keeping fire in all night in woodburner

[Bustergasket]

Try a sprinkle of ash from the ash pan ontop of the embers, it's an old trick passed onto me by a local old boy, I run a coalbrookdale Severn, it stays in ok if I build it up, if u put ash ontop you have to rake it in the morn which will mean you loose some of the heart, good luck

[gensetsteve]

We used to keep our hunter in all night. When you have a nice bed of health red embers empty the ash pan over the top. In the morning push some sticks of kindling in without disturbing too much ( I know a good place for Kindling ) some mornings it would be roaring in the middle some not. In the end we just let it die out and relight in a couple of minutes I think it clogs the chimney without giving much heat and uses up expensive logs if its slumbered.

[predator]

coalbrookdale severn no probbs keeping it going forever lol i let the firebars clog up at end of a nights burn and top up with a full load of logs and shut all vents and fire still half full with logs

why dont you try a layer of damp wood/logs on top to slow your burn down so to speak it shoul run all night

[County4x4]

Just a quick heads up to advise that you make sure you have your chimney swept regularly if you're intent on keeping a woodburner in overnight - as it's about the worst thing you can do as far as your chimney goes. Basically you've got a smouldering fire with virtually no draught at all chucking smoke into a rapidly cooling chimney - which will already be running much cooler than an open fire chimney. That smoke will be hanging around in the chimney for plenty long enough to condense and build up into thick deposits. I've seen many a liner completely blocked like this - and there's also a much bigger risk of a chimney fire.

 

If you really do HAVE to keep the stove in all night - the best way is to reload a good while before bedtime, and run it pretty hard for half an hour or so before closing it down. This will drive a lot of the moisture and volatiles off the wood, and it will produce a lot less smoke when you close it down - so much less crap to condense in the chimney.

 

We find that our briquettes will stay in all night - though not because we aim for it, and we don't load up or close down the air at bedtime. It just gets left as it is - and normally there's enough life left in the morning to re-light from the embers remaining. Never been able to do this with any other type of briquette, and have quite a few customers who tell us the same thing.

 

Cheers,

 

Andy

[Big J]

Just a quick heads up to advise that you make sure you have your chimney swept regularly if you're intent on keeping a woodburner in overnight - as it's about the worst thing you can do as far as your chimney goes. Basically you've got a smouldering fire with virtually no draught at all chucking smoke into a rapidly cooling chimney - which will already be running much cooler than an open fire chimney. That smoke will be hanging around in the chimney for plenty long enough to condense and build up into thick deposits. I've seen many a liner completely blocked like this - and there's also a much bigger risk of a chimney fire.

 

If you really do HAVE to keep the stove in all night - the best way is to reload a good while before bedtime, and run it pretty hard for half an hour or so before closing it down. This will drive a lot of the moisture and volatiles off the wood, and it will produce a lot less smoke when you close it down - so much less crap to condense in the chimney.

 

We find that our briquettes will stay in all night - though not because we aim for it, and we don't load up or close down the air at bedtime. It just gets left as it is - and normally there's enough life left in the morning to re-light from the embers remaining. Never been able to do this with any other type of briquette, and have quite a few customers who tell us the same thing.

 

Cheers,

 

Andy

 

To some degree I would disagree with this.

 

Our stove is on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through winter. There is absolutely no tar or soot build up in the stove or in the chimney. The key is a flue thermometer.

 

Before going to bed, the bed of embers is usually fairly substantial owing to a night of stoking the fire regularly. I will then (usually 5 minutes before heading to the land of nod) fill the fire as full as possible and blast it, all vents open. I'll take it to the point where it's at the very bottom of the 'too hot' zone on the flue thermometer and then close down fully. Experience (from stoking in the same way through the day) is that the temperature will very slowly creep down to the middle of the 'goldilocks zone' and there it will stay until there is nothing but embers.

 

I've met so many people who run fires, and even people who run them for heating who just don't understand how fire works. They'll just chuck one or two logs on and then shut everything down immediately. The log might last a touch longer, but it will give you a tenth of the heat, and clog your chimney.

 

Jonathan

[County4x4]

They'll just chuck one or two logs on and then shut everything down immediately. The log might last a touch longer, but it will give you a tenth of the heat, and clog your chimney.

 

Jonathan

 

Exactly mate - the thinking being that the quicker everything gets closed down, the longer the wood will last I guess. It's possibly not such a problem when a stove is running 24/7 like yours, as the whole chimney will be warmer than one servicing a stove which gets lit at tea time.

 

I see liners every week though that are totally blocked - they only call me out when nothing actually goes up the chimney any more! Usually a bit of grilling reveals it's wet wood and/or trying to overnight it wrongly that's the cause of it.

 

On the plus side, when you go to a customer who does everything right, it's a pleasure to do the job - no problems getting up the chimney and a nice clean stove too!

 

Cheers,

 

Andy

[blazer]

I try to run mine on low - not smolder tickover, as not only does the liner clogup but with no rise of smoke due the the stack cooling I have found it can smell downstairs in the morning (I now have a CO alarm). Plus a mini blowback from low O2 levels once (simular to opening a door during a house fire) - on the estate the old boy who looked after the bale sized log burner had a big blowback from shutting down too much when he opened the burner door.