Monday, November 16, 2009

Late Fall Update

This is going to be a semi long post because I have not updated since the install. I sprayed some high temp stove paint on the liner so it is not so noticeable. This fall has been extremely mild. I fired it up several times In October but the first half of November I didn't have to touch it. The first 5-10 times I burned the smell/smoke from the new stove pain curring was terrible. Make sure your first 5 fires are when you can have all your windows open and not have to be in the same room as it. I don't know how toxic that is but it was terrible. My draft is sufficient with the 14-15ft chimney. It will blow smoke out a bit if you open the stove door fast but as long as it is done slowly no smoke will come in. When you get a good fire going I will still have coals left 7-8 hours later, there is not enough to get a fire going or anything but they are there. The stove will usually still be around 150-200 degrees also. I expected to have to build a new fire every day and it looks like I will have to. I could probably get something going with some really small kindling. I have played around with the upside down fire building method. It does work but it takes it a while to get going. I have just recently started using firestarters. I bought the big starters and then chop them up into roughly 1x1 inch chunks. I use 2 pieces about 6 inches apart and it works great. I can get the stove up to 400 degrees in about 25 minutes( that's the minimum temperature that the stove starts operating efficiently). To get it up to speed this quick I use lots of little chunk of wood, roughly 1x1x3-8 inches. I fill the stove 3/4 full of this kind of stuff with some smaller kindling right over the fire starters. Then I light it and leave the door cracked about 3/4 of an inch. When the door is cracked it is like putting a fan on it. I will try to get some video up in the next couple days as long as the weather stays cool.