Loading the stove for bedtime

Beauty full load hey

 

It's been a little more than a week since I posted this wood burning 101 question. All the helpful replies have changed my wood burning practices. I still have learning to do, but it has already made a huge difference in loading the stove for day or night, and I'm sure it has to be a much more efficient use of my wood.

Thanks to all!

 

5 to 6 hours usually and there's always alot of coals. Might not seem long but my firebox is pretty small at 1.8 cubic feet fyi.

 

We need pics!

 

We have a Drolet Blackcomb. At night, we try to pull all the coals to the front, which will leave a deep trough at the back. I then put a large split or 4-5" round in the trough, then load shorts/chunks on top and fill the stove. We have gotten a good 6-8 hrs burn doing this....
This was a couple yrs ago, loaded the stove at 10:30PM...red oak splits 10-11" long
Worked 8 hr shift, checked stove at 7:30AM when I got home. It was 21° or so outside, house was mid 70's inside
Loaded it last night about 10
30 minutes later
Shut air off, let it cruise. This morning about 4:20...
We have more chunks ready to start drying...

 

T.Jeff Veal, a fully stuffed stove is a thing of beauty. My wife would raise her eyebrows and give me a look over her glasses with that comment. Those are great burn times. I like your hybrid load from last night.

 

Like everyone has mentioned, try experimenting with your stove and the setup you have. I remember when I first got into wood burning, I had this fear of leaving the house to go to town and the fear of burning at night while we were all asleep. But as I understood how my stove operated and exactly we’re I needed to dial in my air settings. I don’t even give it a second thought.

 

I second those fears, and it takes time and experience to become comfortable with it. I was hesitant to create this post because it's so basic to wood burning. I knew I had a gap in my wood burning practice, and the responses and suggestions really helped fill in the missing piece of the puzzle, a tetris puzzle in this case.

There's a bunch of great people on here!

 

I shouldn't have read this post....been running a buck 27000 for 11 years now. I'm at the point where my before-bed load is an olympic level, life or death challenge to get more wood into that stove than I've ever stuffed in it before. I even cut and split wood specifically to be able to fit long splits on one side, shorty's on the other, and skinny's in front. If there's a few cubic inches of space left, I'll tear the woodpile to the ground looking for an exact fit. Have to hold one door shut with a poker, and need 3 hands to get it all shoved in there and the other door closed. If the metal popping from heat expansion wakes me up in the middle of night, I know I put too much/too dry in and it's running hot. Then I go back to sleep....

I could never run a cat stove.

 

My splits are mostly too big and triangular, I need much more of a variety sizes, to really cram my firebox. In fact the sizes I need remind me of a song.

There was long ones, tall ones, short ones, brown ones
Black ones, round ones, big ones, crazy ones
Then out of the middle came a lady
She whispered in my ear
Something crazy
She said

Spill the wine, take that pearl
Spill the wine, take that pearl
Spill the wine, take that pearl
Spill the wine, take that pearl

Sorry, It's late and I'm hearing music lyrics....

 

Welcome to the club, neighbor. Lots of great folks here sharing knowledge and humor.
I like to pack the stove at night too. Big chunks, small chunks, cut off knots...wish I had a way to blow the saw chips in the cracks...

 

brenndatomu, here's my N/S base and E/W top hybrid, as you suggested. It could be crammed fuller, but it makes it more difficult to cram it full when there's a hot base of coals to start with. With all my wood cut for E/W, I really like this N/S base with an E/W top. I still need smaller stuff for cramming, especially on the ends. I'll see how it's going at 3:00 am, when I get up for my nightly break, and reload.

 

Well, at 3:45 am, it still had some chunks to it, with a lot of coaling. Surprised it was down to 73 degrees in this room. It's 12 degrees outside. The last few nights it's been about 80 in here, with E/W loads.

 

The wood can make a difference. Sometimes a N/S load won't burn as hot, but will burn longer than a E/W load. On our hybrid loads, I pull the coals foward, put a big round E/W in the back, then load stove with chunks N/S.

 

11pm Fisher insert crammed full of oak splits over small bed of coals.
Closed damper and drafts.
Went to bed.
6am. 72 degrees. Did not add any wood to stove.
Mild that day.
3pm. House cool at 67 degrees.
Used poker to smooth out layer of small bed of coals.
Added 3 small splits and opened drafts 1/2 turn. In about 10 minutes I had a roaring fire.
Closed drafts and added wood as needed.

This was my experiment the day after I installed the insert. After 16 hours I had plenty of coals to get the fire going. I was burning well seasonal red oak.


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