed according to the manual. 99.9% of the time with gas logs closing the doors will starve the fire for O2 and the flame will wander, this causes it to overheat the grate, burner, valve, etc... and usually soot up the glass pretty good. When the valve gets over heated too much it dries up inside and seizes. $150 a pop for the valves we use to repair gas logs.

 

[Harley]

[quote author="jtp10181" date="1185855543
If his gas fireplace is what it sounds like... which is a wood unit with gas logs in it. He should NOT burn it with the doors closed. This is based on the fact that it has doors that open. Only B-Vent gas unit I have ever seen with doors was a Superior and I pretty much condemned it due to the giant crack down the middle of the burner pan. Closing the doors for 90% of the gas logs I have seen is not allowed according to the manual. 99.9% of the time with gas logs closing the doors will starve the fire for O2 and the flame will wander, this causes it to overheat the grate, burner, valve, etc... and usually soot up the glass pretty good. When the valve gets over heated too much it dries up inside and seizes. $150 a pop for the valves we use to repair gas logs.[/quote]

Actually - I didn't think he was talking about a gas fireplace, so you are correct if that is what he has. I was assuming "standard" fireplace was referring to wood burning with glass doors, which is why I thought a picture would be helpful.

 

[Shane]

JTP i think he just has a regular wood burning fireplace. He doesn't mention gas in the post.

 

[begreen]

Welcome Shawn. Until Gooserider has a chance to step in, this is probably the most informative thread on the Pro-Former Z:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/7977/

Is this an older home? Do you know when the stove and flue were last cleaned? It wouldn't be a bad idea to have a good chimney sweep look over the installation. Also, you will need good dry wood. Do you have a place to store it? Order some soon if you don't have any and stack it so that it has the maximum time to dry. (Don't buy any damp or green wood.)

 

[jtp10181]

I thought I read gas someplace.... silly me.

 

[thinkxingu]

Hello,
Thanks for the replies! A bit more information: I've recently built a wood rack which is raised off the ground with patio blocks. It is approximately 5.5' high, 10' long, and 16" deep. I think it should hold a cord. Also, it is a wood fireplace (not gas), but I do not know the the pins on the surround piece do. I will take a pic when I have a moment. I had the chimney and both flues cleaned and recently hooked up the woodstove. We gave it a quick run when the temp dropped the other night, and no leaks.

As for info about the home, it is a split-level with the fireplace and woodstove using the same chimney (double flue) on one end of the house. Both are in the living rooms. There is a vent in the floor in the dining room which is right next to the living room. I've attached a picture of the chimney (the disco gold rug has been removed, I promise!) and a cheesy Paint diagram!

Shawn

 

[GVA]

Shawn go back up to Be Green's post and click on the link he posted (it's in Blue)
Goose answered some questions there..

Welcome.....

 

[begreen]

Hello,
Thanks for the replies! A bit more information: I've recently built a wood rack which is raised off the ground with patio blocks. It is approximately 5.5' high, 10' long, and 16" deep.
Shawn

That will hold a bit over a half-cord. A cord is 128 cu ft. (4' x 4' x 8' ) If you can make it 36" deep, you have room for about 1 1/4 cords.

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that after a winter's worth of electric bills there may be a serious push to lower them. How well is the house insulated? What kind of windows (wood, vinyl, aluminum - single, double pane) are there?

 

[Robbie]

First and most important I think.............get alarms.

CO2 and fire alarms for upstairs and down.

Get used to both burners before you leave them for very long.




Robbie

 

[Gooserider]

Welcome to the forum, I wonder if you got the previous poster's stove %-P

I answered a fair number of the questions you are asking in the other thread, though something happenned in that it was supposed to have been continued in a next post, but the next post was missing for some reason...

I've copied the questions and answers over here, save a bit of trouble, and will continue it this time...

1. The glass was broken. Any suggestions on how to have it replaced? Also, sizing information?

IIRC, it is 10” x 20”, and I believe it was originally tempered safety glass, which should be available from most glass suppliers for a reasonable sum. However tempered glass really isn’t the best stuff for this application, and the modern reccomended replacement for glass in any stove is the clear ceramics such as Pyroceram, which you should be able to get at better suppliers, but which also costs a small fortune.

I’m not all that certain how much it matters, as I have NEVER run the stove with that metal “roll front” door open - if the door is closed, I’m not sure what difference it makes whether the glass is present or not, though I’d probably want somethng in the space to keep people from touching the rollup door with a fire going.

2. There are two knobs on the right side (top and bottom), can you tell me which does what?

They are both spin-dampers, and share the job of controlling the airflow into the stove. The upper one, above the door, feeds into a channel that runs across the top of the stove, sort of an effort at providing secondary combustion air. The lower one, in the door, feeds into a chamber in the door that vents into the bottom of the firebox, and provides a primary air flow. You need to balance the two in order to provide the best air supply.

