Kindling...Smaller Pieces

[Dunadan]

Still trying to get the stove start-up thing figured out.

Once I get a good hot fire, I'm getting more comfortable keeping the secondary burn going. Every so often, when the fire in the baffles slows down, it seems it helps to throw a couple pieces of paper in to re-ignite the process. Hopefully I can get away from needing to do this.

I seem to be having more problems starting a fresh fire and getting the fire going in the morning when my coals are pretty well spent (though still there).

I do love these Super Cedars, but I'm finding a 1/4 and 1/2 piece + several medium sized (6"or so) splits is not enough to go from nothing to a roaring fire without constant tinkering. Should I expect to start/recover in the morning a fire in this manner? Or do I need to really start using smaller pieces of kindling and newspaper?

I have been starting the fire with damper wide open and the air control all the way open. It seems to help some to crack the door when first starting. Maybe I'm just being to impatient? I am getting a lot of smoke when I first start the fire which makes tinkering a little difficult because if I don't toss in a bit of paper, the smoke enters the room even with damper wide open. Not sure if this is do to drafting issues. They had to install a connect between the stove and liner because the hole (I know not proper term) in the stove was several inches in front of where the liner connect was. They also said there was not enough extra room around the liner to add any insulation so on cold mornings I may need to start the draft myself.

I know a lot of stuff here, but I'm still in learning mode. I'm a sponge at this point, so fire away.

p.s. Other than that I love this thing. Over the weekend when it was about 40 degrees outside it kept our main living area at about 78 degrees and upstairs at about 71 degrees. Nice and toasty!

 

[RoosterBoy]

are you using fresh wood or are you sure it's seasoned? did you buy it from someone who told you it was seasoned. i never use any newspaper at all. and one supper cedar like you have i here can burn for like 20-30 mins.

 

[Dunadan]

As far as being seasoned, it looked pretty seasoned to me. The dealer I got the stove from gets his wood from the same guy, and I've had multiple people from the shop (when I mentioned his name as my supplier) say I didn't have to worry about his wood. Obviously he also told me it was seasoned about 13 months. I posted pics of some of the wood in another thread here > What Type of Wood?.

I am keeping the wood in my garage. It obviously doesn't get as much air circulation there, but then it also doesn't get the rain beating down on the sides. I did notice it can got humid in the garage after I first stacked the wood there. To combat this I ran a de-humidifier and was emptying it once in the morning and once at night. I stopped this a little while back so humidity could be causing a problem.

I've not used a whole Super Cedar, but the half piece probably burns for at least 20-30 minutes. The bottoms of the logs tend to be glowing red when it goes out, but the tops of the logs have not caught completely. That's why I was wondering if needed to really be using smaller pieces of kindling and such.

 

[laynes69]

Sounds like poor draft. I can use a few small splits a little kindeling and within 10 minutes the whole firebox is engulfed in flames. Make sure your flue and chimney are cleaned. If you need to start the draft, light a piece of newspaperto help warm the flue up. My flue draws when its ice cold. How tall is your chimney, and where is it located? What kind?

 

[tradergordo]

I'm also new to wood burning and have been experimenting with various fire starting methods lately.

A lot of people, and my stove's instruction manual recommend using (non-color) newspaper for starting, but I have found this to be a really bad choice - not only does it smoke a lot, but it doesn't burn long and it creates a lot of fly ash (which can clog or dirty anything it happens to stick to inside your stove, chimney, or even outside). People have also recommended using bark, which is another lousy, smokey thing to burn.

The super cedars that you mentioned work great, but are expensive compared to alternatives. Walmart sells duraflame starters in a 10 lbs. box for $7. But I'm too cheap for that, so I bought a 6 lbs duraflame log for $2.70, took it outside and used a circular saw to cut a lot of groves in it, then pulled apart the chunks to make 45 firestarters. That's 6 cents each. Even the leftover dust is easy to clump up into one last firestarter ball. These light up easily, burn for a long time, burn hot, and make very little smoke.

Using dry kindling is also important. I didn't have enough small sticks, and its too much trouble to go get some. I found that wood pallets (super dry pine!) are all over the place and they are free (lots of businesses throw them out, just look around). I got two trailer loads of pallets, whipped out the chainsaw, and in a few seconds had a huge pile of fantastic, dry, kindling without any of the hassles of finding and breaking up sticks.

The combination of a few pieces of pallet wood on top of the firestarter, with regular seasoned firewood on top of it all, works like a charm!

 

[Roospike]

My .02 cents.
"sounds" like unseasoned wood or you are trying to start a fire with "too hard" of wood.

Real hard wood flames less over all than mid to softer woods.

Super Cedars / Duraflame log chunks ect.. should fire off your wood with no problems.

