Overnight Loading And Burns

[BrotherBart]

Hey gang, need some input here. I have been burning overnight since 1977 but could use some words of wisdom on burning the new EPA dragon. What is your routine as far as loading, initial firing and cutting them back on primary air (I still can't bring myself to call cutting back primary air "damping down" since an ole stack damper ain't involved) for night time burns.

That is, do ya load yours a split or two at a time and establish the burn or pack it on top of the hot coals and go, do you have a set temp you take it up to and then back down the primary air and just how far back do you cut the primary before waving goodnight to your heat making buddy and going to bed.

The Jotul F3 is a no brainer. Put the few pieces of wood it will hold in it, fire crap out of it to 500 and then cut it back to 25%. In three hours, rinse and repeat. Not so the big box burner. Fire the crap out of it fully loaded with the draft I have and a chimney cap is headed for the next county.

Words of experience and wisdom cheerfully solicited. Absorbing it all and arguing with none.

 

[DonCT]

In my short burning experience, this is how I go about it:

Start stove as normal, usually with top down method.

Keep placing small stuff on till I get a decent coal bed.

Once the coal bed is there, stove is usually around 500-550.

I spread the coals over the entire firebox, and load the firebox up with my "Overnight" splits.

I keep the air full open for about 10 min. allowing the big splits to char up.

Then I cut the air to 25% or lower, watch the secondary burn take off.

Depending on how cold it is, I will turn the air full down. That will give me about a 8-9 hr. burn time with plenty of coals left to reload and repeat. I've been burning 24/7 for the past 4 days, and I'm getting consistant times/results. The inside temps never below 66, stove temp never below 250

 

[Roospike]

I normally run 3-4 hour reload burns late afternoon to later PM ( 3pm-10pm ) then right before finishing off for the night i will let the coal bed go down to about nothing and let the temp drop a little .......After this has happened i will put in a few small splits to get a new coal bed going and after the small log go to coal i will then throw in the large rounds - char and shut it all the way down for the night then reload about 8 am.

Now when it gets down to 10° to -10° or lower then this dont work quite as well and 10 hours divided by XX amount of BTU's loaded wood is not enough so i will have to load it later or get up earlier.

 

[Robbie]

I have a hot coal bed ready at around midnight, I load 2 red oak or cherry "quarter splits" (3 splits can "sometimes" get unruly since my wood is so dry this year, and 2 is easier for me to "set" for the night, and it last just as good it seems).

Let fire get rolling for about ten minutes or until temp. meter starts to creep towards red line, then damper all the way down......then slide damper open about 1/8 of an inch..........or until nice steady "smaller" blue flame is seen coming from splits in a few small places.

Then I turn all lights off and sit and watch my stove to make sure all is well and there is no changes for a few minutes.

8 hours or so later and I have a hot coal bed ready for more..............and more................and more......... %-P



Robbie.

 

[Willhound]

In my short burning experience, this is how I go about it:

Start stove as normal, usually with top down method.

Keep placing small stuff on till I get a decent coal bed.

Once the coal bed is there, stove is usually around 500-550.

I spread the coals over the entire firebox, and load the firebox up with my "Overnight" splits.

I keep the air full open for about 10 min. allowing the big splits to char up.

Then I cut the air to 25% or lower, watch the secondary burn take off.

Depending on how cold it is, I will turn the air full down. That will give me about a 8-9 hr. burn time with plenty of coals left to reload and repeat. I've been burning 24/7 for the past 4 days, and I'm getting consistant times/results. The inside temps never below 66, stove temp never below 250

Hey BB
My routine is pretty much like Don's except I just shut her right down when I go to bed and let the EBT take care of it.

 

[Rob From Wisconsin]

I owned a Jotul F3 about 5 years ago.
Small, irregular firebox - hard to get overnight burns.
Of course, harder woods would help.....
What you might want to consider trying is rotating your
wood placement 90 deg. - ends to the front, instead of
ends to the sides. This would require you to drastically
cut the lengths of your wood, but would give you a better
opportunity to pack your firebox full. Also, I've found this
technique supports better combustion when the draft is
turned-down all the way.

Rob

 

[suematteva]

For the overnight burns when cold, around 9:30- 10 let it become nearly all coals one small split then 2 big rounds front to back. These usually just fit in the door. Let burn wide open for 20-30 minutes and then cut air about 60 percent at 6 am have big coal base for morning fire up...More if apple or hardhack. We find it is easier to regulate the temp with the big wood...

Most of the time it is load and burn..Then somedays I feed a log at a time depends on what i am doing and temps..When real cold I enjoy burning the rounds that required wedges to split and as Babs said the other day "Big ugly gorilla ass split" they usually resemble a corkscrew and burn one a time. We have around 2/3 of cord 50 ft from stove inside so i have choice of wood close...

 

[babalu87]

All I will add to what has are good points so far is that I can get my stovepipe cranking to 450+ and if it is good dry wood I can shut the air down and only lose a few degrees off the house temp overnight.

When I say shut the air down I mean it, the lever goes full to the closed side.
Since the new stoves dont actually have an off on the air enough gets through to keep good dry wood that is char coaled up and glowing burning through the night.

