New to wood burning - Jotul F 600 Firelight CB

[baseroom]

Sounds like you are picking this woodburning thing up well!! Good folks on here are a big help. One comment. Don't trust those Rutland thermometers In my experience the Rutland was 200 degrees off compared to an IR. Caused me a lot of unneeded consternation. IR's aren't that expensive.....and btw can be a bit of fun as you check different points on the stove.

 

[Allagash350]

Yes crack the door not wide open.

Keep in mind the longer your door is open during your reload process the more heat you lose. Your method may be slight overkill. Rake coals, reload, close door.

Also don’t shovel your ashes out every day. I used to and now do it once or twice a month. The ash and coals form an extra layer of insulation. Easier to get a fire going too.

Good work though, pretty soon you’ll be more comfortable with it.
I have a castine and always have enough embers to put some splits in and get it going in the morning. Just takes practice.

 

[sbnh]

When the door is cracked just a small amount you get a high velocity of air rushing in to fan the flames. This tends to push the fire into the rest of the wood further in the stove. That's assuming that you started the fire on the outer edge by the open door.

Wow, this worked great and did exactly as you said. I only needed to leave the door open that crack for about 5 minutes or so after a cold start.


Alagash350, as to leaving the ashes, that is hard because of the grate. Every time I rake the coals to arrange them for a reload, a lot of the ash falls through to the ash pan.

 

[Nick Mystic]

With the F600 I wouldn't be too concerned about raking coals to the front of the stove before a reload when you are using the side door. The purpose behind raking the coals is so the primary air coming in through the doghouse can fan the coals to send added heat and flames into your wood. However, as you've experienced with the side reload and cracked door you get plenty of fanning of flames from the side toward the middle and this quickly establishes an active and vigorous fire. The main thing I do prior to a reload is to clear a path through the ashes from the doghouse to the back of the stove, so that there will be a clear channel for the primary air to get into the wood pile once the fire gets going. I use a poker to clear the path and mostly just push the ashes to either side of the channel I am creating. You don't even have to go all the way down to the grate once you get a good ash buildup in the bottom of the stove. The added ashes on either side of the central channel help hold the splits up enough for the air to flow freely through the channel.