Building Heating With Wood Experience

[tufhelp]

??? Need a little advice about using a wood stove. We have an older Ashley wood stove for heating our LRD (Luxury Relocatable Dwelling) and our recent visit down to our place was during a particularly brisk spell for southwestern corner of New Mexico.

This is the first time we needed to run the stove the entire time we were there. The temperature in the early AM hours was 18-20 and never really got above 35-38 during the days. At best the insulation is meager and the house is drafty. This Ashley is one of those that have a sheet metal "decorative" exterior skin over a heavy duty cast iron fire box - Looks like it might be a propane heater rather than a wood burner. The firebox is about 25”-27” in length, about 10”-12” wide and about 18”-20”tall. The damper control is a knob on the front with increments from “HI” to “LOW”.

I guess the question is what size fire to build and try to maintain. With that size firebox you can easily make a honkin’ fire that will gobble wood at an amazing rate, even on the lower damper settings, or a modest fire that will not do that great a job of heating the area especially on the lower settings, and on higher settings it still gobbles wood at a fairly quick rate.

Our friends have a newer compact wood stove that is highly efficient and burns a single log at a nice oxygen starved slow rate and gives off plenty of heat. I’m told that the Ashley is a good economical heater, easy on the wood supply and plenty of output. In my uninitiated hands it doesn’t seem to be that way…

One more thing, since it needs regular feeding, what is the process of getting through the night with some heat and fire left in the morning?

Would appreciate any input you might share and techniques that might help in our learning curve.

Thanks, Tufhelp & Lindawoman

[DM]

I don't think there's a good way to answer your Q without knowing what kind of wood you have available, and if it's seasoned or not...

Is the gasket on the door of your stove in good condition, so it doesn't leak a lot of air "into" the stove?

How many sq. feet are you trying to keep heated? And how well is it insulated?

DM

[Deberosa]

I learned alot about my wood stove from my chimney sweep. I even mentioned this year I was thinking of switching to pellet and he gave me advice to think about before switching.

I had many of the issues you mention, plus I was going to need to heat all day every day now while working so wanted something that wouldn't get too hot. He suggested using smaller pieces of wood and it's working! I am sure that only applies to the type of setup I have and the size of house I have though...

I haven't mastered keeping a fire hot all night yet. Fortunately this is not a really cold climate so we let it burn till going to bed, stoke it up then and then in the morning start a new fire first thing.

I've been heating solely with wood for 4 years. I now use a space heater occasionally in the mornings in my office, but once the wood stove catches up I turn it off. I didn't like the idea of switching to pellets, but wanted some kind of control and found out it is a matter of learning the right process for the stove you have.

[tufhelp]

Thanks Deberosa, I had an inkling that wood size would enter into the equation. For some reason I went for a 20-ish inch length with wedges ranging what I would term medium to medium-large. So the fire tends to be a “long” one. I’m thinking that I should perhaps have gone for a lot of short pieces and in the medium to medium-small range so that I could stack the fire across the chamber instead of along it. For instance for the bed time stretch, put coals at one end and stoke wood crosswise down the chamber – theory: that the damper on low it would allow the coals to gradually crawl down the chamber using the stock pile of wood slowly enough to be more viable over the sleep period.

The trailer is just like any trailer – crap and crappier if they could get away with it – this goes double for “insulation”. Not much there and over all pretty drafty… We close off to bedrooms and heat only Living room, kitchen and one bedroom and bathroom – roughly 750 square feet.

Wood is a mixture of alligator cedar and pinion pine, mesquite, some juniper - seasoned one year.

[flatwater]

First I have to say if you live in a trailer make sure you have an approved wood burner for said trailer. If you have electricity use a fan to keep the heat even in the trailer. Use a stove that has an outside cold air return. Now with that said , a poor insulated trailer will make a wuss out of any wood burner. Work on the trailer especially the skirting.
Flatwater

[MadTripper]

Trailer homes and woodstoves aren't typically a good combination in my opinion but then again, if I were in your situation, I'd probably do the same thing. *You probably took the proper precautions into account by having the right airspace around the stove from combustible materials and all that safety stuff. *If not, I would look into it and start with a good setup. *The home will get a lot more drafts if the walls are gone.
Along with your gasket being in good shape and sealing properly, make sure you don't have any other holes or air leaks. *Controlling the oxygen is really the key. *
I would get a nice bed of coals going. *Once you do this, you can add and subtract air which will dictate your temperature and burn time. *When loading the firebox, you should pull the coals towards the front of the stove, (closest to your damper), and load new wood behind it. *This will allow the fire to travel from front to back during night or other times you can't tend to it every 4 or so hours.

