This site and you folks who post to the forums are just awesome!
Would you throw some of that awesomeness my way and give me
some advice on fire-building with less than perfect wood?
Of course I'm a newbie, and of course I have the apparently
universal problem of not having adequately seasoned wood for my
first winter. The better of the two cords I have (from two
different sources) is mixed hardwood, mostly maple, that was
cut and split last week from logs that had been lying in an open
field in the sun since April. The more troublesome stuff, which
I'm not even trying to burn this year now, is maple tops from
trees that were cut down and left lying in the woods this spring
before being hauled out, cut and split a couple weeks ago.
This is apparently not uncommon practice here, and the many folks
who use large and generally older woodstoves for their main
source of heat consider it adequate seasoning, so I'm told.
Have I understood right from things I've read on this forum that
it's typical that my fairly new small non-cat stove (Hearthstone
Tribute, with a newly installed SS chimney) chokes on wood older
stoves will happily burn? I think the term I read in one post
was that the new stoves were "unforgiving" of unseasoned wood.
In any case, I have no fully seasoned wood this year and have to
figure out how to make do with the better of the two lots I do
have. I'm using the stove only as a supplement, but hopefully a
major one, to oil heat. When I've been able to get it up to a
modest operating temperature (300-400), it does just what I need
it to do.
But I sure can't get it there with the standard non-cat
techniques I've read so much about here and elsewhere. Top-down,
front to back on front coals, fire cycles, and a well-filled
firebox all produce smoky smoldering with occasional licks of
flame and a stovetop temp that doesn't even move the thermometer.
If any of you wise wood-burners have a tip or three to pass on
about how to get the most out of semi-seasoned wood, I'd sure
appreciate hearing them. I do know about chimney creosote
build-up with this kind of wood, but I'd rather have the chimney
checked a couple times this winter than just give up until next year.
Experimenting on my own, I've been having better luck falling
back on my old fireplace and campfire building habits--
continuous bottom-up fires with smaller splits criss-crossed (to
the extent possible in such a small stove) to provide just the
right amount of airflow, adding bigger pieces one or two at a
time on active fires, rather than letting a big load burn down to
coals and starting over with a new one. It does mean constant
tending and liberal use of the poker to keep the spacing, but I
can live with that if that's the way to go. If this is what
works, is there any reason I shouldn't do it this way, in a
continuous fire rather than a cycle of letting it all burn down
and then starting over?
And would it all work better if I had some smaller 8 or 9-inch
wood I could place front to back, instead of having everything go
side to side? Well, I guess I know the answer to that, but what
I mean is whether it would make a big enough difference in
getting a hot enough fire to burn the semi-seasoned wood to be
worth the hassle and expense of getting a good amount of it
cut down to that size for me.
A second thing I would appreciate advice on is further
splitting the over-large half-splits in the load I have. I'm
thinking of getting one of the manual devices like the
vertical Wood Wiz or Easy Splitter, or the Fireplace Friend
horizontal splitter I've seen advertised where you stomp on a
lever to work the splitter. I can't find any of these devices
for sale around here, so I'll have to mail-order without a chance
to even eyeball the thing directly.
As a single middle-aged female in decent physical shape, it's
just beyond me to go swinging even a lighter maul or axe
repeatedly with any kind of precision. I don't want and really
don't need an expensive electric or gas or even hydraulic
splitter, and I don't think it makes sense to try to learn how to
use and maintain that kind of machinery by myself at this point
in my life! But I don't want to be dependent either on having to
hire someone to come and split a relatively small amount of
cordwood for me. It's probably going to be a continuing problem
over the years that some amount of the wood I get will just be
too big to use in my little Tribute.
Do any of you have any thoughts about which of these two general
types is more likely to be something I could manage by myself
reasonably well? I wouldn't be doing huge numbers of splits,
maybe a dozen or so a week at most. With not much upper body
strength (although I'm sure improving with all the wood I've been
hauling around and stacking!), would the horizontal stomp-on
thingy likely be easier for me than the vertical one, where you
pull the splitter up and throw it down repeatedly?
Thank you so much in advance for any advice you can give me.