When you said

The bottoms of the logs tend to be glowing red when it goes out, but the tops of the logs have not caught completely.

The small logs shouldnt have a chance from a fire starter (Super Cedars / Duraflame log chunks ect ) and should light right away and with in 10 minutes should be burning on its own. unless maybe you trying to light off a 10 lbs oak log.

 

[Nokoni]

Maybe your wood is green? I don't know but I collect sticks from my yard and throw them in a box. I keep the newspaper and wad up several pieces and stack sticks in various sizes on top and then a few small pieces of wood. I have been burning since last December and only had one back puff (think it was too warm outside) and have only had one or two other times that the fire was slow to start. I had lots of practice making fires in a fireplace for years growing up. I tried the super cedars and they are great but sticks are free! Good luck.

 

[Marcus]

Have you read about the top down method of staring a fire? I put 2 big splits on the bottom with a gap between, medium sized kindling on top of that, 3 crumpled up half sheets of newspaper on top of that, and then a bunch of small kindling on top of that. Light the newspaper, leave the door open a crack, and wait. The kindling will really heat the flue, helping with the drafting. Eventually all the hot embers will fall down onto the larger logs and ignite them. This works for me everytime with no effort. If I only have a few hot embers in the morning I throw a handful of kindling on them and put 2 smaller splits on that. Flames up quickly with no smoke.

 

[Dunadan]

Not sure exactly how tall my chimney is. I know I paid for 16' of liner, and when I estimate chimney length that seems about right. Maybe a bit taller. It's located on the outside wall of the house, but in located on the inside of the wall. Not sure what kind it is. It's masonry, but I don't know much more than that.

Again, I've not been using ANY kindling so far. I'll give that a try, along with an upside down fire. I'll also look for using softer wood when I start out and report my findings.

Also, does white paper/bills work in place of newspaper? We don't get the paper, so unless we start, or start scrounging leftovers from the inlaws that's not going to work.

[Edit - followup]

As for seasoned wood, I still believe it is. When unloading the bark was falling off all over the place. The insides do not look wet. I did just split some of my pieces into kindling size pieces. I do seem to have a lot of hard wood (as in it does not feel soft). My little hatchet was bouncing right of the ends. Here are links to some pics of them. Again, they look seasoned from what I know. Any disagreement?

(broken link removed to http://home.twcny.rr.com/upstatestanleys/Wood/Wood%202%20004.jpg)

(broken link removed to http://home.twcny.rr.com/upstatestanleys/Wood/Wood%202%20005.jpg)

(broken link removed to http://home.twcny.rr.com/upstatestanleys/Wood/Wood%202%20006.jpg)

 

[laynes69]

Should be alright then. Top down does work well also like suggested.

 

[Sandor]

Tradergordo's post looks really helpfull, and I would go that way.

Other than that, I believe your wood is not as dry as it should be.

 

[Dunadan]

We have FIRE! Lots of it, and HOT!

I couldn't really try the upside down fire, as I don't have any newspaper. So, I tried the small fire kindling thing with 1/2 a Super Cedar. I put the SC in the front middle, and stacked small pieces of kindling all around it tee-pee style, left the damper wide open and lit her up. The fire went well burning the heck out of the small pieces. In short time I had red embers, but as I started slowly adding additional small pieces and finally a small-medium piece the weight just smothered the coals and I got a stove full of smoke. Boy was I PO'd.

A little history on my day...the estimate came back from the guy to install our new boiler (and re-pipe almost the entire house with brass pipe for our baseboard heat) which hopefully we won't use much this winter now we have the stove. The estimate came back on the high side, and my wife delivered me the estimate while I was standing in the yard watching the excavators dig up my loan trying to figure out how my septic system was even functioning as they pulled pieces cracked and ruined pvc pipe out of the groung. They are coming back tomorrow to hopefully fix the problem, otherwise it's a whole new leach field I'm facing.

So...back to the above...when my little tee-pee fire smothered, it was icing on the cake. Faced with either 4 cords of bad wood, a poor install job, or a bad draft, I was just shaking my head.

So...I decided to try something different. With my fire all but out, I pulled out a FULL Super Cedar, put it in the stove, crisscrossed small kindling all around it and stacked it all the way up to the baffle (kinda like lincoln logs), closed the baffle, and lit her up. Within 5 minutes, probably more like 2, I had a firebox full of flames, with secondary burn in the baffles shortly after. The entire box stayed full of fire until the kindling began disintigrating into red coals. The temps had shot up to almost 600 degrees in a matter of about 20 minutes

So I got the starting thing down...now to play with adding more wood and the proper order of sizes once I have my bed of coals and stove heated up.

Sigh...what a day.

