Can anyone help? Ive got a wood burning stove and it seems to burn ok for the first few minutes then dies down. On the door I have vents at the top and more at the bottom. When I first light it I have the vents open fully before closing slighgtly to slow down the burning. The fire basically just dies out and the stove does not give out much heat anyway. Any ideas greatfully received.
Maybe the flue is blocked?
Bob
What fuel - ie is the wood nice and seasoned? Are you building the fire properly (very boy-scout :-) )?
(what stove?)
cheers, clive
Contact the maker to get the manual?
But our stovax stove has controls like that. Start with all fully open, and keep them all open until it's quite hot - usually takes 10-15 minutes, while slowly feeding it more week, then slowly close the bottom vents. Then it goes into airwash/cleanburn mode and you can control the burning with the top vent control.
Gordon
Not enough info. Do you mean it burns ok on the kindling you light it with but not on the logs or it burns the logs ok for a while and then just stops? What make of stove? What type of wood?
I've never seen one of those things that didn't give out more heat than a small nuclear power station so I can't imagine it's anything wrong with the stove. The flue might need cleaning though. When was that last done?
You probably need to leave the vents open for longer or even permanently, at least the bottom one anyway. A fire can't burn without air. Maybe you're not letting the logs get sufficiently alight and the fire dies when the kindling is used up. Maybe the wood is a bad kind or damp. Use the smaller logs to start it with and give it 30 minutes with the vents open until it's really going strong and then put bigger logs on and see what happens. You can always close the vents if it burns too fast but it sounds as though you're closing them too quickly. Think about the fact that a normal hearth is open to the air all the time and even then it often has vents under the grate.
Final thing is the chimney and the cowl on top. Maybe that's not a good design or not high enough and isn't drawing well. A friend had a cowl on his stove chimney and if the wind was from the wrong direction the smoke came back down into the stove and the fire choked. He took the cowl off and it's been fine since.
The message from "Dave Baker" contains these words:
Now there's an idea. Inglenukes.
My guess would be damp wood. I don't have the luxury of enough storage space for two or three years supply. I take the relatively fresh cut stuff, split it with an axe wherever possible so that the maximum distance from the centre to the outside is no more than 30 - 40 mm. Triangles or quarter rounds about 90 mm on a side are OK. Then I stack this each side of the fire, in the inglenook. By the time I have burned the material from one side, that on the other side is nice and dry. Thereafter, just split and fill up one side at a time. For the knotty stuff which won't split, I might stack it end-on on the front tray or on the top of the stove overnight.
"Simon Jeffs" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com...
Are you trying to burn green or seasoned timber? (Green= freshly felled timber, seasoned= felled & left to dry for more than
1 year at least) Woodburners work best with seasoned timber burning on an existing ashbed and with draught from the top of the burner, so don't riddle all the ash away. Green timber will never burn well, not on an open fire nor in a woodburner. Well seasoned timber will burn well with all vents just about closed; just allow enough draught from the top, if possible, to keep the embers alight. With experience you will be amazed at how much energy a log can store Cut/chop/buy your timber depending on the maw of your woodburner. Softwoods burn bright and loud, hardwoods burn long and quiet. Try starting the fire with a good amount of dry softwood kindling and get a good blaze going. Chop some logs into smaller sections and add these onto the top of the blaze. As these smaller sections begin to slowly burn you can add larger logs to the blaze and they will be dried by the underlying warmth, thus they will burn. That's my theory anyway. I've used a woodburner for near 30 years to provide all my heating and hot water in winter. It works well and I have never (1) chopped a living tree or (2) paid for any timber. Thus no gas or electric heating bills. The exercise involved in gathering, cutting and logging is strenuous at times but is bloody good exercise and the results are more than worthwhile. As previously mentioned you should have the chimney swept, and have it swept regularly. Mine is done annually but it burns 24/7 for 5 months. HTHGS
preheat the chimney before laying the fire.burn a sheet or two of newspaper to heat the chimney,this will increase the draw.of course all the other advice given should be followed.
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