Filling stove before bed.. before burn down?

[Jotel me this]

Its almost midnight and the stove still has a ton of coals and three huge pieces that havent burned down yet. If i fill the stove back up right now (so that i dont have to wake up at 3am when the stove will be out), will that cause 'problems' such as .. well.. im not sure.

Is it 'bad' to reload your stove in the middle of a burn?

 

[bholler]

I would load it without a second thought. As long as you have good control.

 

[Sawset]

No, but watch the stove top and stack temps, and be careful to watch for fast rising temps. Fresh fuel on a hot stove can accelerate into something that is difficult to manage. Every stove may be different - be conservative and find out in a positive way rather than just loading with abandon. That's kind of a no answer way of saying it's probably not good to experiment before taking off for bed.

 

[SlyFerret]

I’m careful to time my loads to be able to load before bed. If I reload my 30 when it’s where you describe in the burn cycle, I have to watch real close or I’ll end up with 700+ degree stovetop temps. I can cut the air back to keep it from running away, but with it cut back that far, it will end up smoldering once the initial off gassing slows down, which means I have to stay up and adjust the air again once it stabilizes so i can go to bed and not worry.

-SF




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[Allagash350]

If you do I would load the wood and shut the air down.

Ideally your last load should have been around 9-10 . When did you load it last?

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Should be ok, to be safe avoid putting in small thin pieces of wood to avoid risk of overfire.

 

[sroof]

Try it a couple of times earlier in the evening so you can watch it. But keep in mind that different weather conditions may cause the burn to behave differently. And remember 2" dia splits will behave differently than 6" splits.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

doesnt matter to me what stage of burn the stove is in, when im going to bed it gets reloaded full. Two things i look at after i reload it is the stove pipe temp and i'd like the wood good and charred before i turn the air down, I want the pipe temp in the 300 degree range before i turn the air down and certainly no higher than 500 degrees. Then i get ready for bed and usually check the stove one last time 10 minutes later before i crawl in bed just to make sure shes humming along. My Austral is so easy to run its hard to screw anything up really. A nice glowing bed of hot coals just makes the process all the easier.

 

[peakbagger]

That was a sure fire method of getting my old Vermont Castings Defiant into back puff mode, something that I really didn't want it to do. The newer EPA stoves usually have hidden air ports that don't allow the stove to go sub stoichiometric so instead of backpuffing they overheat.

I think it matter of degrees and familiarity with the particular stove model. Practice on weekend and get to know how your stove respond during different outdoor weather conditions and then gradually implement what works slowly.

 

[Ashful]

I load an hour before I want to go to bed and an hour before I leave for work in the morning, with no regard to what is in the box at that moment, sometimes that means loading on top of a half-full stove. If I needed to wait for the stove to be down to minimum coals before a reload, I would have trouble keeping a normal work schedule.

Every stove is different, if I found mine couldn’t be reloaded whenever my schedule dictates, I would be replacing it without a second thought.

 

[vwmike]

I've been reloading my summit when it's still quite hot and has lots left to burn in it during a current cold spell. My firewood is nice and dry (15%) so I load it up, close the door and shut the air and walk away, stove takes care of itself.

 

[Woody Stover]

I don't have a tube stove, but I wonder if you could shove the coals to the back of the stove, to make what you load to gas more slowly?

I load an hour before I want to go to bed and an hour before I leave for work in the morning, with no regard to what is in the box

I don't know since he doesn't have his stove make and model in his sig, but I'm assuming he has a secondary stove. He is asking about it, not your cat stove.

 

[firefighterjake]

I've had mixed results in adding wood in the middle of a burn cycle.

A lot seems to depend on the outside temps, draft, how much I load the fire box, etc.

I have found that adding a split or round or two and keeping the air control dialed all the way down is usually drama-free for me.

Filling the firebox though in mid-cycle has sometimes resulted in the temps spiking fast . . . I tend to place it safe these days and try to time the last load a little bit before bed and if I do feel compelled to add some fuel to the fire I just add a split or two.