Proper firing/operating technique.

[mgh-pa]

I'm new to wood heat (sort of). Growing up, my parents had wood heat for most of my childhood. I helped split, stack, load, etc, but I never really had to do much in the line of firing and maintaining the existing fire. I know my dad never used a temp gauge on the stove surface, he just more or less knew the stove's performance characteristics from past experience. I'm curious, and I'm assuming it's stove specific somewhat, what's the proper firing technique? Obviously you want to open the draft quite a ways for the initial burn, and then monitor the temperature? If so, what temp? Is it stove specific? Does the thermometer location matter?

The few fires I've started in the stove since we installed it back in late October burn well, but I'm just wondering if there's an even more efficient method of starting and operating the fire to get the best heat and least amount of creosote buildup.

 

[Slow1]

It does depend on the stove so let us know what kind of stove you are burning and you will get much more specific advice.

Generally, however, you want to burn clean (little to no smoke) which means hot, unless you have a cat stove in which case you want the cat to get hot and the rest can do whatever it needs to keep feeding the cat smoke to burn... However, you don't want to burn too hot both since you will waste fuel (too much heat up the chimney) and you risk damage to your stove (over firing).

"Best" method of anything is up for debate - hang around the forums and join in! Everyone here has at least one opinion (and will get it mixed up with fact once in a while...). For example, "best" way to start up? I say a top-down fire is the best way and others will agree... but not everyone. Top down is just very easy to build, light and seems (so far with my experience) to minimize the amount of smoke as well as time spent getting the fire going. Others will insist their method(s) are better - perhaps they are for their stoves, I can't imagine one way of doing things is perfect for every application.

How you get to the right (or 'ideal') burn as quickly as possible is a matter of learning your stove as well as having the best possible fuel you can gather and store. Specifics beyond this are hard to offer up without knowing at least a little about your stove.

 

[ControlFreak]

mgh-pa:

It all depends upon what sort of stove you have. But yea, you want to burn hot, but not too hot. Get a round stove thermometer, otherwise you're just doing a lot of guessing.

Dan