I'm giving up on top-down fires

[LLigetfa]

I tried it once with paper but the mistake I made was to simply flip everything upside down from how I do the bottom up fires. I gave it another go when I got my Super Cedar samples, with half of one on top surrounded by small kin'lin. Better than my first failure but still no sense of euphoria that others describe. Sure, there was less smoke and I could close the door but it took forever to get going.

I've given up on bottom-up starts too. Sure, they are the fastest to get going but with all the smoke I have to fiddle with the door slightly ajar, not too much to snuff out the fragile flame and not too little to smother it in smoke. Close the door too soon and drops of moisture form on the glass that black soot collects on.

Well, after five more starts with quarters of Super Cedar, I've settled on a front-back variation. I put big splits in the back with smaller irregular shaped splits in front of them that get gradually smaller as I near the front. I tuck a quarter Super Cedar next to some small stuff near the doghouse and pile some more small stuff between it and the andirons by the glass. Drop in a match, close the door, set the air to a normal high burn, and walk away only to return when it's time to reload.

Can't get much easier than that. :coolsmile: Oh, and the glass stays nice and clean. :kiss:

 

[SolarAndWood]

Whats the point of top down? Eliminate 10 minutes of a little smoke coming out the stack?

 

[Hogwildz]

Whats the point of top down? Eliminate 10 minutes of a little smoke coming out the stack?

Its the arts & crafts of making lil paper bows.

And some old dude named John the wood burner's guru says its good, so the flock follows his lead.

For me, a couple medium splits, a flat thin pc on the floor between them, with a firestarter on top of the flat.
Then some kindlin over the firestarter crossing over the medium splits and a couple smaller splits over the kindlin.
Works every time for me, and a blaze is going in no time.

Hell no, I won't bow.
Hell no, I won't bow.

 

[LLigetfa]

Whats the point of top down? Eliminate 10 minutes of a little smoke coming out the stack?

In my case it was the allure of being able to close the door right away and walk away from it. Keeping the glass clean was a nice bonus.

 

[LLigetfa]

Hell no, I won't bow.

Nor will I. I'll take it a step further and not use any paper at all.

 

[snowtime]

I agree. When we put the T6 in I tried the top down and it was fun to see it work but the truth is I can have a fire hotter faster with 2 splits N/S and lots of kindling E/W. I do not know if its a sign of a person who is snowed in most years but I enjoy making kindling in the basement. I go down there where I store our winters wood supply and split what I need. The kindling is all 8" rounds without any knots that i split to 1". I like to shave some splits for starter as we do not use any commercial starter and paper is hard to get. Wood shavings work great in the stove and camping. Of course we are past starting as the 24/7 is here in earnest.

 

[LLigetfa]

Wood shavings work great in the stove and camping. Of course we are past starting as the 24/7 is here in earnest.

Ja, wood shavings are great if you have easy access to them and a place to store them. You can buy the stuff as horse bedding. Chainsaw noodlings work great too.

The problem with 24/7 burning is the hot ash removal. I did it last Winter and incurred the wife's wrath with all the airborne ash that settled on her Chip and Dale furniture. This year she insists that I let the stove go cold before cleaning it so I still have weekly starts.

 

[savageactor7]

Yeah I saw topic last month and just rolled my eyes... never even wasted my time with that nonsense. More drama to that than Jack London's ..'to build a fire'. Hey it's simply a matter of starting a fire... why make it harder than it is?

Whoever thought of that gravity defying effort was just goofing on folks like us.

 

[pen]

I've settled on a modified version. 2 med to large splits on the bottom forming a canoe or v in between them. Then about 2 pieces of kindling. knotted up newspaper, several sheets. Several more small splits of kindling, then more knotted newspaper on top. Everything facing N-S.

My 6 in stove pipe goes into a 7 1/4 square flu. When the temps are real cold, it's hard to get a good draft started due to the increase in size. As stupid as I feel while knotting up that newspaper, I swear it works better than anything else I've found to do with it!

Now, w/ my old fisher, traditional bottom up w/ 3 pieces of kindling and 1 sheet of newspaper and that was all the old girl needed. This 30 is a lot finickier. Perhaps a lot of the results people get are because of their stove / chimney combo and-or using soft vs hardwoods.

I would imagine the soft wood burners would have better results w/ the top down.

pen

 

[BrotherBart]

Hell no, I won't bow.
Hell no, I won't bow.

Get back in there by the stove and finish that needlepoint. :lol:

 

[LLigetfa]

As stupid as I feel while knotting up that newspaper...
pen

I'd be tempted to use a different "pen"name when 'fessin up to tying bows.

