Wood stove heat

[SeanKroll]

Roughly clean out clinkers.

 

[flushcut]

Yoooo. Question here. Now that I'm retreaded, I'm burning a lot of wood everyday. And I'm happy to report btw that my wood supply is working out quite well I think bc I made sure to cut all pieces reasonably short to help with the 100% hand splitting and I split all pieces a lot as in no big chunks. Those 2 factors I believe facilitated faster drying in my large stacked pile covered only on top with one sheet of clear plastic.

The problem I'm having is with coals. When I load up the empty firebox in the morning I get great heat out of the resulting roaring fire. Eventually of course, the logs burn down and the heat output lowers some and I then add more logs and the output rises again. Rinse and repeat. But after about 5 hours of this, eventually the level of red hot coals builds up quite high in the fire box thus physically limiting the amount of room available to add in more logs so therefore I get a reduction in heat output despite the box containing a large amount of coals.

No doubt you wood stove savants have some answers...

More air. Let the coals roll for a good forty minutes before adding logage.

 

[cory]

Stir and poke the fire.

I do that.

Close damper to keep in more heat from coals or open to let them burn up?

I've tried both.

Open it up a bit and let the coals burn down is what I found to work

Yup, did that but the heat output is alot lower compared to logs burning

Thanks for the responses, all. I will examine further.

 

[treebilly]

I’ve also heard to choke it down tight and try to schedule this for right before bed time

 

[davidwyby]

I do that.


I've tried both.


Yup, did that but the heat output is alot lower compared to logs burning

Thanks for the responses, all. I will examine further.

What kind of wood?

 

[cory]

A mix of hardwoods- red oak, red maple, norway maple, sugar maple, black locust, beech, hickory ( no fun to split lol), black birch.

 

[davidwyby]

Too many coals?

A friend asked this on another forum. “The problem I'm having is with coals. When I load up the empty firebox in the morning I get great heat out of...

firewoodhoardersclub.com

Not sure if you can see this if you’re not registered

 

[Burnham]

I could read the thread. Good link, David.

 

[cory]

That was interesting, thx for posting! Lol when I started skimming there OP I was like, 'omg this guy is having the exact same problem as me!'

I don't have any soft wood to throw in, but Imma keep thinking on it

 

[davidwyby]

It’s like that thread on the logger site where they stole my post about Humboldts.

FHC is a great group of guys, I should hang out there more.

 

[cory]

I was thinking the same thing.

There was a post about using a tire on a round when handsplitting, which I do, and one guy mentioned screwing the tire to the round which makes alot of sense and I'll probably do.

 

[davidwyby]

I like the chain and bungee

Adapts to different size rounds

I split big stuff so I just peel away

If I wrapped it, the split pieces would be in the way of further splitting

 

[cory]

chain and bungee sounds like a fair amount of set up time?

 

[davidwyby]

chain and bungee sounds like a fair amount of set up time?

Nah pic a link n hook

 

[cory]

Got a pic or link?

 

[davidwyby]

Got a pic or link?

You hook one end to one end of the chain and wrap the bungee around and hook it to whichever link works on the other end. The chain is just for size adjustability.

 

[Burnham]

Simple method. I'm not sure I've ever seen the need for tire or chain/bungee , but aside from that, seems a reasonable trick.