 

[Corie]

Yeah the lincoln log criss cross is really the way to go for conventional fire starting. I started every fire this way and even now that I'm rocking the top down method, I criss cross everything on the top and then sneak a super cedar in there or even a few pieces of paper. Works perfect. If I remember bitterbee liked this idea and it was succesful in her stove also.

 

[DonCT]

Yipee! I get to use my link:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/3678/

I didn't use any newspaper for my top down fire. Just broken up pieces of a starter brick (basically like a SC). Try your fire like that and see what happens. Once the top level really starts taking off, just close the door down to a crack. You will see at what point you get your "Super Draft". Trust me, you'll see

I get virtually no smoke, just alittle as the bark begins to take off.

 

[Dunadan]

DonCT - very nice. That was helpful to watch. I'll have to give that a try next. BTW...what's the elapsed time on that loop? Especially from ignite to first addition of splits and then larger split?

Just curious out there...since I think I need to split up a bunch of smaller pieces. What the best way to split splits into kindling? Axe, hatchet, or mallet and wedge?

 

[DonCT]

The time from light up to first smallie split was approx. 20 min. Once the tower starts to fire downward, it progresses pretty dern fast.

As far as kindling, I use the limbs I bucked off the trees. If you don't have any, I would use an ax to split some small pieces off. It might take some practice, but you should get pretty good at it. Another way is to save some of the splinters from splitting. I've got a pretty good pile of that also that I can use to start. For the cross pieces, I use a sawsall to cut them in half. If I didn't they would stick out the front of the stove

 

[Dunadan]

So I tried the top down method this morning. I was a bit sceptical, I'll be honest. I loaded up it up like DonCT had in his pics, put my firestarter on top, and lighted her up. I think I may have had my top layer to close together, not sure, because for the first 5 minutes the pieces of Super Cedar just burned on top of the top layer of wood. Concerned I'd have a stove full of smoldering wood, I poked the top layer of wood apart so there small gaps between the pieces for embers to fall through. Also for good measure, I add a small chunk of firestarter in between the pieces near the bottom. I also closed the damper almost right away once I knew I had a good draft.

Within a few minutes the firebox was full of flames. My girls were yelling at me to come look at the flames as I was in back with Septic guys .

When I finally managed to check it out, it was roaring, with stove top temp around 650. I didn't want it to get too hot so I dialed back on the air to about 50 perecent and it's been that way for the past 2 hours. Stove temp is now about 500 with a huge bed of coals. Just added another large split, so I think we're good to go.

Top down starting only from now on! I'm a believer.

p.s. Anyone use a hatchet and worry about the shaft splitting and the head coming winging back to hit you in the face? I've got a wood handled hatchet...maybe that's not the safest way to go?

 

[Gibbonboy]

I have an old wooden-handled hatchet in my basement that starts to loosen after a couple weeks of burning. I usually soak the head in boiled linseed oil for a few days, seems to swell it enough to hold on. I've used some dodgy axes and hatchets in my day, never had a head fly completely off, although it certainly could happen. Gerber and Fiskars make excellent (though pricey) hatchets with composite (plastic) handles. I enjoy wood-handled tools, but the convenience, strength and safety of fiberglass/plastic outweighs that most of the time.

I keep a big tub of small sticks, dimensional lumber scraps, etc near the stove area. I may try to use some chunks of fake log as starters. I make starters for backpacking/camping by putting either cedar shavings, dryer lint, and/or shredded birch bark into foil muffin cups and pouring melted paraffin over them. They usually burn for 15-20 minutes. I make them about 1/2" thick, and make sure the wax coats/soaks into everything.

 

[DonCT]

Congrats on the startup I've noticed that I need to keep about a half inch spacing between my kindling pieces for optimum draft. I fired up the stove this morning when I got home at 5 a.m. and had a roaring fire with secondary burn within 25 min.

If you have any bark or very small kindling, try placing that on top of your SC starter. That will help with the starting. You shouldn't need the second starter at the bottom.

Good luck!

 

[rudysmallfry]

Have you tried using fat sticks or fat wood for kindling? Fireplace stores and most HD's and Lowes sell them in bunches of 50 or 100 pieces. A single piece of fat wood burns for about 5 minutes. If you use the top down method, and put a piece of fat wood under the topmost layer of thin stuff, it gets a nice fire going without the hassle of smoking newspaper or bark.

I love the top down method. It always seems to get the fire burning hotter, sooner with better draft.

 

[wahoowad]

I'm fortunate to have a yard full of dead poplar branches - it allows me to use small and medium branches as kindling. I realize many aren't as lucky to have a never ending supply of kindling (just as I don't actually have regular access to full size firewood and have to scrounge). I recently had a pallet and found it very easy to cut the boards to 6 inch lengths and split them into 3/4" kindling logs. They catch fast fast fast too. Maybe those of you without good access to fallen branches can try to scrounge a pallet or two and make some kindling.