All Night Burn

[MrCampbellAHS]

Third season with our Green Mountain 60, which I know has a reputation of sorts. Over the summer our dealer came out and did a thorough cleaning of the flue and I have gotten ahead of my wood game and have some REALLY well seasoned White Ash. Needless to say, it has performed really well so far this year.

We've only had probably a week or so of 24/7 burns, but I would like to find a way to not have to get up at 1-3am to fire the stove again. As it stands now, my general operating procedure has been to get a good bed of hot coals and pack it around 9:30pm. I let it get good and flamed up, gradually shutting the air intake back and keeping an eye on the catalyst temp, until we go to bed about 10:30pm. Granted, I typically am up in the 1-3am range anyway, but I'd still like to get it to where I don't actually have to fire it until I get up at 6am. Any thoughts or tips? Again, I've been using White Ash with a moisture reading of between 10% and 20%, so it it maybe fuel?

 

[Gearhead660]

Thats a 2 cuft stove. How full you filling it? You should be able to get a 8 hrs out of a load. How far are you closing the air down?

 

[MrCampbellAHS]

Not sure what you mean by "2 cuft" but I typically get it as full as I can front to back (leaving some room for the air intake to not be blocked) and as far to top as I can without knocking the top baffles with my hand. As far as closing the air: it's hard to say honestly. I think that's my biggest complaint with this stove, I wish it has some kind of gauge on the air intake so I could tell you for sure, but if you are looking down at the front lip of the stove, I typically put the intake knob even with that lip. So not completely shut, I read that is not optimal for long periods of time, bit probably ¼ of the way open?

 

[Burnin Since 1991]

Not sure what you mean by "2 cuft" but I typically get it as full as I can front to back (leaving some room for the air intake to not be blocked) and as far to top as I can without knocking the top baffles with my hand. As far as closing the air: it's hard to say honestly. I think that's my biggest complaint with this stove, I wish it has some kind of gauge on the air intake so I could tell you for sure, but if you are looking down at the front lip of the stove, I typically put the intake knob even with that lip. So not completely shut, I read that is not optimal for long periods of time, bit probably ¼ of the way open?

2 cu ft or 2 c/f is the size of the firebox. L x W x H

And I agree you should get 8 hours or more and with the soapstone it should be more than warm enough to get through the night.

 

[MRD1985]

I get a solid 12 hours out of my 2.4 cubic foot firebox. If you could explain the process of how you get the fire going to the point where you get it set for the night for air settings that would be helpful, we may be able to help you change a little to get a longer burn. I’m also burning a lot of white ash recently and it has been great for me also. You should be getting longer burn times than you are for sure. I usually load mine at 7 AM and 7 PM.

 

[Todd]

I would try shutting down the air completely. It has a cat so don’t worry if you snuff out the flames, it may only be temporary. As long as your cat temp is in range you should be good.

 

[MrCampbellAHS]

Apologies to you Gearhead, that seems like I should have figured that out.

Here's the process in as much detail as I can: I wait until I've got a good bed of coals to load it. The air intake level fluctuates here: sometimes its shut back, sometimes its wide open, it just depends on the day. The catalyst typically is around a quarter. When I load, I typically use the squarest pieces I can to get a good tight stack that doesn't roll forward because I've had that problem before. Once it's loaded, I do open the air up all the way just to get a good flame going. By good flame I mean I look to see if the sides and top of the stack are good and caught. Again, I keep a close eye on the catalyst: I don't like to go to bed with it much past two-thirds. Once it looks good and caught, I start gradually shutting the air back based on the position of the air intake know to the front lip of the stove. First to half, then to where the know is even with that lip. This takes normally about 15 to 20 minutes.

 

[GM80NY]

When I first got the stove I was stuck for some reason on flaming it up until the cat was hot enough which can lead to the fire being a bit more aggressive than it optimally should.

Also it does seem if the pieces are smaller or loading front to back it seems to burn faster.

Heres how I currently load

I feel like the East to West loading in the center slows it down better for me.

My suggestions.

- try thicker pieces

- try closing the air down in stages earlier even if the cat thermometer isnt in active range. The manual said to run the cat every day for 20 munutes on high to burn away stuff built up on the cat but by that time my stove would be ripping too much. Once the stove is going normal it should be hot enough to clean the cat. No need to go nuclear chimney. geez

- when you close and latch the door make sure there is a little flame making it to the top of the fire box. Then push the air in in stages as the smoke clears and the flame keeps going. If the flame seems like its going out add a bit more air. Then engage your cat when the thermometer is in range.

- my ideal spot is where the flat side of that arrowpoint is even with the ash lip when looking down at it. That pencil line is even with the ash lip when its fully pushed in which I only use to slow the fire down if its getting nutty.

 

[Todd]

Yeah, probably get a much longer burn with larger splits. My stove has a 1.8 cu ft firebox and generally takes 5-6 splits to fill it

 

[MrCampbellAHS]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. Tonight looks like another potential all night burn, so I'll try some bigger splits and play with their air intake a bit, it seems like those might be my two biggest issues.

 

[MrCampbellAHS]

So I actually got one last night. I didn't take any pics, but being more aggressive with the air intake has definitely helped, as has I think the size of the splits. Thanks again all for your suggestions!

 

[Egbert Souse']

I'll chime in here as I have a Hearthstone Craftsbury and I'm always trying new things to get an all night burn with a stove smaller than yours. If your wood is dry, try cutting the air way earlier than you think you should. There are nights I follow the exact procedure you do and I wake up to a cold house and no usable coals. I used to worry that the fire would go out but no matter what, so long as the wood is dry, I come down to a pile of ash and a clean stove.

That being said, another important factor of critical importance is wood selection for overnight burns. The only time I've gotten an overnight burn was using oak and beech. I'm saving all my albeit small selection of denser splits for the dead of winter.

 

[neverstop]

I have a Shelburne, which for all intents and purposes is the same stove as the GM60 (the exterior styling is different). The lever has about ~1.75" of total travel. When the knob is pushed in such that the front face is in-line with the ash lip you're at ~50%. Depending on the outside temperature I run my stove somewhere between 25% closed to fully closed.

Cutting splits 10-11" and loading N/S will allow you to fit the most wood in there and create a more stable output. E/W makes it hard to cram it up full and can have temp swings (if logs breakdown and block the "valley" in the ash.

That said, I've been able to get consistent overnight burns loading E/W with sufficiently dry White Ash (<=20%). I've been opting for the "cigarette burn" kind of setup where I push the coals to the right side of the stove and then load the ends of the log up on/against the coals. I prefer this because:

• internal dims of the stove are close to 20" for width but most of my long splits are 16-18". this lets me have 2" of coals piled up on the side
• i find it easier to push coals to the side vs pull them to the front. it also feels like I minimize kicking up ash when I do it this way
• it feels like a get a more consistent E/W burn when starting from the end of the split vs burning it face on from the front
• I can get a fire that I allowed to burn down too far going again by throw small pieces of kindling on top of the coals

Normally a fire started at 9pm will have coals remaining at 530-6am. At that point I will usually throw ~5 pieces of bark on the coals and run it wide open in an attempt to rapidly warm the chimney back up and dry out/knock off anything that was deposited on the liner from the overnight burn. most of the bark just falls off of a sufficiently seasoned piece of wood so I try to save them for this purpose.