With this bitter cold and windy and damp (open water here) weather up here; I thought I'd try something different. I was spreading my coals/embers out evenly on my stove floor and making a "channel" from the doghouse to the rear of the stove before reloading. Well after 2 days, I can tell you this......................my furnace has run for the first time this year (set at 58*F), I have a cold house, major coaling in the stove with little heat, and because of the coaling, I cannot load the stove efficiently. Anyhow; today I left to get some work done once the temps outside got above 0*F.....................Got home to essentially a cold stove and proceeded to "strip" the inside. Saved all the coals I could; RAKED THEM FORWARD, and loaded in 4 white oak splits 2+years CSS'ed..................... SHAZAM!!!!! Splits took right off, and all of a sudden I have HEAT pouring out of the "little big stove"!!! I WILL NEVER, EVER AGAIN FUBAR LIKE THIS AGAIN!!!! I truly ask forgiveness. Thought I was smarter than the experts here..........................
You'd think its just wood, fire and steel but its amazing how many "types" of fires there are and I'm sure I haven't seen them all. Had such a perfect clean hot fire of locust and oak last night. Sometimes it just all goes as planned.
Glad its working better for you. As you found out spreading them on the stove floor doesn't usually work out well.
Auh, 40 years of burning, and I am still learning. I guess you are too MightyWhitey. Glad you figured it out.
I can only hope to not have the ng furnace kick in. I just try to burn as much wood in the fireplace to keep the for furnace off as much as possible, keeping my gas bill lower.
In most stoves when you spread the coals on on the floor the air does not get to them and the smother, smolder and die. The air from your dog house got into the channel you made then was sucked up into the new wood's fire. When you stack the coals infront of the dog house the air has to go through them before being sucked up by the heat of the fire. KaptJaq
Boy you guys have spoiled dogs. Keeping them with a fire in their house and all. Some real Mr. Fancy Pants around here.
We do spread the coals around except when building for the night fire. Then we rake them to the front. If anyone is having a coaling problem there are a couple things to consider. First, wood not dry enough will give you a lot more coals that really don't like to burn down. The other is that we've found just before the burn get to the all coal stage, we open the draft as far as it will go. This holds the stove heat while burning down the coals.
Well, the only time I have coal problems is in the single digit, sub zero weather......when I am burning a lot of wood to stay warm. 2 stoves have helped. Now I can burn off the coals in one while the other has a good load going, then do the other one. Anyway, the colder it gets, the more I like it..
Plus, pulling 'em forward really kicks the load off quick (E-W loaders here, except the Buck.) I don't care if I leave a few in the back, but I pull most up, especially big coals. Then when I load, those front splits can really get a lot of air under 'em, they light quick, and I'm cruisin' quicker.
