First time burners

[log cabin living]

I don’t know how many first time burners are on this site for this season, but I am personally excited for the first fire. It was 90 here today, cold front coming in tonight that looks like it stay and be more fall like. Not sure when my first burn will be yet. Listened to others on the site and gathered more wood approximately 5 cords. I’m sure it won’t be as seasoned as the next few years as I’ve been collecting wood for beyond this year and bought a ton of pellets just in case or when it’s really cold for the pellet stove in the basement. Lucky enough to burn 24/7 with my wife or myself usually home. Anyway, stay safe everyone happy burning.

 

[begreen]

Dry wood is key to happy burning. What stove will you be feeding?

 

[log cabin living]

Avalon rainier insert not flush was able to pull out 5-6” with a blower. My job requires me to have pinless type moisture meter that says most of it is close to that 20 percent. I’m sure the pin type meter works better just haven’t bought one yet. Also have stovetop thermometer and humidifier seasoned and ready to go. Will be learning on the fly as I’ve never heated with wood. Former hvac guy so I’m very interested as to how well it compares to other forms of heat.

 

[ColdNorCal]

This will be our second season. I think cutting your own wood and burning is not for everyone. We did discover that it is most definitely for us!

These efficient stoves do require some knowledge and experimintation to make perform well. It took us a couple of weeks to "read" the flame and understand whats going on, and when and how to adjust the flame. Watch vids, read and ask questions.

 

[log cabin living]

I agree wood cutting would not be for everyone. I’m the type of person who likes work so I enjoyed cutting splitting and stacking this year. I think I watched every video on YouTube about using your wood stove and the one constant has been that every one is different. I’m sure I won’t get the longest burn or most heat out of the unit right away. I also read every post on here that contained the words Avalon rainier and read the manual a hundred times patiently waiting for the time to put the phone down and start burning.

 

[begreen]

The Rainier is a good medium-sized insert. Different species of wood will dry out at different rates. For instance ash will dry out quicker than oak. Get a moisture meter if you don't already have one and test some random splits by resplitting then testing on the freshly exposed face of the wood. If you have access to palettes for free, they can be cut down and mixed with the wood to help the burn. So can some good compressed fuel like BioBricks, Homefires or NIELs.