First fire of the year is always a little wonky ain’t it? Stove has had all summer off, they seem to forget what they’re supposed to do. I’m no weatherman but it was just one of those “raw days”. Wasn’t even that cold out, might have been colder in the house than outside. It’s fairly rare occurrence since I moved the heat upstairs. The wood furnace in the basement could really create a strong downdraft on occasion.
Now that we have other houses built up around us I need to be more careful about smoke on startup. I have a fairly short masonry chimney that does not have a tremendous amount of draft on startup. I have a reburn non catalytic stove. I have tried the top down method several times and it was a smokey mess before the larger stuff got going. Now I put two medium splits NS with news paper tinder between them. Next I span the two splits with 1x1 kindling EW then 2x2 larger kindling diagonally on the smaller stuff. Light the paper and leave the door cracked. Five minutes and a roaring fire I shut the door and set the air for a slight reburn. Smoke shortly goes away and the stove and chimney are hot. At about 15 min I add my large splits and add a bit more reburn air. There is a very brief bit of light smoke as the large splits heat up and begin gassing then the stove is set for the long haul. All I see is heat waves from the chimney. There is always a brief bit of light smoke on a reload as the new splits start gassing but that is par for a reburn stove. With close neighbors I have to have that flame blasting up through the kindling and heating the flue in a hurry! No time for top down in my stove! In all fairness, I'm sure the two methods are probably specific to your own stove installation as to what works best.
Kinda reminds me of when I used to participate in a John Deere forum in which there were many debates on when was the best time to change the oil.
Some of us light our stoves with the Ford method, some with the Chevy method! Or should I say Stihl or Husky methods?
For my set up, when I light top down my secondaries kick in in about 5 minutes. Sorry, I can't get that lighting from the bottom. When the secondaries kick in I can start dialing down sooner and my initial load will give heat sooner and longer. My son has the Woodstock Fireview and he doesn't care for the method. So, I think maybe not having a cat stove might have something to do with it? Also FWIW, when I get up in the morning and want a fire and there are hot coals I rake them to the front, load it and it starts right up with my front lower air intake doing all the work waking up those coals. So every load is not top down for me.
I dated a blonde years back. Came home one day to her starting the fire, but with no shirt or bra on!!! I asked why and she exclaimed "I'm using the top down method"
No comment! She then started dancing in the kitchen. So I asked again. "Im trying to turn on the oven"
I get a top-down fire lit and fully involved in about five minutes, and secondaries lighting off in 15. Bottom up fires are slower. You gotta think of a stove like a wood-fueled jet engine not a fireplace. It's all about the airflow and air velocity, not flame exposure to wood.
It would be nice to see a straight up "head to head" timed stove temp battle, same stove, same size variety of wood pieces, and same outdoor temp, to end up with real empirical data. Bottom-up camp here.
There’s a joke here I just can’t piece together. Top down guys have happier wives cause they know how to heat things up nice and slow. FTR, I don’t have a set way. When I use the wax firestarters, I always put them on top of a split and use the “middle” method. When I use kindling or noodles to start, it’s bottom up. My flue pulls hard 98% of the time so it makes no difference to me. Growing up my parents had a Ben Franklin stove like this one: He used to have to warm the flue. Typically a couple pieces of newspaper thrown up behind that baffle, then he started small slow growing fires. In this instance, in my mind, a top down situation would be beneficial.
I put my splits in the box and then a few smaller pieces or slivers of wood in front. Sometimes a few pieces of paper on the side just to get the draft pulling harder. I light the wood, then the paper and close the door. It takes seconds for the air through the door vent to be audible from across the room. Near howling, like the end of a vacuum cleaner hose. As soon as the pipe temp goes above 300° (usually 3-10 minutes) I shut the back and close the door vent a little more than half way. It will cruise like that for hours. The stove weighs about 1,000 lbs, so it takes some time to heat soak, but it runs fine on startup.
