Loading Tarm

[lawandorder]

Started burning again for the year a few days ago and have small nagging problems creeping up Just wondered if anyone had ideas to cure or lessen bridging in the Tarm, as well as different loading and firestarting ideas that may help my startup. As always thanks in advance.

 

[flyingcow]

I don't seem to have any problems. If i'm in a hurry, I'm no longer than 10 minutes splitting kindlin' and loading unit and walking away.
As far as bridging issues I don't think i have any, but my unit is in garage(whoops, wood storage facility) so I'm not right there all the time.But a few times I have had some of the neighbors show up and we've hung out beside the boiler, and I have not noticed any problems. I've got most of my wood split fairly small, but if i do have bigger pieces, i put them on the top of the pile in the fire box.

 

[jebatty]

I find bridging is more likely to occur with larger splits and/or wetter wood, and less bridging with the opposite. I also use the top down fire starting method with small kindling and a big handful of planer shavings (newspaper knots work just as well), then about 1/4 full with small splits, then when gasification going well fill it up with small, dry splits.

 

[Tony H]

Seems like I have very few issues with bridging now but one time last year I had it happen a bunch of times . It appears there is a ridge where the firebrick has a cap / rail around the top edge and its about 1/3 of the way up in the boiler and catches the edge of wood. This appears to cause the problem but the fix for me has been to keep the wood a little shorter a good 6 inches less than the depth of the firebox and then the wood gets caught but because its shorter gets pushed past the ridge faster as it burns. I am sure it still bridges a bit but because it falls in faster it does not cause the boiler to loose temp and force me to attack it with a pry bar to loosen it up.
With starting I use some balls of newspaper covered with small dry kindling and put the propane torch to it then after it gets a little start I leave the bottom door cracked open (controller off) and let it get going for a few minutes then throw in some bigger stuff and let it go a few more minutes and then close it up and kick on the controller and we have fire.

 

[flyingcow]

I find bridging is more likely to occur with larger splits and/or wetter wood, and less bridging with the opposite. I also use the top down fire starting method with small kindling and a big handful of planer shavings (newspaper knots work just as well), then about 1/4 full with small splits, then when gasification going well fill it up with small, dry splits.

Yeah I use the top down method also. Basically put 8 pieces of very dry cedar kindlin' in, throw a few pieces of paper in. Light and go get wood, kinlin' is crackling good, put the smaller ones on bottom, bigger ones on top, and walk away.

 

[NHFarmer]

I also use shorter splits when I am lighting, once the burn is going good then I go with full length pieces. seems to work for me

 

[jebatty]

...the fix for me has been to keep the wood a little shorter a good 6 inches less than the depth of the firebox...

Good point, but I haven't gone that short on my splits. The firebox is supposed to take 20" splits. I cut everything no longer than 18". Before that I found that if I had to put pieces in diagonally because they were too long, bridging was more likely to occur. Pieces seemed to wedge in the firebox. Also, now I put some of the 18" pieces in the firebox at small angle variations to help prevent a single piece from falling and blocking the nozzle and to aid the whole load to fall into the burn, and that also reduces the likelihood of bridging. Bridging is just about a think of the past for me, but initially, it happened quite often and was frustrating.

 

[stee6043]

Last year I had to keep a cordless skill saw next to my wood pile for just this reason. Even though my boiler will take 20" splits I found that anything over 16" or so didn't really love being in there. I can throw the big ones on as the last split for overnight but other than that it was just asking for trouble. This year all of my splits are much shorter and any that slipped past the initial inspection will be cut outside before I throw them in.

(2) 9" splits may make you much much happier than the single 18 incher.....