This is a good general tutorial on how to burn an EPA stove properly. One difference in my burning habits is to not use paper to get it going ! Generally I use pellets due to quick heat however if you have dry kindling that will do just as well with a lighter stick. The reason for no paper is I dont like the paper floating up the chimney as it could cause a chimney fire. Anybody with tips please throw them in for new burners as well. A million questions will not do as much as a good video does. Enjoy !
SUPER CEDAR! 1/2 a Super Cedar, 2 small splits crossed over it, then 1 or 2 medium splits crossed over that. Light the Super Cedar and shut the door. in 10 minutes, shut air down and enjoy you blaze!
my method is similar, but i use a 1/4 super cedar, and leave the door open for a couple minutes like a couple of the manufacturers mention.
I usually start my stove with a full load of wood in it. I put some kindling on top or along one side and use a fire starter. After I light the stove I won't open it again for four or five hours (I have a small stove).
nice to see an NZ in the vid, but on the so called "hot restart" if I only put 2 or 3 splits in like he did, that would be a complete waste of time, I wouldnt get nearly any heat or much for a burn time.
Here is a tip that you will be amazed at how much better it works. Thin split one of your good pieces of good dried oak for kindling. As its all about building the heat in the stove. Those small split oak kindling burns much hotter. The heat comes up in the stove very quickly compared to lesser wood that has less btu ratings. Plus for newbies small split kindling allows your to start your stove up with the door not cracked, this is a better situation as if you have to crack the door your flushing alot of your heat up the flue. If your able to get a fast hot kindling fire going with the door shut the heat builds much quicker in the stove box and like I said before its all about building the heat rather than just looking at it as how much flames I got.
I tried top down starts from the recommendation of a few members awhile back, never really liked it because I was using so much bowtied paper. Then I tried different methods to see what would work best for me. Having a Jotul Oslo kind of limits me to east/west loading anyways. Bottom up starts with some small dry splits and a 1/2 sheet of newspaper works best for me. My initial setup has 2 medium sized splits ontop of the stack, When the light stuff underneath collapses into small coals I fill the box and get her to temp. Minimal smoke and fast starts.
I did top down for a while and it worked great but I am back to bottom up now. The coals heat out stove much faster from the bottom! When we do a top down it coals on top and burns down and only heats the top half of the stove.
I saw the top down method and tried it. It was ok but it lead me to what I do now. I take two smaller splits, front and back running east and west, newspaper inbetween them, kindling on top that north to south straddling the two splits and top that off with a flat split on the top the kindling. I light it, leave the door open long enough to get the fire going well and then close the door and I'm good to go for at least a couple hours before having to check on it again. With my Kozy I never get the burn times you guys talk about. I'd love to be able to get 6-8 hours of burn time. At least starting this way it does keep me from having to tend to it so often. For kindling right now I'm trying something different. The woods I go cut at someone dumped a ton of trees and the tops. I've been going over and using my lopper I'm cutting a garbage can full of short branches at a time and bringing home. They've been standing dead for a couple years now but they take some good heat to get going. Once going they're great but more work than split up pallet wood. Any ideas on using the little branches in this manner with any more ease? I can't just make a burn pile over there, it's in the city and I want to try to clean it up best I can so the owner doesn't get tired of looking at it and just have it all bull dozed and hauled away and there goes my wood supple from across the road.
Top down lighting, on a cold startup, has been a much better procedure on this end. For an EPA tube stove, it makes sense....what I do is build a "foundation" of hardwoods in the firebox....hickory, oak, etc. For ignition, a bunch of small ash splits and Super Cedars quarters go on top of the foundation. The fire built on top of the foundation heats the tubes immediately to get secondary burn and gets the whole stove burning clean and hot. It may seem counterintuitive, but it works.
I have an EPA stove too Golf, but The top down burns seem to take too log to get to the larger splits. With my bottoms up I get about 5 mins of the side door open and when it's closed I have the larger splits engaged and 200 deg in the flue. Ive tried a few different combos and the bottoms up seems to work best for me. It takes me less than a minute to set it up and a second the light it and walk away.
Heat radiates in all directions that why they say the top down will work. Alot of people use the top down for the reason you mentioned is gets a cleaner startup. If you do it right. Looks like you did. I have read stories on other message boards that some people living in the city, their neighbors can get a little huffy if they smell or see any smoke. I am glad I live out in the rural america, dont have that issue. Funny thing is when I am driving into work and I go by a house using an old smoke dragon the smell hits me pretty hard as I am not used to it anymore as I used to burn a smoke dragon years ago.
Morso recommends startup with small amount of wood (~5 lb), ranging in size up to large kindling. To reduce smoke, I light it up top with the help of small scraps. Then, they say once it's burnt to embers, load some wood. This procedure seems to reduce/eliminate the condensation of nasties in the ash drawer area underneath. The black, shiny stuff. Woodstoves are not "set it and forget it" devices, a la RonCo.
I have my own trick, sorta learned/thought about it after using super cedars fire starters. Those are great, but I'm a cheap azz I noodle some big rounds... collect up 2-3 five gallon buckets worth and let them dry out over a mesh screen... in a week or two they are good to go. Then I get some newspaper, take a baseball sized handful of the dried noodles and place them in the center of the newspaper. then take a spoonful of liquid way and dump over them. Let dry, dampen the noodles slightly and ball it all up with the newspaper on the outside. once it dries back out, it will hold the baseball shape. They don't take long at all to dry. They store easily and light easy. The wax helps keep them going instead of going up fast. You can do the same thing without the wax, but it might take two baseballs to get your fire going. its all waste products, doesn't cost a dime and works awesome. Ill try to make a video.
Once we started a full 24 hr burn last late October, our Ideal Steel rarely required a re-light. On the few occasions when we did have to start from scratch, however, we loaded the stove with 2 year seasoned maple logs, added kindling to the top and applied a little propane blow torch flame to the kindling. This kick started the burn and took only a few minutes to "take". Our Ideal Steel has a latch notch if we want to keep the door slightly ajar during the re-light, but we discovered the stove burns faster and better with the door closed.
Like the look of your house in the avatar. What year was that built and what style is it? Any better pics?
