Last year when the temps dipped I went from burning pine to burning hardwood 24/7. And like many of you, when the temps dip and you are burning hotter and faster, I started to get coal build up eventually (for some of the luckier ones with great insulation and a stove located in a good location, coal buildup is minimized greatly). This year I am not burning hardwood 24/7 when the temps turn bitter. I am doing pine during the day and hardwood at night. This gives me the longer overnight burns with more heat, while also having higher stove top temps in the morning with a huge coal bed for a quick reload for the stoves. During the day I burn pine which provides a lot of heat (but shorter burn times) while also keeping the coal bed at a minimum. I also get a lot less ash from the pine. So, less shoveling, also. I'm interested to see how this would work when I switch out at least two of these stoves for a pair of BKs or a BK and an IS.
I don't know for sure but it seems like I'm getting less coal build up after I clean out most of the ashes and burn a load
Re: BBar's post........... That sounds like a good strategy. My pine and Maple are farther back in the shed, behind the Oak, so that might be something to try next year when I have more of that stuff available. Oak on one side of the shed and Pine/Maple on the other, instead of setting up the softer stuff for early and late winter burns. Dang it, now you've got me thinking again. Jeez, now I can see myself moving the Oak to the other side of the shed tomorrow, since there's only about a cord in front of the Maple and Pine.
I have my wood stacked in one large, long stack. Right side is pine, left is hardwood. Last year it wasn't as organized. Reworked it this last summer so nothing is mixed. Not sure how it works out financially. I pay $70 per cord for pine and $150 per cord for hardwood. Will this set up make me burn less wood by dollar amount? Meaning; I'll burn more wood, but it is cheaper wood.
Sounds like a good idea if you have access to the stove during the daytime hours. That might be something worth a try on a weekend for me. My wife handles the stove during the day and still looks for the long burns in order to not deal with the stove any more than she has to. She wouldn't know the difference between pine and maple as a split. So whatever I put in the firewood ring is what she feeds the IS.
I am retired so tending the stove during the day is not a problem for me. I also do not have access to a lot of hard woods. So during the day it is nothing but pine and cottonwood and at night it is elm or ash. That is all I have.
True. I am home all day, so I can manage the stoves as it is needed. As far as when others load, I have a main indoor storage area for pine and a secondary area away from the pine for the hardwood.
On the production IS thread a couple of the IS owners are also chatting about how to better burn down the IS coal beds too. They are looking into ways to directly introduce primary air to the coals and some are channeling the coals into rows to better burn them down, mostly all experimental right now
Just went out to grab some splits for the morning and started the Oak move. damm you BBar! I wonder what would happen if I pulled the ash plug........
I had actually typed that at the end, but deleted it. I didn't want to infer that someone in the other thread had a bad idea. (I've been following it)
As you probably know, it can get very technical on that production IS thread. Youse a smart man Dave.
I did that same thing for the first year with the new stove. burned quite a bit of spruce daytime & warmer periods & birch at night Able to wood snob for the past 3 years & got all birch now Good idea , got me thinking about spruce again Cost the same, $10 per cord at the state cutting area but allowed 10 cord so could get 7 birch & 3 spruce. Got me thinking!
Never had the opportunity to burn oak or other hardwood Finally realized the "coals" so many of you speak about does not happen with pine, or atleast the pine that we burn. The dry pine hubby supplies burns down to ashes quickly, the only coals I can use are if I stoke the fire before they are gone. Jealous of those of you that can get oak Is it different for you Mag Craft and maulhead ?
Spruce at 2 years CSS is awesome wood. 1 year seasoned is good, but 2 years , like a fine wine, better with age. Primo !
That is good to know. I wrote the date on one of the splits and I should not need it for a couple of years.
Right now I'm burning 100% well seasoned red oak. Easy to get a build-up of coals in this cold weather pushing recharges rather than time to burn down. Surprisingly little ash build-up, but thick ash pancake (clinkers ) . Never got ash pancakes in the previous stove that was in the exact same place as this one with the same quality of wood . Although I did have a mix of oak/maple/cherry then. I've tried pushing coals to the side rather than raking to the front or flattenng out a bed and I really found no advantage. A short pine/fir fire or two on top of a build-up them has seemed to work best so far ( and still keep the stove top hot longer ). Could use a bigger stove when it is under 20ยบ. I could probably easily squeeze more net heat out of this stove with pine vs oak but I'd have to tend stove too often. I've done that in the past when the power has gone out and it was zero outside - slept next to the stove with a sleeping bag and a 90 minute timer to keep waking up all night to feed pine in cuz oak just didn't cut it.
