Came home after 9 Hours to this....

[SKIN052]

Nice bed of coals house setting at 23c. Stocked it up at 0700 this morning with some dead standing spruce, stuff was rock hard with the bark falling off when I cut it last spring. Let it dry all summer and it is proving to be a winner heat and burn time wise.



Matter of a few minutes and off we go again. I will let these few splits burn down to coals and restock at 2100hrs tonight which will keep me going till 0600 tomorrow. Should be a good season, some nice dry birch to mix in with this stuff for when the temps really drop, only have to deal with 0c for now.

 

[bag of hammers]

PE stoves appear to be living up to their reputation for long burn times. I wonder what that would be with oak or hard maple, etc. in the mix? Very nice stove. Almost bought one when I got the Osburn (price won out). I hope we can get on a schedule like that at our place on the cold days with the tube stove once we go full time burning.

 

[SKIN052]

Wish I had some real hard wood to try out, birch is the best we can hope for around here. Once we get into mid Feb I will burn some birch and get those times up to about 12 hours. Dry wood has really been the key just like the guys keep saying, really dry, not marginal, not almost, dry.

 

[bag of hammers]

Wish I had some real hard wood to try out, birch is the best we can hope for around here. Once we get into mid Feb I will burn some birch and get those times up to about 12 hours. Dry wood has really been the key just like the guys keep saying, really dry, not marginal, not almost, dry.

FWIW, I've burned birch (white and yellow). All the white birch within a mile of me is dead standing rotten - not sure why it all went at the same time. Anyway the last couple I could use (a few years ago) I took down as the ground under them was lifting / roots pulling up in the wind (scary). I took them down for safety, but they were still in good shape so they got cut and split. Dried great in a year, and made good fires IMHO. Not like the maple or yellow birch, but they still make heat. Lots of posts recently here about burning pine too and it seems to be underrated. Use what you got - and you're getting 9 hours on spruce which is not too shabby.