I've been trying to decide on how to stack wood in my stove. I'm relatively new to wood burning, only had the stove 3 years now. It's a good size stove in a medium sized room, so in an attempt to save wood, I've only been stacking the back half. I'll get a good fire going, then push all the coals to the back half, and stack either 1 huge piece or 2 smaller ones right up to the top of the stove. I push it to the back because the fan is in the back so the heat stays closer to it. I've been purposely only using the back half of the stove to save wood. Sometimes it doesn't burn long enough, though, and I come down in the morning and it's a bit cool. When I burn an entire stove full of wood, though, it seems to stay warmer longer. I say seems because it's hard to be sure since I burn many different types of hardwood, a mixed batch in terms of both density and moisture content.
Here's where it gets scientific, for lack of a better word. With the damper fully closed, like it usually is when we slow burn, it's burning from the bottom up. The coals ignite the wood touching them and that wood turns to coals, burning the wood from bottom to top until it is gone. If this is the case, then wouldn't adding more wood to the coal-less unoccupied front half of the stove just make it a hotter fire due to more wood being burned at the same time, but not increase it's duration since it's not becoming part of the vertical stack on the coals? Or, is adding more wood beside the coals going to increase the duration of the burn since when they ignite, there will be less air for the other wood above the coals in the back of the stove, forcing it all to burn slower and therefore longer? Or does it both increase heat output and burn duration? I know it's wood and it's impossible to make it an exact science due to so many variances, just trying to get it as precise as possible so I can get the most out of my wood supply and not create more heat than is necessary to heat the area.
Here's where it gets scientific, for lack of a better word. With the damper fully closed, like it usually is when we slow burn, it's burning from the bottom up. The coals ignite the wood touching them and that wood turns to coals, burning the wood from bottom to top until it is gone. If this is the case, then wouldn't adding more wood to the coal-less unoccupied front half of the stove just make it a hotter fire due to more wood being burned at the same time, but not increase it's duration since it's not becoming part of the vertical stack on the coals? Or, is adding more wood beside the coals going to increase the duration of the burn since when they ignite, there will be less air for the other wood above the coals in the back of the stove, forcing it all to burn slower and therefore longer? Or does it both increase heat output and burn duration? I know it's wood and it's impossible to make it an exact science due to so many variances, just trying to get it as precise as possible so I can get the most out of my wood supply and not create more heat than is necessary to heat the area.
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