Morning Routine,

[SKIN052]

We are getting down to the type of weather that see’s me having to light the stove in the morning to take the chill out. Typically 5-8 deg C in the mornings on a regular bases now. This being my first year with this new fandangled EPA stove, I was wondering what your morning routines are during shoulder season. For me it goes like this. Up at 0530, washroom, light a smoke, put on the coffee, toss in a bunch of small splits and birch bark in a log cabin style, light the stove, leave the door open until an established flame is going, turn up the drafter to high, close the door, shower. After the shower and shave I usually have a bunch of nice red coals and start adding the bigger wood. Set drafter back a little but still high, go finish the coffee. By the time me and the wife are ready for work I toss in some nice big wood, make sure it is going strong and then set the draft back to very low, if not off altogether. Wake up the kids too a nice warm house around 0645. Depending on how much wood I add before I leave, I will typically come home to enough hot coals that I can just toss in a few splits, open the draft and within 10 minutes I have a roaring fire again. So I am getting an average of a 10 hour burn out of the stove. I don’t like turning the draft down so low but it is the only way to get a good long burn. I make a point of burning hot when I am home to take care of any build up from the long day on low. Not too hot however as I can really see this stove cranking out an excess of BTU if for some reason the draft was left opened up for too long. So there you have it, my morning routine. Any suggestions other than to quit the step where I light up a smoke.

 

[firefighterjake]

My routine for shoulder season fires is the same routine as winter fires . . . the differences being a) I have some nice coals from the overnight fire, b) I have better drafts and c) I do a full load with my good wood vs. a partial load with my chunks, punks and uglies.

Build a top down fire . . . medium sized wood on bottom, smaller splits and then kindling with a small piece of cardboard and some newspaper on top . . . light . . . keep air control open and the side door ajar. I don't leave the room with the door open or the air control open all the way -- I'm a bit dense . . . after leaving the air control open all the way and going in to take a quick 10-minute shower I came out to find the temp in the flue near the over-fire temp . . . did this once . . . and then again the next season . . . I'm now a lot smarter . . . I don't leave the stove until everything is set.

Once the temp is good I shut the side door . . . and once the temp rises a bit more I start to shut down the air control to achieve a nice clean burn with secondary combustion . . . this time of year building the fire and getting things all set takes longer than during the winter.

An advantage of the top down fire is there is no need to reload . . . although sometimes I'll put in another split or two after the splits have caught and the kindling is now coals/ash . . . just to give the place a little more heat.

 

[SKIN052]

Anyone speaks of this top down fire, I will have to give in a give a try I guess.

 

[oldspark]

Don't feel like the lone ranger if it doesn't work for ya, I plan on trying it some more this winter but could not get it to work last year but only tried it once or twice, battenkiller seems to like it a lot.

 

[Slow1]

I like the top-down approach as well. I did find that it worked best for me when I used a generous amount of kindling and all of it was very dry (seems obvious but worth mentioning). Finding the right balance between enough material and leaving enough air space was also important for me - I tend to over stuff if given the chance. I am also a bit anti-paper in the stove so I used a piece of SC nestled in the top of the kindling or if I used paper it was a few strips of egg carton (flattened to fit) rather than the much touted bows or balls of newspaper.

My "morning routine" however is focused on spending as little time as possible tending the fire. I don't mind adjusting the air a time or two, but I don't want to open the door and feed the stove. That is the big draw of a top-down fire (or modified version of it) to me. Putting larger splits in the bottom of the stove and having them there already once the fire is burning well is great in my opinion so I can just keep going with my morning.

So my routine if starting a cold stove is along the lines of light the fire around 5:45a (lay out the pieces if not already done the night before), then I turn down the air from full after 15 minutes or so (whenever load is well engulfed) to about 2 (FV goes from 0-4). The door is closed during this time so I'm free to leave the room and do whatever but I'm generally nearby emptying the dishwasher or otherwise getting breakfast going and such in the kitchen (which is in view of the stove). Once the flue temp is above 400 I engage the cat and turn air down to somewhere under 1 and I'm done until I leave to do first school drop-off at 7:10a. I generally check things before leaving at that time and may adjust air slightly up or down depending on how the temps look. Assuming this is shoulder season burning most likely air will go down either at this time or when I get back from last school drop-off at 8:30 (to about 1/2) for rest of the day.

Now with all that said, I am writing that from memory of last spring and I plan to follow that general plan this fall but have not yet burned. I expect things will go differently (in some way) given that my fall wood this year is white pine which if rumor is correct will likely go up like gasoline and as such I'll have to keep a close eye on it - certainly going to have to watch those temperatures the first few fires until I know how it behaves.