I find that when I’m trying to start the stove, or get a fresh load going, its best to mostly close the upper knob, and open the bottom one wide. (also open the stack damper all the way) As the load gets going, I close the lower knob and open the upper one, and control the overall fire with the stack damper.

CAUTION - The upper knob is above the height of the smoke outlet, if the stack damper is closed to far, or the chimney is getting clogged w/ creosote, you may get back puffing through the upper knob, especially if the lower knob is openned to far!

3. The fan was taken off. It looks like there’s only one way to put it back on, which is on the very back (bottom) kinda facing up?

It is on the bottom rear, with the motor on the right (same side as the door) - I’ve never had mine off, so I’m not sure of the details of how it mounts. The fan on our stove is a two speed, controlled by a switch spliced into the cord. I’ve always used the low setting, as it didn’t seem like high gave noticeably more heat and it did make a lot more noise. I modified the setup a bit by getting a “thermal snap switch” that I attached to the rear exit as close to the stove body as I could get, holding it on with a large stainless hose clamp. I cut into the HOT (black) wire of the power cord and put a couple of crimp on spade lug connectors on it so the switch would turn the fan on and off with the temperature. I shrink-tubed everything as much as I could, but the electrical safety folks would probably still not like it as you can still touch the 110 if you really try, but it’s not a big issue. However the switch has failed after only a season, so I’m going to be re-examining the setup to see if I need to improve something about it.

4. Where should I buy the piping to connect to my chimney? There is a hole in it for a stove, and it’s been cleaned so I just need to connect it.

Any stove shop should be able to sell you what you need.

WARNING! In most jurisdictions, you are supposed to pull a permit to connect a new OR REPLACMENT stove, regardless of whatever might already be there for connections. As a Libertarian, I have mixed feelings about this (to put it mildly!) but this is what the law says, even in “Live Free or Die” territory. You also need to talk to your homeowners insurance co. about the stove - many will want to do their own inspection, some may want to increase your premium (not many), and most will want to see your permit and inspection sign-offs. Failure to do this might cause them to refuse coverage in the event of a fire, especially if it was at all related to the stove.

At the very least, if you are going to do an “Outlaw” install, (And BTW we won’t dime you out, even if some of the other posters here are building inspectors by trade) you need to pay close attention to your minimum clearances, IIRC they are listed on the stove label, and if not there are code references for “unlisted” stoves that give the minimum numbers you should be using.

5. Any tips on most efficient/productive burning, lighting, wood usage, etc?

The stove is a side loader, and burns from the door towards the end of the stove on a consistent basis. I have NEVER run the stove with the “rollup” door open, so all this refers to how it works with the door closed.

To be Continued....

 

[Gooserider]

5. Any tips on most efficient/productive burning, lighting, wood usage, etc?

The stove is a side loader, and burns from the door towards the end of the stove on a consistent basis. I have NEVER run the stove with the “rollup” door open, so all this refers to how it works with the door closed.

I process my own wood, so I have a large supply of small stuff (I burn anything over about 1/2" diameter...) and what I call my "magic starter stuff" which is all the fragments of bark and chips that I rake up from around my splitting area.

I start the fire by opening the stack damper, closing the upper spin damper, and opening the bottom one. I roll up and crumple newspaper into several "spears" that I lay along the length of the stove. I throw several handfuls of my "starter stuff" on top, followed by some kindling size sticks, and then smaller splits - Note, optimum split length for the Pro-Former is 24-26" - shorter wood will work, but you waste a lot of the firebox capacity. If I have room I may get a couple medium splits on top - I want the firebox pretty well stuffed. Push all the splits as far in as you can. If I don't have plenty of newspaper visible, I may ball up one or two more sheets, put them in with a bit more "starter stuff" on top. I light the paper in two or three places then close the door. The bottom spin damper creates an air jet into the bottom of the firebox and will get everything going within 10-15 minutes. As soon as the stove is up to temp, I mostly close the bottom spin damper, and open the top one most of the way, then regulate the burn with the stack damper.

Refueling, I open the stack damper all the way first, then close the upper spin damper and open the door. I shovel the bulk of the ashes out of the 1/3 to 1/2 of the stove closest to the door - use an ash bucket, and stop when you get to the point where there are lots of coals as opposed to ashes. I then use a coal rake to pull as much of the coals, unburned wood and ash towards the door as I can. I want to end up with a slope of coals, ash, etc. ranging from less than 1/2" at the left end of the stove to just below the level of the door on the right. I then stuff the firebox with splits, again trying to get them as far in as I can, close the door, and open the top spin damper - if the fire is low I may open the bottom spinner instead, like I was starting the stove. If it's looking close to out, I'll throw several handfuls of "starter stuff" in before loading splits, and again open the bottom spinner until the fire is going well, then (again) shift over to the top spinner, and close the stack damper to regulate the fire.

