I have to thank another poster on this forum for this idea but he noticed that if you stack your wood up close to the secondary burn tubes you effectively reduce the area in which the secondary burn takes place. Making it easier to build the heat up there and get secondary burn going.
Last night I tried a new approach for me. I raked my coals forward then put on some kindling and let the kindling fire up to a rapid burn to preheat the stove. As I had noticed it seems that a full load of wood is like a thermal load that makes it hard to get the stove temps up. Now if I had 2 year old season wood instead of 1 year old season wood I might not have this problem. But anyhow with just only the kindling in there and lot of room for air circulation the stove came up to decent temp really quickly so once it burned down and stove temps up I loaded the stove full of oak. I had 2 splits East West in the back , 2 splits East West in the next row, but then I only put one split in the 3rd and last row east west up by the front of the stove on top of the coals. I closed the door and with the temps up too like 325 instead of like a start temp of 200 the stove took off alot better.
But it seem to level off and didnt get to producing a good secondary burn very well or quickly and all the fire was only up front where the one split was. I remembered the idea of reducing that head space up by the secondary burn tubes so that there is a smaller area up there in the top in which to hold the heat and hold the temps. The wood was stacked up to about 2 inches away from the tubes in the back of the stove but all the fire and flames were only up front where the coals were. Stove was burning but seemed to be stuck with out getting to secondary light off. So I decided to stack on another split up on that front row that I had only put one split as it made for alot of space between that one split, up to the burn tubes. Plus usually when I am trying to get the stove up to temps and I add a split, it prolongs the process even longer. But this time with adding that split reducing that head room too like 2inches up there by the tubes the secondary burn took off quickly. I was a happy camper.
But then later the "OH SH.. MOMENT", I will post that in another post.
Last night I tried a new approach for me. I raked my coals forward then put on some kindling and let the kindling fire up to a rapid burn to preheat the stove. As I had noticed it seems that a full load of wood is like a thermal load that makes it hard to get the stove temps up. Now if I had 2 year old season wood instead of 1 year old season wood I might not have this problem. But anyhow with just only the kindling in there and lot of room for air circulation the stove came up to decent temp really quickly so once it burned down and stove temps up I loaded the stove full of oak. I had 2 splits East West in the back , 2 splits East West in the next row, but then I only put one split in the 3rd and last row east west up by the front of the stove on top of the coals. I closed the door and with the temps up too like 325 instead of like a start temp of 200 the stove took off alot better.
But it seem to level off and didnt get to producing a good secondary burn very well or quickly and all the fire was only up front where the one split was. I remembered the idea of reducing that head space up by the secondary burn tubes so that there is a smaller area up there in the top in which to hold the heat and hold the temps. The wood was stacked up to about 2 inches away from the tubes in the back of the stove but all the fire and flames were only up front where the coals were. Stove was burning but seemed to be stuck with out getting to secondary light off. So I decided to stack on another split up on that front row that I had only put one split as it made for alot of space between that one split, up to the burn tubes. Plus usually when I am trying to get the stove up to temps and I add a split, it prolongs the process even longer. But this time with adding that split reducing that head room too like 2inches up there by the tubes the secondary burn took off quickly. I was a happy camper.
But then later the "OH SH.. MOMENT", I will post that in another post.
