How do you get such long burn and heating times ?

[struggle]

One thing you need to remember is that long burn times have a lot of gray area as to what they really mean.

I have a soapstone stove and it is will produce heat in the 450 550 range for several hours fully loaded but once it goes to coals it seems manufactures still call that in the burn time arena. So it depends on how you look at it. They say burn time I say reduced heat output time if you let it go for another 8 hours.

I reload my stove as often as ever four hours to maintain a temp of 5-550 but at night I can load and forget it and in the morning it will have a surface temp of 200 degrees but it only seems warm and not really producing a lot of usable heat compared to 500 degrees as there is a huge difference in how much heat radiates at those two different temps. But the manufacture would probably still call that in the burn time zone.

If ones house is super tight and there are some here that have that. They can go with one or two loads of wood a day but that is few in comparison to us with older homes.

 

[FPX Dude]

Sorry guys, didn't mean to go awol my home 'puter was "fritzn" so couldn't post until back at work. Thanks for all the replies thus far. Here's what I did last night:
1. After a good bed of coals, I loaded 4 splits that filled the box. My guess on the size of these splits is that it was probably about a ~12" diameter log that was quartered. I say they might weigh around 8lbs. each but I don't know else to gauge this info for you. Maybe I'll post some pics to help identify. I buy it and am told that it's seasoned 1 yr. and it seems to burn fine.
2. Ok...door is cracked open for good air, bypass is open, let'r go for 20 mins., then I shut door, close bypass, and now cat (as in catalytic) kicks in after 5 mins., Now, I would normally set air control to 75%, however last nite I tried maybe what felt like 98%. Just enuf to have a little flame, otherwise I get black streaks on the windows. I've seen y'all talking about those IR thermometers, so yea I had to get one myself. Btw, the cat (as in animal kind) loves the laser, haha), anyway stove temp said ~600 degrees. Room temp said 72, outside temp was 30. I'm in NorCal. Bedroom temp in other end of house is nice-n-snuggly 60.
3. I have a 1 1/2 story, and fireplace is on the single story part, so the chimney total height is probably 16 ft. Yes, other parts of house are 2 story height, so what is that, 30 ft.??? I do have massive neg pressure when trying to start from cold-cold, so have dealt with that draft problem, but if warm or going then no problem with draft. I'm really trying to keep maybe 1,500 sq warm and supplement the "odd" rooms when it needs it with LP furnace. Maybe 9ft ceiling with ceiling fan on low and little oscillating fan in corner to help move the colder air to it.
4. This morning after 7 hrs. since #2 above, blower was off, surface temp (I didn't measure) was just warm to the touch. Opened all up again, raked some coals forward, put a couple kindling on, then some medium splits (littler than quarters from above), then "blow-blow", yada yada...and off she goes again. Oh yea, room temp was 62, outside temp was 28, Yikes, we're cold...hahaha

All this, and I'm just hoping to get a long heating time/temp so the blower stays on longer...am I crazy?

 

[drdoct]

Is your blower variable speed? At night I keep it pretty close to lowest setting to help the stove stay warmer.

 

[snowtime]

Different stove and different draft but what I find for my T6 is to load it NS because I just wasn't getting enough in EW. I load as many rounds [rounds are key with pine] as possible 3 to 5 depending how big they are. I fill the cracks between with splits. There is very little space left. One advantage of the T6 is you can load right up to the top and not worry about damage to stove parts. Next I do not have to wait for a cat so if I have a good coal bed and the stove is 400 then I only need to wait until I see flames. I then shut it all the way down in 2 easy moves that only take 5 min at most. The stove will take an hour to get going good and then it will slowly go to 800+. It will stay hot [above 750] for thenext 90 min. Then it will start to slowly cooldown resting at 450 to 600 for about 4 hours. Then its down to 200 to 350 for a couple of hours. In my mind this means I have good heat for a little over 6.5 hours and warming heat for another 2. So I can reload after 7 or 8 hours and it will get going but the true heating values are about 6.5 hours. I am burning pine only and find this result perfectly acceptable. This is for overnight burns I load smaller hotter loads during the day. This is when its -30F outside when it gets above 5F I do not load up for the night I only burn during the day. I simply get a hot fire going in the morning and bring the house back up to comfort range. If I was burning hardwood I would expect longer burn times.

 

[Cearbhaill]

One thing you need to remember is that long burn times have a lot of gray area as to what they really mean..

So let's define it.

To me burn time is from when I cut back the air and walk away until the ability to reload normally is lost.
The amount of time my stove will burn happily away without me sitting there babysitting it, and yet be ready to reload and pop right back into the next cycle.

 

[FPX Dude]

Yes, variable speed blower which I usually run about 3/4 speed (grandma always told me to never run things at 100%, haha) and just leave it. I'll try to run down to about 1/4 speed tonite.

 

[atvdave]

Here's what I call "Burn Time". It's from the chimneysweeponline.com web page. (lot's of good Q&A;'a there).
"We define burn time as the time that elapses between a freshly started fire and the point where there are just enough coals left to kindle the next load (aka match-free burning)." http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/hoburntime.htm

Sometimes my blower is on in the morning, and sometimes not. But 95% of the time I can always rake my hot coals to the front and put a new split on, and it will start flaming with-in 2min.

Thats what I call burn time, I'm sure we all have different opinion's on the definition.

 

[bokehman]

How you guys get such long burn times and long heating time?

Seasoned wood
Hardwood
EPA approved stove (preferably free-standing with several feet of exposed single wall stove pipe)
Large firebox (filled to the gills)
Soapstone
Catalytic
Thermostat (or EBT)

After that it's just down to the driver.

 

[FPX Dude]

New update from what I tried last night...btw, I like the definition of burn time:
1. Packed it better and "to the gills" with bigger splits.
2. Shut air control to maybe 98% again.
3. Just run the fan on ~ 1/4 speed.

Results:
Room temp was 66, when I got up...so I'm guessing that since warmer I got a longer burn time with the 3 new things I did last night...I'll investigate and monitor this more over the weekend and in daytime.

Also, do you think replacing the firebrick with soapstone would help?