What Is In Your Stove Right Now?

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Just reloaded with few pieces of punky hemlock to carry me over to say 9:00-9:30. For the night it will be a load of hard maple. Temp steady here mid 30s. It has been a warm fall. Temps falling come closer to the weekend. At the lake, apparently it will be mid teens at night. Princess will get her legs stretched some…..
 
17F this AM. 21F for tonight. Big warm up to the 50's tomorrow. The wife and I brought up 4 Red Ryder wagon loads of small uglies/crotch's/cut offs etc I had put aside while bringing up the good stackable stuff. Today was nice and the wife is off work. Guessing we now have 5 days of small ugly chunks stacked inside to use up. Why not, it's all Red Oak.
 
We are the same temp. here right now, supposed to drop down to 10 tonight. Comfortable 72 here in the nest.
We're at 70 up here with the basement at 78. The next two nights NOAA has us dropping to 19 but I think we'll get colder.
 
Roller coaster temps this time of year, thankfully this year I have a nice variety to burn depending on day and night temps. Last night burned this year's first load of hickory since the temps went well below 20 overnight and I only have about 1.5 cords of hickory so that stuff is being saved for the coldest weather. Tonight some decent sized ash splits. Tomorrow and Wednesday will both be near 50 for the daytime highs so I'll be burning a mixture of pine, cherry and birch. Those nights I plan on just using up more shorts and uglies to get rid of them (and make room for more logs!!) Thanksgiving day and Friday will be cold again so maybe hickory at night and ash during the day. Weekend and next week upper 40s so probably the pine/cherry/birch mix again till that's all gone and I can reload that section of my woodshed with newly split stuff!!
 
Wild swings here in North Arkansas too. expect lows in the 50's or 20's and highs in the 30's or 70's. Got a nice box of red oak burning right now Ill throw in a few sticks before bed at around midnight and most likely wont need to fire back up until late afternoon/evening tomorrow. Cold box starts are making me wish I had split more kindling but not going to complain. Ill take the wood saving. Have a great night guys :)
 
Low of 25 tonight...been running the stove pretty much 24/7....tonight will be a load of white oak and locust..brought in some ash that I need to check the moisture on tomorrow..I think its ready...
 
Wow
White oak and locust! That is like -100*f territory! What will you burn in Jan/Feb?
 
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Wow
White oak and locust! That is like -100*f territory! What will you burn in Jan/Feb?
Well, since I have 16 cord of locust and 8 cord of white oak and 9 cord of ash...it will be a mixture of these 3 ...
 
Just dropped a 5” split of hard maple, 5” round of hard maple and a 5” split of black locust. Maybe, just maybe this will produce coals in the morning. Will report
 
Just dropped a 5” split of hard maple, 5” round of hard maple and a 5” split of black locust. Maybe, just maybe this will produce coals in the morning. Will report
Do you have alot of black locust in your area?
 
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Home for a week and a half for deer season and other commitments. Haven't been home for more than 4 days at a time since April because of the build in the northwoods. First full hardwood load of the season - all ash. Been a little chilly inside in the morning with overnight lows in the upper teens and mixed loads... Daytime burning had been some old punky honey locust and aspen.
 
Red oak cut offs. 41 now, 33 tonight.

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Maybe I should try your way of reloading by stuffing the firebox and then letting it catch. I have found some success at getting a bottom row going and then adding a few more then a few more until up to temp and close air down incrementaly. What is everybody's method of loading a full box?
 
Do you have alot of black locust in your area?
No.
About six yrs ago in a local kid park full of black locust (city planted) some bug went though and killed al the trees. I grabbed some in my scrounge days….
It seems city is planting honey mostly in the city now
 
This may depend on the stove you have. For me it works best stuffing it (I didn't do a good job here, some space in the top left, but more there would have slit to the window). The Tstat prevents overfiring. At least, that's the idea. I'm keeping track of the initial half hour in which I char the load. Then I go to a lower overnight setting.

Opening and adding often does create more smoke than opening once (stuffing it) and the not opening for a long time - is what I've been told.
 
Maybe I should try your way of reloading by stuffing the firebox and then letting it catch. I have found some success at getting a bottom row going and then adding a few more then a few more until up to temp and close air down incrementaly. What is everybody's method of loading a full box?
When we're burning hardwood, we'll load up on a certain amount of coals so the wood takes off, once I see it get going, I start shutting the air down a little at a time.
 
Maybe I should try your way of reloading by stuffing the firebox and then letting it catch. I have found some success at getting a bottom row going and then adding a few more then a few more until up to temp and close air down incrementaly. What is everybody's method of loading a full box?
Watch what type of hardwood you put a full load in your stove. We have a liberty lopi and if you put a full load of seasoned beech in when it's 20 below on top of a nice coal bed, it's gonna take off and the stove top temp could hit close to 700 (800 is max for our stove) I'm not sure what stove you have but we only have the bypass and the air control no cat. You can control your stove top temp by how much wood you put in it if you have a stove like ours.
 
That makes sense. Coincides with the research I have done and the manual. I am afraid that if I stuff it it will run wild in a blink of an eye or the flue temp will rise so quick I will need to shut the air down too soon and then get a smoldering fire. I guess I will have to tinker with it. My reload has been working for me but it would be nice to open the door once instead of a few different times, but not the end of the world. Creating less smoke is a plus though if true.
 
Maybe I should try your way of reloading by stuffing the firebox and then letting it catch. I have found some success at getting a bottom row going and then adding a few more then a few more until up to temp and close air down incrementaly. What is everybody's method of loading a full box?
I think it’s just something you have to experiment with, and also depends a bit on your stove. I will also stuff it…for example…
00E77DEE-34FC-4DF8-A4E5-96816F483ECA.jpeg

But caveat as I should have mentioned, you have to be careful with what your loading, and know your stove. I can control my stove quite well; I’m a bit more careful when I shove mahogany in there.
 
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Watch what type of hardwood you put a full load in your stove. We have a liberty lopi and if you put a full load of seasoned beech in when it's 20 below on top of a nice coal bed, it's gonna take off and the stove top temp could hit close to 700 (800 is max for our stove) I'm not sure what stove you have but we only have the bypass and the air control no cat. You can control your stove top temp by how much wood you put in it if you have a stove like ours.
I have an Osburn 3300, no bypass, just single air control and a key damper that I am only slightly closing to offset the strong draft a bit. SBI says my max stove top temp is 900° but it seems to run great between 625° and 750° which is the max I have hit. Also, I am burning mainly red oak with MC between 17-20%, so probably unlikely to overfire unless I forgot about it.