I consider myself pretty lucky that I found hearth.com way before I even lit my first fire or bought my Oslo and so I avoided some pitfalls, but I did learn a few things that I would pass on to newbies.
Things I learned . . .
-- I wish I had cut and split my wood the Fall before I purchased the woodstove . . . instead of cutting and splitting it in the Summer before I bought my woodstove. This must be one of the most common mistakes . . . and a source of much frustration for newbies . . . and as it was I lucked out since I cut a lot of standing dead elm which burned pretty decently . . . just not as well as the wood I am burning now that has been cut, split and stacked for a year.
-- I wish I had known that the manufacturer's burn time figures and heating space specs are subjective . . . in the case of the burn time figures no one really seems to know what the definition of "burn time" is and as such that figure can be misleading . . . I understood this number to be the number of hours when I was getting meaningful heat from a woodstove (and I'm thinking most consumers think this too), but I now realize this could simply mean the number of hours for when the stove is putting out heat regardless of the temp, the time from first light to the coals die out or some other definition . . . and as for the figures for the heating size . . . one must remember that where I live, the insulation in my house, my house lay-out, etc. all has a major effect on how well the stove will heat that size.
-- I wish I had bought a flue thermometer right at the start . . . I had a stovetop thermometer which is useful . . . but my probe flue thermometer now gives me the second piece of the "burning" equation so I can burn more efficiently and cleanly . . . a mistake I rectified pretty quickly.
-- I wish I had realized that you don't need to sleep on the couch in front of the stove for the first few days . . . the woodstove will not blow up and the fire will not burn a hole through the stove if you're burning properly.
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Mistakes often made by newbies
-- Pine is OK to burn . . . almost any kind of wood is OK to burn . . . it just needs to be seasoned. And don't worry, you will not burn your house down even if your father-in-law or neighbors tell you that burning pine causes chimney fires . . . however, you may grow bald and get old in time if you burn pine.
--Fire can look really hot . . . and not be all that hot . . . you really need a thermometer to know how hot the fire is inside the stove. Just because there are lots of flames doesn't mean the fire is really, really hot.
-- You need seasoned wood . . . this is important . . . and equally as important is knowing that there is a good chance the "seasoned" wood you buy from a dealer isn't truly seasoned. Seasoned wood should ideally be cut, split and stacked for a year or so.
-- The key to preventing a chimney fire is to burn seasoned wood . . . and burn hot . . . which may sound bizarre . . . but many folks don't burn hot enough and this can result in creosote production, less efficient burns and chimney fires.
-- To get the most heat out of your fire you don't necessarily want to have a lot of flames in your firebox . . . at least with secondary combustion tech, the goal is to get things hot enough so your woodstove looks like the Bowels of Hell in the top 1/3 of the firebox, you see the "Northern Lights" or it looks like someone installed a propane burner in the top of the firebox . . . and the key to achieving these things is seasoned wood, burning hot enough and then turning down the air.
-- You can clean your own chimney . . . and in most cases do it cheaper and even better than some sweeps . . . you just need the gear.
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Best advice I was given at this website: figure out the size of the firebox you need . . . and then go one size larger.