The basic idea is that once the fire is going well, you want a total spin damper opening of 30-50% of ONE damper's worth, that you manage as a ratio, as you close one you open the other...

The stove is sensitive to leaks, get a tub of refractory cement, and make sure to seal up any joints in the pipe and leaks between the stove and the chimney.

You will need to clean the chimney fairly regularly, as I note in my sig, this IS a Pre-EPA "smoke dragon" and will generate lots of creosote... If you start getting smoke out the upper spin damper when the bottom damper is closed, then it is probably past due. Indeed I'd suggest that if you can afford to, it is a good idea to replace the stove with a more efficient modern stove. You will burn cleaner, get more heat from a given amount of wood, and not have to clean the chimney as often.... In fact I'm in the process of replacing my Pro-Former with a VC Encore cat stove, and am looking forward to NOT having to deal with the smoke dragon next season.

Any tips or suggestions (especially on the following) would be great!

-Quickest fire starting method

See above, the same technique should work well in your fireplace as well.

-Amount of wood needed

More is better, it doesn't spoil, and I suspect that once you get your first electric heat bill you will start burning a whole lot more! Note that once the burning season starts, it's to late to process your own, and good seasoned cut & split is hard to come by and expensive. Stock up now and beat the rush. (FWIW, burning 24/7 near Lowell, MA I go through 5-6 cords)

-Keeping clean

Get the appropriate size brush for your chimney, along with enough length in rods (I use 1/2" pvc electrical conduit and some pipe fittings to make my own, at a tiny fraction of what they charge for the "official" rods) and figure out your best approach for cleaning, probably from the bottom as you WILL need to clean mid-season and it isn't safe to go on a snowy roof if you can avoid it!

-Longest burning tips

Use well seasoned good quality wood (i.e. OAK) in largish splits, and stuff the firebox. Note that long burns are going to be your dirtiest burns, because the only way to make the Pro-Former burn slow is to choke it down.

-Fireplace usage: glass doors open/closed?

experiment to find out, but probably closed.

What are the pins on the top and bottom of the surround that I can pull in/out?

The knob in the top center above the surround looks like your damper, not sure about the other pins, could be something to control air venting from the room into the fireplace, or possibly if that door set is intended to be a sort of heatilator type thing, could control the heat outlet flow. You probably just need to experiment - wiggle the pins and see what they're connected to.

Keep wood holder thingie?

I'm assuming you are referring to the grate for the fireplace? If so, yes.

Good Luck,

Gooserider

 

[thinkxingu]

Goose,
I am the previous poster! I just had some more specific questions since I recently finalized the installation of the stove, the building of the wood rack, and am now beginning to prepare for what needs to be done.

The pins on the top and bottom right of the fireplace seem to move something behind the top and bottom grates. If those were to let air in/out, what/how would they be used?

Thanks for all the replies!

Shawn

 

[Gooserider]

Goose,
I am the previous poster! I just had some more specific questions since I recently finalized the installation of the stove, the building of the wood rack, and am now beginning to prepare for what needs to be done.

The pins on the top and bottom right of the fireplace seem to move something behind the top and bottom grates. If those were to let air in/out, what/how would they be used?

Thanks for all the replies!

Shawn

This is purely guesswork, but is your firebox made of metal? If so, it may be either a "ZC" (Zero Clearance) or a "Heatform" type unit, (Looks more like a ZC to me) some of which tried to get more heat out of the fire by putting air passages in the firebox, on the theory that the room would get convection air currents through the passages, extracting more heat from the flames. The idea sort of works, but not all that well, the fireplaces are still heat wasting wood hogs, just less so.

If that is the case you probably had some levers that would operate vent flaps so that in the winter you would open them to maximize the airflow and heat. However if you wanted to burn for "atmosphere" during the summer, and didn't want heat, you'd want to close the vents.

I would suggest experimenting with a flashlight to see what is happening behind the grills, and possibly using some smoky incense or equivalent to trace out the air flows. That's probably about the only way to figure out just what's going on with it, unless you can actually find a manual for whatever unit you have.

Gooserider

 

[wahoowad]

flame retardant hearth rug in front of the woodstove

 

[Gooserider]

flame retardant hearth rug in front of the woodstove

Actually that wouldn't do much good, though a good hearth is needed of course. However the Pro-Former Z is a side-load ONLY stove - there is no way to get wood in the front of it. This has the advantage that you need a much narrower hearth, (my current install has about 10-11" in front of the stove) but the downside that when you go to replace it with a modern stove, you will need to modify the existing hearth to make it fit.

Gooserider