Hearthstone Tribute
New SS chimney
Would you throw some of that awesomeness my way and give me
some advice on fire-building with less than perfect wood?
Of course I'm a newbie, and of course I have the apparently
universal problem of not having adequately seasoned wood for my
first winter. The better of the two cords I have (from two
different sources) is mixed hardwood, mostly maple, that was
cut and split last week from logs that had been lying in an open
field in the sun since April. The more troublesome stuff, which
I'm not even trying to burn this year now, is maple tops from
trees that were cut down and left lying in the woods this spring
before being hauled out, cut and split a couple weeks ago.
This is apparently not uncommon practice here, and the many folks
who use large and generally older woodstoves for their main
source of heat consider it adequate seasoning, so I'm told.
Have I understood right from things I've read on this forum that
it's typical that my fairly new small non-cat stove (Hearthstone
Tribute, with a newly installed SS chimney) chokes on wood older
stoves will happily burn? I think the term I read in one post
was that the new stoves were "unforgiving" of unseasoned wood.
In any case, I have no fully seasoned wood this year and have to
figure out how to make do with the better of the two lots I do
have. I'm using the stove only as a supplement, but hopefully a
major one, to oil heat. When I've been able to get it up to a
modest operating temperature (300-400), it does just what I need
it to do.
But I sure can't get it there with the standard non-cat
techniques I've read so much about here and elsewhere. Top-down,
front to back on front coals, fire cycles, and a well-filled
firebox all produce smoky smoldering with occasional licks of
flame and a stovetop temp that doesn't even move the thermometer.
If any of you wise wood-burners have a tip or three to pass on
about how to get the most out of semi-seasoned wood, I'd sure
appreciate hearing them. I do know about chimney creosote
build-up with this kind of wood, but I'd rather have the chimney
checked a couple times this winter than just give up until next year.
Experimenting on my own, I've been having better luck falling
back on my old fireplace and campfire building habits--
continuous bottom-up fires with smaller splits criss-crossed (to
the extent possible in such a small stove) to provide just the
right amount of airflow, adding bigger pieces one or two at a
time on active fires, rather than letting a big load burn down to
coals and starting over with a new one. It does mean constant
tending and liberal use of the poker to keep the spacing, but I
can live with that if that's the way to go. If this is what
works, is there any reason I shouldn't do it this way, in a
continuous fire rather than a cycle of letting it all burn down
and then starting over?
And would it all work better if I had some smaller 8 or 9-inch
wood I could place front to back, instead of having everything go
side to side? Well, I guess I know the answer to that, but what
I mean is whether it would make a big enough difference in
getting a hot enough fire to burn the semi-seasoned wood to be
worth the hassle and expense of getting a good amount of it
cut down to that size for me.
A second thing I would appreciate advice on is further
splitting the over-large half-splits in the load I have. I'm
thinking of getting one of the manual devices like the
vertical Wood Wiz or Easy Splitter, or the Fireplace Friend
horizontal splitter I've seen advertised where you stomp on a
lever to work the splitter. I can't find any of these devices
for sale around here, so I'll have to mail-order without a chance
to even eyeball the thing directly.
As a single middle-aged female in decent physical shape, it's
just beyond me to go swinging even a lighter maul or axe
repeatedly with any kind of precision. I don't want and really
don't need an expensive electric or gas or even hydraulic
splitter, and I don't think it makes sense to try to learn how to
use and maintain that kind of machinery by myself at this point
in my life! But I don't want to be dependent either on having to
hire someone to come and split a relatively small amount of
cordwood for me. It's probably going to be a continuing problem
over the years that some amount of the wood I get will just be
too big to use in my little Tribute.
Do any of you have any thoughts about which of these two general
types is more likely to be something I could manage by myself
reasonably well? I wouldn't be doing huge numbers of splits,
maybe a dozen or so a week at most. With not much upper body
strength (although I'm sure improving with all the wood I've been
hauling around and stacking!), would the horizontal stomp-on
thingy likely be easier for me than the vertical one, where you
pull the splitter up and throw it down repeatedly?
Thank you so much in advance for any advice you can give me.
Hearthstone Tribute
New SS chimney
