So,..who is a fan of E/W loading, vs, N/S?

Sounds about right, the splits in the back usually need to be broken up in the am.

 

E/W loader here! I rake the coals forward and put a split in the back on the floor then load it from the back to the front with 5-6 splits depending on size. Most of my wood is 18-20" long so it fills it up nicely that way. With my over drafting setup mine takes off to the moon in no time!

 

I think I will try your method as soon as it gets cold enough to fire up the stove again. Our stove is big, like serious big and am shooting for 12 hours with lot's of heat and 2 reloads daily. We'll see ... to quote Red Green ... "I'm a man and I can change ... if I have to ... I guess."

 

My new setup in my new place with the same stove eliminated my overdraft issue. I still load my stove up E/W the same way from back to front but it is much more controlled now. I get about 10 hrs on avg with a good fire in cold weather. It's amazing how much the draft changes depending on the temp outside!

This past week temps were in the 30's to 40's at night and 50's during the day and I was getting 24 hrs out of each partial fill up!! With little draft and not much heat loss the stove was able to retain a lot more of the available heat over a longer amount of time.
All bets are off once it gets below freezing!

 

I use both at once. A normal load has the bottom layer N-S and then top layer is E-W. Found this way gets faster restarts by letting the air front to back between the bottom splits and then the top air lights the E-W splits sooner too. So that the cat can be engaged sooner.

 

I suspect the draft issue is going to become serious once the temps drop below zero. It's already really strong when it's in the 20's outside. I saw on here somewhere that people have put dampers on their chimney pipe and were able to compensate that way. I have a query into Regency and expect to hear back. I am asking them about the fouling of the glass with a brownish, stubborn layer of creosote that is really tough to remove. The same sort of glass fouling came off our old Napoleon easily with ash on a wet paper towel. This is way tougher to deal with. Once they get back I will be asking about the damper/draft and see what they say. The entire install was by a certified WETT installer who did an excellent job. There's no doubt in my mind we'll figure it out. Do you also have a Regency F5100 with 8 inch stack? Ours runs 20 feet maybe a bit more and man does it ever draw hard.

 

Ashes pulled forward, 1 EW split in the back, the rest ns (20-24") When the splits burn down I'll put several 27" splits caty corner. Yes love big fireboxes.

 

That's what I'm going to be doing with my IS when I've got to pack it full. Either that or two layers n/s and then the rest is going to go e/w. That way I can get a few extra in due to the sloping secondary burn plate.

 

You must so kit your wood small. I have a 3.5cuft box and basically only get two layers in

 

The IS has a 3.2 firebox. That's not much different. Can fit 18 inch ns and 22 ew . I cut to 18 and 20. However I'm probably going to start cutting to 18 and just make up the space with a few ns when I load ew.

 

I'm talking diameter. I can fit them that length also

 

Well your phone auto corrected to kit. I wasn't sure if you meant cut or split.

I split to various sizes, some big some small. I can slow the burn on the small stuff since its a cat stove. Can get the air down low for a slower burn. The smaller pieces last longer that way.

 

Ahh stupid auto correct and misspelling.

Mine is a cat too. I can slow burn stuff also, just split larger so its less splitting

 

Owning a side loader pretty much locks me into the E/W loading. However, I do have a bunch of shorts and uglies that allow me to do some N/S and some random order loads on cold starts. Not keen on sticking my arm in the hot stove to attempt a N/S loading. My ideal stove would be square allowing me the option of N/S or E/W loading with the same split length with both side and front doors (my old Hearthstone had two doors). The big requirement for me is NO smoke spillage - it was a big problem with my old Hearthstone - no problem with my Fireview.

 

The NC30 is pretty square. And with my stove now its kind of square. I can load either way but its slightly rectangular. I cut 16" and load NS. And since its a bay window I can stuff one or two small ones in front Ew

 

I have a Quadrafire Isle Royal and it breathes pretty easy. It was initially setup on a 15' chimney straight up and it pulled so hard it was almost a runaway every time I'd load it full. I now have it at a different house that has a 22' chimney that has 2 90* turns and it is much more controllable. I put a damper in when I moved it bc of the draft problem I had at the old place but really haven't needed to use it here. Hopefully you can figure yours out soon before it really starts getting cold

 

NS here in the BKK

 

Id love a BKK!!!!

 

yeah,it rocks out some heat for a looooooooooooooong time.