 

[Mike Wilson]

Similar actions here... The last load before the "overnight" load is used to get the firebox and flue nice and hot, and establish a good coal bed. Then I go downstairs to the basement wood pile an select the 5 or 6 of the best looking splits, and bring them upstairs. I open the stove and rake all the coals to the front half of the stove, leaving a little ash and some exposed brick in the rear. I then put in the splits, taking care to stack them as tightly as possible in the back. Then I stack splits on top of the coals until the stove is filled. I leave the door closed but unlatched for 5 minutes until the front splits are all charred and/or burning, and the stove temperature is up to 650. Then I close the door and leave the air on full for 5 minutes until I am certain I have it set up right. Then, we damper down to about 1/8 open, and let it go. Come morning there are plenty of coals for a restart, and the stove is usually still at 350 degrees or so.

Question to the group though... I have never had any luck dampering the Kennebec down to completely closed, even with all the usual ingredients, dry charred wood, good coals, good temp, and good draft. It seems that I can't get a good lick of flames when she is all the way down... by that I meant that I need a flame from the burning splits to hit the top baffle plate, to light off the secondary. If I lose that flame, she kind of craps out slowly into a pile of smoking splits, and loses temperature. I have to keep the damper open 1/8 of the way, or so. Any ideas, or is that normal for some of you?

-- Mike

 

[wg_bent]

Sounds like Spike's routine is almost identical to mine. One thing I noticed just last night was that I had been burning pine all evening. It wasn't that cold in the evening, so I was just doing one split of pine at a time. Big splits, but still, just one. Pine brurned that way doesn't leave any coal bed worth anything. I also noticed that the rather heafty oak chunks (just happened to be a bunch of knots in the pile) I loaded were almost completely gone at about 7 this morning. (stove loaded at about 10:30)
That's unusual. With Oak and ash on the fire I typicaly will have a good coal bed still in the morning. I did a routine like what Spike mentioned, but the first bit of load wasn't a typical bed of coals when I did the load, more like a good pile of burning smaller splits. I think the solid bed of coals before the reload works better.

So, now that it's getting a bit colder, I think I'm going to switch to all hardwood burning. The really nice part of all hardwood burning is that the glass stays totally clean, whereas the pine tends to cause the lower corners to blacken a bit.

So the routing is, 1 log loads till about 8pm or so, then maybe two splits till 10-10:30 to get the coal bed going. Go out to the garage to get some wood, I'd guess I pull in 50 lbs or so at a time in my plastic tub. Load about stove as much as possible and open the air all the way for about 10 minutes...then DAMPER DOWN..he he...o.k. shut the air control all the way down. Now watch the nice deep blue and orange flames do their magic dance.

 

[DonCT]

Took a couple of pics of my reload before heading off to bed just now. 3 good sized pieces, raked coals to the front:

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k104/sundedo/Fire/frontreload.jpg

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k104/sundedo/Fire/sidereload.jpg

This should get me till atleast 7:30- 8PM tonight

 

[Rhone]

Loading the wood side/side will have it last longer than loading front/back. F/b gives you good fast hot burns & quick start-ups because the air coming down your glass zips through the wood easily, and you get some quick hot flames. With the logs loaded s/s the air coming down your glass hits a wall of wood, and can't flow so easily to feed the fire slowing down the burn.

Most of what I say from here on applies to side/side loading, it's what I do and what I know. Try to put the wood as far away from the glass as possible. The closer it is to the glass the faster it burns because the air wash is blowing on it, and keeping it away your glass stays cleaner. Also it extends the distance the hot gases must take to get out increasing the amount of time & contact with the secondary burn. I've found logs stacked high and near the glass, they burn quick and the flames coming off them loop right around the front and out it goes having minimal secondary burn contact and very little distance for the heat to transfer. It's probably more with big units, but I can fit 6 log splits (3 stacked up in back + 3 front) I'm better off using 3 splits in the back and 2 in the front. It doesn't affect my overnight burn time nor seems to affect the amount of heat I get very much, that tells me most of the heat from the top front log wastes out the flue like I think, so I skip it.

Your fire burns through the front first, and then works it's way back. If you want hot embers in the morning, place your big splits in the back and you'll have to experiment with placement/positioning. If I have a piece of wood flush against the back wall, by morning it will be a monstrous piece of extinguished black charcoal and not burning. I either have to pull it away from the back wall when loading, or better I place it bark on the floor so it points up and leaves space behind.

When lighting a fire, I think it's best to get a kindling fire going and then load her up completely afterward. You want secondary burn as fast as possible and starting a kindling fire, and adding a couple logs, and then after they're going add a few more slows the process. I start a pile of kindling in the center and when it seems to be taking I shut the door. It dies down a little and struggles, even sometimes goes out and I have to relight (hence why I don't load wood yet), eventually draft establishes, it recovers, and turns into a good flame. That's my signal to load my wood, all of it behind & in front of my kindling fire, leaving plenty of space between. Flames will be reaching up and over the secondary burn. Once the flames are reaching around the top front, I turn down the air.

You'll have to experiment with your air settings, the lowest setting may not be appropriate. I've turned mine down as low as possible and my fire smoulders and throws smoke out the chimney. The lowest air setting for me and not have smoke spewing out the entire time is about 25%.

I included a picture of how I set my wood up for an overnight burn, I load side/side, burn just about strictly red oak, 21" log lengths. I'm also not going to say I get overnight burns each time, about twice a month there won't be a hot ember to be found anywhere when I get up, and about as frequent I'll come down to still see a flame and huge amounts of hot embers. Probably environmental/atmospheric conditions at play.