Anybody else have to leave your door open a bit to get a fire going?

[TradEddie]

so, are you doing both methods?! bottom up for kindling, top down for larger?

If you were looking just at my kindling, I suppose that part is bottom-up, in the sense that I have my firestarter below my kindling. I have tried the "pure" top-down method in that video above, but I get faster starts with paper below the kindling. That first picture in Sawset's post above is very close to what I typically do, except that I place the kindling at right angles to the large logs.
I vary the relative quantity of logs, paper and kindling depending on what I'm using as kindling, or how much of a rush I'm in.

TE

 

[rwh63]

first nasty winter day here, so fired up my 25 year old seneca (and yes, i did utilize the ash door method!). everything working well.

 

[bholler]

first nasty winter day here, so fired up my 25 year old seneca (and yes, i did utilize the ash door method!). everything working well.

Ok just because you havnt destroyed your stove doing it doesn't mean it is a safe thing to do. Doing that has destroyed many many stoves through the years.

 

[rwh63]

not advocating it, just saying that i've benefically utilized it as needed over the years with no detrimental effect. i think 25 years is a pretty good set (albeit one person one stove model). in some ways people who never check their rope gaskets and have leaky stoves are a greater danger to over firing their wood stoves. i check and replace my several gaskets as needed, esp. my side loading door.

 

[bholler]

not advocating it, just saying that i've benefically utilized it as needed over the years with no detrimental effect. i think 25 years is a pretty good set (albeit one person one stove model). in some ways people who never check their rope gaskets and have leaky stoves are a greater danger to over firing their wood stoves. i check and replace my several gaskets as needed, esp. my side loading door.

Yes a greater danger of overfire but very little risk of destroying the stove. You can do whatever you want but to anyone reading this it is a very very risky practice. And that is enough discussion on the topic