How long do you spend on the morning reload?

I leave for work 30 min after the alarm goes off. Most of that time is spent in the bed room and bathroom with a few trips to the living room to check on the stove. The pipe can get hot in a hurry with the bypass open and flames sucking up the flue.
Occasionally I'd like a few more min with the stove but it always works out fine.

 

Good question. About 25 minutes of total time...
Get up, open air and stir coals. Maybe put 1-2 small splits on to get things going, but usually don't have to. I then load up while eating breakfast, get it so the wood is blackened and up close to temp, then close the air down.
After a shower I check it and adjust if necessary. Before I leave I adjust again and hit the road. My wife usually leaves a few minutes after me so she checks one more time.

 

Go to bed a few minutes earlier, then get up a few minutes earlier.
I reload then grab my 1st cup of coffee. Watch the stove while checking e-mail and getting on here.
It's usually going quite well within a few minutes, when I shut down the air, and grab another cup. Might do one last adjustment for the long haul.

 

I get up at 4:30am. That's about my limit.
The fire is burning great by 5am, but sometimes the stone isn't up to WS's recommended temp. One of soapstone's disadvantages. The high temp indicators on the cat and stove top gauges always show that it took off and had and good burn.

 

Stick with the system that works.
Oh, and I remember the days of getting up that early and having to be to work by 6, with an hour commute.
Didn't leave much time for much of anything.

 

15-20 mins. Stove is usually so hot that I just char it a bit and close the air down. Wife stays home so she fine times it throughout the day.

 

Depends on the weather....
20s and 30s, I just open up the intake to burn the coals down for an hour or two. My wife will then load the Ideal Steel before she leaves. If it is single digits or below, I normally load the stove when I get up and within 20 minutes shut it down. Takes maybe five or ten minutes.

 

About five minutes to load a little kindling and light off, then I crack the door while I have the first cup of coffee. By the time I'm ready to go feed the cows, sheep, and chickens, the stove is ready for a full load. I'll load 'er up and shut the door and it's done until the evening. Maybe 5-10 minutes tops each morning.

 

Two minutes max to load and get flames going, close the flue damper. Sometimes hot enough to close everything then. Usually though, check again at 5 minutes, if ready close everything. If really cold out (say -10F), then I wait about ten minutes instead to get a hotter stove, more robust burn. At that time, at the latest. close everything down for the long burn. So, 2 to 10 minutes, depending...

 

If I just reload the stove and fire it up, it's no more than half hour until it's cruising, usually. A lot of mornings, I don't reload right away. If there's a substantial coal bed, I rake the coals out, close the door and put a small fan in front of the stove blowing underneath, towards the back. The room temp will rise by 5 degrees in 10 to 15 minutes.
When the room temp start dropping, I reload. So often it will take over an hour to get the stove back to cruising temps in the morning.

 

Normally I can have it cruising in 30. Seems to take a bit longer with straight oak.

 

Occasionally, I don't remember it happening yet this winter. When I have had a problem, its from the new load not taking off. By the time I check the stove and see the problem, I only have maybe 15 min to correct it and get the stove up to temp. That's when I would like a few more min.

 

15 min in bypass, 15 min engaged at #2 then I set and forget.

 

Very true. I learned this the hard way while trying to explain over the phone to my wife, who was loading our Palladian with the draft fully open. She did not see flames in the firebox so figured everything was ok, but the "hot pipe" smell she mentioned told me otherwise. The flames were getting sucked up directly into the flue and she smoked the "T" so hot it's now a permanent blue color. Live and learn.

 

She fire hardened it for you

 

Yup, certainly finished our need for any more break-in fires.

 

Right. Stove doesn't get too hot with a pretty lively fire in the box, since a lot of cool air is going in as well. Bypass frame probably gets hammered the worst. I don't want to be cooking it, or my expensive liner and tee. Pretty much half an hour for all my stoves, 40 min. if I have to bring up stove/cat temp very far.

 

Every body says the stoves dont get very hot with air all the way open but I know my catalyst High Valley goes nuclear if I leave the air all the way open with bypass open or closed. The metal on the sides and top turn cherry red inside. If I cut that air down to 10% or lower I can easily stifle the nuclear stove though. And face and everything cool way down.

 

I add about 1o extra minutes to the total time I need to get ready in the am. After a reload I open up the bypass to get the stove hot and do other things getting ready. About 10 mins before I leave the stove is usually ready to settle in for the day and that's when I set it up. Then it's off to the races again!