First small fire (shoulder season), need advice

[Ricky8443]

House has been very cold in the mornings. I'm going to try to build a small fire in the princess insert stove tonight (low of 49 degrees) to take the morning chill off. Hate to start using wood this early but its getting cold. Will this work considering its a cat stove? Anyone try small fires in this stove? Advice?

 

[Jags]

Small fires need to run hot to get as close to operating temps as you can. Build your fire and let it rip. If you get temps high enough to engage the cat, do so. If not, just leave the cat in bypass mode.

 

[firefighterjake]

Quick, hot fires work well this time of year. If you're able to engage the cat or in the case of secondary burners get a secondary burn . . . great. If not, not too big a deal. The one thing you want to remember is to build the fire to heat up the stove . . . and then let the hot stove radiate out the heat . . . avoid the temptation to reload to keep the heat going unless you want to get the house way too warm. Also, you don't necessarily want to load the stove to the gills and use your primo wood . . . during this time of year is when I use my "junk" wood -- pine, willow, etc., chunks and uglies -- wood that later on in the year you will find will keep you from really loading up the firebox works great.

 

[velvetfoot]

Now that you mention it, I think I will try some of the chunks I have laying around. I've been making small fires with what seems to be primo stuff-wasteful-should use in dead of winter.

 

[jeff_t]

You lose a bunch of heat doing it, since the open bypass leaves a straight path up the flue. I sometimes take a split and make a bunch of 1" sticks, light em up and let em burn out. The cat doesn't always make it to the active range, but it's not a big deal. As long as it has plenty of air, you are burning it as cleanly as possible without any secondary combustion.

I'm not sure if the princess insert has a snapdisk or not, but if you don't get the insert hot enough to turn the blower on, you won't get much out of it. But it may be enough. I don't have any experience with it, but some inserts do okay without the blower on.

We're looking at 60 and showers here today, so I loaded my stove up with some lesser quality wood. It will go out sometime tomorrow when the sun shines.

 

[gyrfalcon]

Now that you mention it, I think I will try some of the chunks I have laying around. I've been making small fires with what seems to be primo stuff-wasteful-should use in dead of winter.

I burn bark for just that reason. I get my wood c/s/d, so the big mess of bark and splitting debris lying outside my door has to be collected and put somewhere anyway, and it makes more sense to burn it than lug it somewhere and toss it. I have multiple large 25 and 40-pound bird-seed bags full of the stove in my woodshed. Quick, hot fires are just what burning bark does for you.

 

[ckitch]

Good advise given above, kind of wish this thread would have been up a week or so ago. I have been learning how to run my new stove(secondary burn) and found out that it doesn't really like little fires. Was having a hard time getting up to temp and couldn't close the primary air much, but you fill her up and she heats up quick and shut her down and the secondaries go for hours. Part of the learning curve I guess.