Keep your eye on your flue and check it every month for creosote accumulation. If the wood is wet it is cooling down the flue gases. The Envi brick will help elevate temps, but it's good to be cautious until you get completely past this unseasoned wood period. Be sure to have your next season's wood stacked and top covered now or very soon.
Like Begreen said check your flue monthly! Burning wet wood will make creosote build up fast! When i was burning them there was not much build up but i burned mostly the blocks and would throw some wood on once in a while when i could find some dryer pieces. Wet wood sucks! I would burn no more then 3 of those blocks at a time by themselves and that was plenty of heat for us. We have a Quadrafire 2700i it is a smaller stove but heats our house great. I was always afraid of over firing the stove with those. My Dealer has a Quadrafire 5700 and he burns a 6pack at a time
I couldn't imagine that nor would i recommend that. As you get to know your stove and burning those blocks you will know when you have hit your limit. wood takes a while to season 1-3 year depending on what you get and your drying conditions but once you have seasoned wood what a joy your stove will be
I also mix them with cordwood. I gauge the quality of my burn and to make sure the temp is a
I mix the Envi's to regulate my stove temperature. I now use them at startup. I place 2 of them on a thin layer of kindling and place 3 small chunks of fire starter near the base. Then on top I put a bunch of kindling as well to get a top down effect. I use a propane torch to light it and have a beautiful fire without any smoke in 5 minutes. Once it is going strong I throw in cordwood and it lights right up. If you are doing it right you can pull back the damper controlling the heat and keep a solid burn going. I feel like my damper is my gauge. If I have to run wide open the stove is operating at too low a temperature so in goes another couple of Envi's.
