In the past I have cut big 6x6 splits of locust or oak. They would smolder all night & I’d have nice coals in the am. This year due to an excess of usage this past winter , I don’t have any big splits, & obviously I won’t have the seasoning time to make Big cuts like that, no way they’d season being that big. For this year I have a few cords of ash 3-5 in splits & some red oak split small . Just wanted to know what you guys do for “overnight “. Thank you
What do you guys do for overnight burns?
- Thread starter Big Chris
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toddnic
Minister of Fire
If it's going to be a very cold night, I'll load the stove with larger splits and it will go 12+ hours. On cool nights, I only partially load the stove and normally there are still coals in the morning.
I put aside hickory, white oak and beech for overnight burns. I always have a small rack near the stove where I put those "special" pieces for the frigid nights. This time if year pretty much all loads are the same.
Montanalocal
Minister of Fire
Slocum
Member
I like using dead elm rounds, my stove door is 10" square. They are a handful when they are in the 8-9" diameter and 20-22" long but worth it. Elm doesn't get a lot of credit but it puts out heat all night and I have big chunky coals in the morning.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Chris, what stove are you burning? I can’t see sig lines in the interface I use for this forum, but it sounds like you have trouble getting long burns out of your stove, unless you’re using some big wood?
Woodsplitter67
Minister of Fire
For over night i use larger splits also. If you want big splits for the fall of 18 you could get them ready. What you need to do is split them now. Let them start to season and by mid june put them in a cheap kiln. I did an experiment with it this past summer and i got large cherry splits down to 2% and large oak down to 9% in a matter of a few months. Dont let people convince you it takes years to season large splits.. it just dosent.. i cut my wood storage down because if i do go through alot in one particular year i konw i can just set up a kiln for less than 50 bucks and season an extra 2 to 3 cords over 1 summer
Hope this helps
I’m not having trouble, although I run an older stove, just never didn’t cut big stuff. This past winter was super cold as you know so I used a bit more than expected. I had 2 big ash trees fall earlier this month on neighbors places and kinda ended up with 5-6 cords of ash all cut the same . Was just getting opinions on what others do.
Care to share the details of said cheap kiln system?
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Eureka
Feeling the Heat
When it’s cold I reach for the uglies and crotch pieces if I have any, then pack the stove as full as I can get it with splits like a puzzle on coals and kill the air. Kozy Heat z42. This time of year I have a small hot fire after dinner then go to bed with a medium load in it, no blower on. I’ll start another fire in the morning with small wood and get it really hot to burn out the overnight soot and clear up the glass.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Member @Poindexter has posted a nice long thread on his, which I'm sure you could find with a little searching. It's the best description of the art of kiln drying firewood, that I've seen posted at hearth.com.
on the rack in my garage about 8 feet long i separate splits when i refill it small stuff for quick fires on the left and xtra large 22 to 26 inch to the right if looking for the longest burn your stove will give ya if you don't have anything large dried get some straight splits and load them so they look like they are one piece. put it together like a puzzle then load.
Woodsplitter67
Minister of Fire
There are a fier poss from me on the construction of an el cheapo virsion.. i think the title is solar kiln wood drying.. @Poindexter is the one who started a number of threads and has made more permanent kilns. You can look all these up.. there all really good reads. Hope this helps and if you need more info.. i will help you
Are you testing on a fresh split face? I only wonder because 2% is really really low. I would suspect a faulty reading.
Woodsplitter67
Minister of Fire
Yes.. it is tested on a fresh split.. the reading is good.. i just left it in the kiln to long.. it was my first year doing it and was more of a learning experience.. here is some of the kiln temps it was at 110 degrees with in the first hour and it was only like 75 degrees out. With in a couple of hours it was at 118 degrees inside the kiln. It was in full sun and i started in the weekend after the 4th of july. I opened it up in october and i found out i cooked the $hit out of my wood with my large cherry splits at 2% and my large oak at 9%.. this thing works and it works well. In 4 months my wood went from 36/38% to sub 10%.. now i know.. to pull the wood at about 2 months and i can do 2 loads..
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For overnight... I bought a new stove. Not worth the fuss of having to do something extreme or get up in the middle of the night and sacrifice something so necessary as nightly sleep! Now overnights are my short loads... I might run the stove a little harder to get it to burn down in time to reload in the morning or I might load with some quicker burning wood like spruce. For example I get up at 4am or so and load the stove while I shower, take off for work 4:45 am. Get home usually around 7pm at earliest or 8 if I need to make a stop or do a workout after work. So I load overnight 8-9pm only needs to last to 4, like 8hr load. My load for the day I pack to the gills to get 15-16hrs but don't do anything else special, just my usual medium splits of ash.
Slocum
Member
Ashful
Minister of Fire
This is why I asked about stoves in my first response. I can load my stove any given evening, and it can burn thru that night, the following day, and the night after that, before it needs a reload.
Slocum
Member
I'm using a fisher mama bear. I put a baffle in it and it helped with smoke but going with a new stove sometime this summer.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Cool! That's the fun part.
I'll say it before anyone calls me on it: my stoves aren't magic. BK has the longest burn times in the industry, but there is still a burn time vs. BTU output trade-off, as with any stove.
It is nice not only sleeping through the night without having to reload, but getting up in the morning and just bumping it up a bit and then going on about your day
I can't go more than a day on ash, and that is the only thing I've cut in several years other than softwood. Wanted a BK but would not clear lintel height on my fireplace installation, but thankfully my Woodstock can go 2 full days if I load it with compressed sawdust bricks and keep the cat down low in the active range. But yeah pretty low heat output on a 48hr burn.
Not magic... its alien tech
Those are nice old stoves. And they heat well, but man they are hungry for wood. Newer stove tech provides much more efficiency but at the cost of the stove being quite a bit more finicky, good draft & dry wood etc (and a bit of a learning curve on some) and in the case of catalytic stove like mine and Ashful, needs the combustor replaced every few years or so. In my case the decision was simple, as my door to door time for work is 14+ hours that eliminates about 95% of the stoves out there.
Poindexter
Minister of Fire
You can dry big splits in one summer with a solar kiln. Woodsplitter67 did it, I have done it, and solarguy2003 has done it.
What struck me about solarguy's thread, compared to all the other firewood kilns, was solarguy out down a vapor impermeable layer as his floor. That is something de riguer among the kiln operators making like seasoned mahogany boards for heirloom furniture that other firewood kiln builders were skipping.
I put a vapor impermeable layer in the floor of my kilns. I live on a river bottom, my water table is less than 12 feet. I have three threads, the current one in the woodshed section has links to the other two.
Woodsplitter, IIRC, did not use a vapor barrier in his floor - but it worked for him at his location.
YMMV.
What struck me about solarguy's thread, compared to all the other firewood kilns, was solarguy out down a vapor impermeable layer as his floor. That is something de riguer among the kiln operators making like seasoned mahogany boards for heirloom furniture that other firewood kiln builders were skipping.
I put a vapor impermeable layer in the floor of my kilns. I live on a river bottom, my water table is less than 12 feet. I have three threads, the current one in the woodshed section has links to the other two.
Woodsplitter, IIRC, did not use a vapor barrier in his floor - but it worked for him at his location.
YMMV.
