overnight burn???

[chuck1020]

i cant seem to keep my fire going overnight. ill load it up before bed (11:00 or so) and then when i wake up its all out and the heater is on. im loading about 3 or 4 splitts and setting air about half or alittle less than half. stove is a earth stove from the 90's.
what might i be doing wrong?

 

[Todd]

Need more info like is it a cat stove or non cat, how tall is your chimney and what type of wood? Sounds like you need to turn the air down further than 1/2? Maybe try 1/4?

 

[chuck1020]

its a non cat stove. im using oak wood seasoned more than 18 months and my chimney is about 9 feet tall stove to cap with single wall 6'' in house and 8'' double wall out.

 

[madrone]

Maybe not enough wood. Is it packed full?

 

[bluefrier]

How big is the stove? cubic feet wise.

 

[savageactor7]

Chuck at night time, instead of splits, try throwing some some rounds on an established bed of coals...they should burn a little slower and leave you enough hot coals for a quick morning start up with splits.

 

[InTheRockies]

I'll second the suggestion on using rounds. I've used rounds for my overnight burns, both in the old smoke dragon that I replaced this year and the new EPA stove. I also pack the new stove tightly. The firebox on the old stove was humongous, almost 4 cf. The firebox on the new stove is only 2 cf. With the new stove I deliberately cut my wood in 2 sizes. Although my stove will take 22 inch pieces when loading EW, I cut my longest pieces to 18 inches. That way, I have room at each end of long EW pieces to stack short pieces NS. This seems to work for me and gives me a 7 hour burn and a nice coal bed in the morning. You will just need to experiment with load. Each stove is slightly different; keep experimenting with how you load--you'll find the best method to get the longest burn. Good luck.

 

[chuck1020]

thanks for all the replies, i will try out the whole round and see if that works and even shut my air down alittle more.

 

[InTheRockies]

Chuck,

If you have the room, use more than 1 round. It sounds like you may not be loading enough wood. In the new stove, even with the smaller firebox, I'm able to load 2 small diameter rounds. Good luck.

 

[Chettt]

Chuck what I do is rack all the coals to the front. Load it full so that only one split is lying on the coals and the rest are laying on bare brick. Get the first split burning good and then shut the primary down fully. You won't get much heat for the first hour or so but at 04:00am its putting out heat that will warm the house for your 6:00am wake up and leave you thick burning coals.

 

[savageactor7]

Chett I take it that's an E to W log arrangement?

Sounds to be a very promising solution for Chuck to try out. Personally we never did E to W but I saw a Canadian produced film posted here that convinced me on its long burn effectiveness.

 

[Girl]

Like everyone has said, rake your established coal bed to the front by the air inlet. I do a very thin layer after that, but not the full length of the stove, just about 3- 4 inches in length & width of stove where the splits will touch. I then place my splits way in the back & stuff it, I don't have many rounds myself, but if you pack the splits tight you should obtain the same effect. Once it has caught well I reduce air in about 15 min increments. I shut mine almost all the way down. I have a non cat & I have been able to get a 9 hour burn with plenty of coals left to restart with some kindling or small splits.
This method has works really well with my stove, in about an hour the secondaries are rocking full blast 700-725 which is fine for my stove to hit, the temp stays at 500 to 600 for a really long time after the secondaries kick back I wake up to the stove top therm @ 225 & my house is still cozy.
Every stove is different, so you may want to play around with a little bit of every ones suggestions. It took sometime for me to figure out what worked best to get an overnight burn with my stove.

 

[Chettt]

"that’s an E to W log arrangement?"
Yes. Like I said you won't get much heat early on but when asleep who needs heat. Now if it is 20 below zero and you need high temperatures constantly, run it hot and set the alarm for 04:00 and reload then.

Let us know what works out best for you.

 

[chuck1020]

thanks to all that replied. i will try all methods and see which one works best for me.

 

[temporary]

Stuff it full and close the draft to zero in a couple of steps so as not to snuff it. I have never actually killed a stuffed firebox when doing it this way so long as the wood gets ignited in the first place.

 

[pyro68]

found that if I use smaller splits I can pack more wood into the stove, the more you limit the air space between the splits the less air flow and the slower the fire will burn. I typically close air all the way and then open just a bit. This will vary with different chimney draws.