Doing away with paper was high on my priorities. I can understand how a lazy flue can make that hard.

 

[JustWood]

I use the "credit card ap" up/down method.
Wad up one piece of newspaper. Criss-cross some 100 year old hemlock barn siding kindling on top of newspaper then throw a bunch of credit card aps and other junk on top and light.
Hemlock barn siding kindling you can dam near get going with a match. Love the stuff.

 

[i3bpvh]

The only reason I use the top down is because my firebox is small. I don't have the room to place kindling in the front. I make a U shape (splits on bottom and sides) and then place kindling in the middle. 3 sheets and away she goes. After the load starts burning I put one more split where the kindling was, drop the air and come back in 8 hours.

 

[Jack Straw]

Its 24/7 burn time, so I have quit top down also..... :coolhmm:

 

[Rich L]

In the Blaze king king I stack the left 2/3 rds of the stove full of splits and put the kindling with paper to the right.Light it up leaving the door cracked until the kindling catches close the door and everything takes off until I damp it down.Very simple.

 

[drewboy]

Top Down?? Bah. :lol:

 

[Later]

I'm not embarrassed to admit my love (yes love!) of the top down method.

 

[dave11]

I'm surprised so many here are anti-top-down. I'm a lot newer to wood burning than probably most others, and they work great for me. And I've more of a challenge, with each day building a new fire, in a cold stove, in a cold basement, with cold wood, and twenty five feet of uninsulated liner in a cold external chimney.

2 splits N/S, then 2 splits E/W close together, put two half-sheet bows on top, then a small handful of poplar twigs from the yard on top of that. Light the bows, and leave the door cracked a bit. 15 minutes later the pipe entering the wall is at surface temp 250F, and I can close the door. Zero smoke.

 

[madrone]

I've settled on a modified version. 2 med to large splits on the bottom forming a canoe or v in between them. Then about 2 pieces of kindling. knotted up newspaper, several sheets. Several more small splits of kindling, then more knotted newspaper on top. Everything facing N-S.

Basically the same here, but I keep simplifying it. Now it's 2 smaller splits N/S, part of a supercedar up front, 5 or 6 pieces of kindling on that. When the kindling becomes coals, (10-15 minutes) I load up. Done messing with it in 30 minutes from a cold stove.

 

[LLigetfa]

It's not so much that I'm anti-top-down but rather that it doesn't work as well for me as the front-back method. Once I figured out that you cannot just take a bottom-up method and flip it over, I was getting better results but not as fast as bottom-up.

My firebox is not very tall so I don't have room for a top down with lots of kin'lin on top of the paper. With the bottom-up method I could fill it right up to the secondaries and the flames would snake their way up through the splits. The top-down really turned into a middle-up/down and much slower. The front-back method is like the bottom-up WRT the flames rising up through the wood but with better airflow allowing me to close the door right away. I know it wouldn't work as well using paper bows as it does with 1/4 of a Super Cedar simply because of the space the paper needs. I think losing the paper was the best move.

 

[pen]

In the Blaze king king I stack the left 2/3 rds of the stove full of splits and put the kindling with paper to the right.Light it up leaving the door cracked until the kindling catches close the door and everything takes off until I damp it down.Very simple.

I've heard of BK owners using whole end tables for kindling ;-P


pen

 

[mike1234]

I'm surprised too by the number of burners admitting not using the top down method. I don't use it either because: 1 - I tried it, worked ok, but not spectacular, and 2 - I do not want to tie the little paper doilies.
But I've been shy to say so because I kinda thought if we admitted not using it we might looses our wood burning cards.

 

[madrone]

I'm surprised too by the number of burners admitting not using the top down method. I don't use it either because: 1 - I tried it, worked ok, but not spectacular, and 2 - I do not want to tie the little paper doilies.
But I've been shy to say so because I kinda thought if we admitted not using it we might looses our wood burning cards.

The funny thing is that I was pretty much using Vanessa's method until I got the Supercedars. One membership requirement actually cancelled out the other. That's why I'm afraid of getting a Fiskar's. Maybe I'd have to give back the poly brush I finally bought.

 

[LLigetfa]

Ja, the Super Cedar membership card trumps the top-down lounge access card.

I'm afraid though that getting a Fiskars would mean you have to give up the hydraulic log splitter.

 

[begreen]

I had a couple weeks of top down fires. I put the wood on top of the coals and it burns down. Rinse, lather and repeat. :coolsmirk: