How to Properly Start a Wood Burning Stove
Wood stoves can be an excellent option to conserve energy and heat rooms. They will require some maintenance.
Many modern wood stoves conform to EPA emission guidelines. You can check for an EPA sticker on the grate or underneath it to make sure your stove doesn't emit harmful pollutants.
How to Start a Wood Fire
The sound and smell of a fire made from wood can be a pleasant feature in any house. It's essential to understand how to build a fire in your stove. Unintentional methods can lead to the fire not to burn efficiently, and produces smoke or creosote. The following tips can aid you in starting a fire that will heat your home with the least effort and ensure your safety.
Before you start a fire, you should check the condition of your coals and logs. If they are wet they will choke the flame and stop it from burning properly. You might want to open the chimney to eliminate any ash that has fallen into the stove.
Begin by putting a handful of small dry pieces of newspaper into your stove. This will help to ignite the tinder. When the tinder and the kindling are beginning to burn, you can add an additional layer of larger pieces on the top. This should be done using the crosshatch pattern to ensure that there is air between each piece.
If you own a wood stove with an automatic control of combustion, it will automatically feed a controlled stream of air to your fire as it grows. This will allow the fire to burn continuously without the need to open the door of your stove often to keep it in check.
Do not use too much tinder as this will cause the fire to burn at a rapid rate and not use the fuel efficiently. Once you've made a solid base in your stove with sparks, tinder and kindling, start the main flame by laying two large logs of the base on the grate. Next, place a layer of smaller logs perpendicular to these and on the top of the base logs. This "top-down" method of building a fireplace will produce a long-lasting and effective fire that doesn't engulf larger base logs.
When your fire is established shut off the damper and ensure it stays closed. Doing this too soon could cause the fire to smother and will not allow for the correct airflow, which will decrease the efficiency of the fire.
Add Wood
Stoves can be used to efficiently heat your home and also save you money. They can be used by themselves or in conjunction with central heating or furnace system to provide the supplemental heat required in large houses or homes with many rooms. Many of the latest stoves that are clean burning available on the market use an advanced combustion principle which separates the burning volatile compounds from combustible gasses and tar. This is accomplished by supplying air at two different stages. The first stage is to aid in the vaporization process, and the second stage is to provide pre-heated fresh air. This improves combustion and decreases the odors.
The amount of heat you get from your stove depends on the kind of wood used as well as the amount of moisture, as well as the size of the logs. The logs should be stored in a well-ventilated space for a period of time before you try to burn them, to give the wood a chance to dry out. If the logs are not dry enough, they will produce plenty of steam that is basically wasted energy.
While you're burning the fire, you should add more wood to the pile at intervals, and not all at all at. In addition, adding too much wood at one time causes the temperature in the firebox to increase and creates a vortex, which draws smoke and unburnt volatile compounds back into the flame which can decrease the efficiency of your stove.
Avoid using other combustibles inside your stove, like paper or cardboard because they are not wood. They have different physical properties and cannot be burned without causing dangerously high temperatures. It is not recommended to burn combustibles that are compressed, such as wood briquettes as they are different in chemical and physical composition from firewood. They are also not approved by the type to be burned in wood burning stoves.
It is important to have a professional install and test your wood burning stove. A certified WETT technician can examine your stove to make sure that it is safe and efficient. They will also ensure whether your chimney is working properly. They provide maintenance services for your chimney and stove to ensure they remain in top shape. They can look for leaks in the areas accessible to your chimney and fix any problems they find. They will also make sure that the residents of the house know and follow the evacuation procedures for fire in the event of an emergency.
Adjusting the Damper
A damper regulates how much heat is lost to the chimney when you aren't using your stove. It can also be used to manage the flame. If the flue opens, but the damper is not closed the fire will not burn properly and smoke will pour into your home. To ensure you have the most effective fire using your damper adjusted properly you have to test different locations and observe how each affects the flames.
You should keep your damper open to let air enter and exit the flue when a flame is burning. This will let the fire start and stay lit for many hours. The right opening will prevent the fire from being starved of air and prevent it from blowing smoke.
To properly adjust your damper first, make sure that the fireplace is heated and that the wood stove is hot. This will ensure that the chimney stays warm and has good draft. Once this is accomplished the damper for the wood stove can be adjusted.
Once the fire has burned a bit you should reduce the damper to around three-quarters of its full position. This will stop the warm air from the room from going into the chimney, while allowing smoke to escape out of the wood stove.
This is the best method to keep the fire from getting too hot, while also keeping it burning. If you shut the damper too tightly, it could block the draft from working, however should it be too wide, a cold breeze could blow into your home.
You can test how much the damper is opened by placing your hand on the top of the of the flue pipe. If you feel a breeze pushing against your hand The damper is most likely to be open.
The damper settings can vary between stoves and even between different kinds of wood. You can experiment with various settings to get an idea of the ideal setting for your stove.
Clean up
After an incident, it is important to clean the stove and flue. This can reduce the chance of a fire in the chimney which is the main cause of fires caused by wood stoves. Creosote, a sticky substance that accumulates on the inside of the stovepipe and is extremely dangerous. It is caused by moisture and unburned wood particles that are unable to escape from the fire. It could also be caused by poorly lit fires.
Regular cleaning can help stop the buildup of creosote. The best method to do this is to sweep the chimney each year. wood burner clearance sale is also recommended that you get your stove and fireplace professionally cleaned and inspected at least once a year.
It is also a good idea to clean out the ash tray and grate regularly. It is recommended to use only wood that is seasoned to burn, since this will result in less creosote as well as ash. It is also an excellent idea to avoid burning cardboard, paper, plastic and other trash items. These items can release dangerous chemicals for the air and flue, that could end up in your home.
It is also necessary to clean the glass of the wood stove on a regular basis. A lot of modern wood stoves are designed with self-cleaning glass, meaning that they do not require any scrubbing. You can apply stove glass cleaners to the window if you're not getting the glass as clean as you would like on your wood stove.
Other ways to maintain your wood stove include lowering the vent when you