Hope that helps and I wasn't too repetitive about the safety jargon. *I didn't mention the importance of a clean chimney but again, if you've gotten this far you probably know already. *Do you have any model number or the like for your stove? *


Tripper

Deb, as far as all night fires go, this is my method:

About an hour or hour and a half before bed time, I open my vents and pile on some small wood. This gets the house very warm to say the least but also creates a beautifull bed of coals. About 15 minutes before I call it a night, I pull my coals to the front of the stove and load as much large wood as I can fit in behind the coals. I pay particular attention to my variety of wood as well. Your locale will dictate what you can use but where I'm at, Beech, Locust, and Hickory are great for this duty. After the wood and firebox is set, I close everything up. I have screw dampers on the front that I mainly use. I close them all the way and open them about 1/4 to 1/2 turn, more if its going to be a single digit night.

[Deberosa]

Trailer homes and woodstoves aren't typically a good combination in my opinion but then again, if I were in your situation, I'd probably do the same thing. *You probably took the proper precautions into account by having the right airspace around the stove from combustible materials and all that safety stuff. *If not, I would look into it and start with a good setup. *The home will get a lot more drafts if the walls are gone.
Along with your gasket being in good shape and sealing properly, make sure you don't have any other holes or air leaks. *Controlling the oxygen is really the key. *
I would get a nice bed of coals going. *Once you do this, you can add and subtract air which will dictate your temperature and burn time. *When loading the firebox, you should pull the coals towards the front of the stove, (closest to your damper), and load new wood behind it. *This will allow the fire to travel from front to back during night or other times you can't tend to it every 4 or so hours.

Hope that helps and I wasn't too repetitive about the safety jargon. *I didn't mention the importance of a clean chimney but again, if you've gotten this far you probably know already. *Do you have any model number or the like for your stove? *


Tripper

Deb, as far as all night fires go, this is my method:

About an hour or hour and a half before bed time, I open my vents and pile on some small wood. *This gets the house very warm to say the least but also creates a beautifull bed of coals. *About 15 minutes before I call it a night, I pull my coals to the front of the stove and load as much large wood as I can fit in behind the coals. *I pay particular attention to my variety of wood as well. *Your locale will dictate what you can use but where I'm at, Beech, Locust, and Hickory are great for this duty. *After the wood and firebox is set, I close everything up. *I have screw dampers on the front that I mainly use. *I close them all the way and open them about 1/4 to 1/2 turn, more if its going to be a single digit night.

Thanks! I never knew about pulling the coals to the front and was actually doing the opposite because I didn't want to block the draft!!!

[drmargy]

We heat our off-the-grid cabin entirely with wood using a Kozi stove. It is a small model (we have a small cabin) but it gets things really warm and keeps it that way. When we split our wood we make some larger logs we call "going to bed" logs. One or two of those usually get us into the middle of the night. If we wake up on a particularly cold night, one of us goes downstairs to stoke the fire. If not, we flip a coin for who gets up first to start her up again. All kidding aside, we are very pleased with our stove. We use it for heating and cooking as well.

[machinemaker]

Our primary heat is a wood stove in the center of the down stairs of our home. A freind who is a stone mason gave me an old round wood stove that has no markings, but is a good stove. (masons around here seem to pull old stoves out of homes to replace with either gas fireplaces or pellet stove, I've been offered serveral stoves for free) Anyways, I can load it with large pieces of cotton wood before bed and it is still going in the morning, eight hours later. I did built a large heat exchanger that fills the old fireplace behind the stove and when that is dampered down this will keep the house warm all night. We are at 9500' elevations and have outside temps around 0- teens.
kent

[logger]

I ended up buying a soap stone stove a few years ago before the prices went up. I only did this due to the fact that the stove that we were using for many years was ended up having some cracks in it. I have been having some good results. My wood use went from 10 to 11 cords a year to 7 maybe 8 depending on the winter. The house is warm and by putting on the ceiling fan the other rooms get warm.