Ok, so a little history...
I moved up here to the desert almost 15 years ago into a small home with wood stove heating. I knew nothing about wood stoves and didn't really look into it at all until two winters ago. Thanks to Google, I found this place. I knew enough to know that our old stove needed replacing. Talk about a smoke dragon! Those who saw my thread in the picture forum know that we are lucky the house didn't burn to the ground.
Anyway, so now that we had the new EPA stove installed and I have spent countless hours reading here, I made a few suggestions on using the wood stove. I bought Paul the Ryobi splitter, nagged our wood guy about seasoned firewood, etc.
The other night, Paul was starting to clean the ashes out of the stove to build a fire. I told him to leave some in the stove as he has been cleaning it totally out each time and I know it's better to leave some in there, especially if there are some coal chunks. I guess I hurt his feelings and he told me that I should just build the fire myself.
Well, I did. I started with a few pieces of fatwood, some newspapers and small kindling and let that burn into some nice coals before adding a small split. When that got going good, I added another split and we had a nice warm fire. Our Country Striker is a small stove (firebox 14" by 18") so I need to tend it a bit. The old smoke dragon was larger and would run me out of the room and Paul's method was just starting it up, load it full and turn down the air.
He had to admit my method worked great and I tried to explain to him that I have learned a great deal here and that doing something a little different didn't mean I was being critical of him personally.
Should I have just kept my big mouth shut?
I moved up here to the desert almost 15 years ago into a small home with wood stove heating. I knew nothing about wood stoves and didn't really look into it at all until two winters ago. Thanks to Google, I found this place. I knew enough to know that our old stove needed replacing. Talk about a smoke dragon! Those who saw my thread in the picture forum know that we are lucky the house didn't burn to the ground.
Anyway, so now that we had the new EPA stove installed and I have spent countless hours reading here, I made a few suggestions on using the wood stove. I bought Paul the Ryobi splitter, nagged our wood guy about seasoned firewood, etc.
The other night, Paul was starting to clean the ashes out of the stove to build a fire. I told him to leave some in the stove as he has been cleaning it totally out each time and I know it's better to leave some in there, especially if there are some coal chunks. I guess I hurt his feelings and he told me that I should just build the fire myself.
Well, I did. I started with a few pieces of fatwood, some newspapers and small kindling and let that burn into some nice coals before adding a small split. When that got going good, I added another split and we had a nice warm fire. Our Country Striker is a small stove (firebox 14" by 18") so I need to tend it a bit. The old smoke dragon was larger and would run me out of the room and Paul's method was just starting it up, load it full and turn down the air.
He had to admit my method worked great and I tried to explain to him that I have learned a great deal here and that doing something a little different didn't mean I was being critical of him personally.
Should I have just kept my big mouth shut?
