neiln

That btw is about 40 kg of logs daily (2 year dried Oak), or a lot more than big J's equivalent!

With 2 stoves both only 5kw nominal I can still keep the house warm in weather that is overcast and let's say daily maximums of 3-4C, and overnight lows of -3 to -5C. Doing so does mean both stoves running 12-15 hours a day which can burn through about a cube of wood. Maybe slightly less if Oak but more of its softwood.

Absolutely right, it gets harder as it dries. Although sometimes a short spell of drying to start a few cracks gets it to a sweet spot for splitting.... After which it gets harder. Put aside 2 or 3 nice large knotty rounds as chopping blocks but deal with the rest. If you can't split, block it up with the saw.

Oh and enjoy the leylandii, it burns nice once dry.

Just be mindful of when and for how long you run the petrol saw, and crack on. It's the same as mowing the lawn or doing DIY. I only use the saw for one or two tank fulls so basically never more than an hour or two. I don't use it before 10 or after about 7, usually it's just a couple of hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. If people in moderately dense suburbs have issues with short stints or noise at reasonable times then I feel for them, life must be tough!

Yes I get that, burning a solid is complex and incomplete, especially while the burn is cold as it is on lighting. So smaller and thinner strips help, lots of it to get things hotter quicker, but whether paper, wood kindling, wax or plastic it will be a bit sooty. I'd just love to get a good answer to whether pet, pe, pp strips burn any worse than/less cleanly/more polluting than the wax or kindling.

Slightly different though to several cube of large rings stacked and awaiting splitting. Each case is different, logs are never uniform, the longer and larger a piece of wood the more apparent the divergence and that causes gaps. My experience is always that stacks get quite a lot smaller once the wood is cut and split.

Somebody above said plastic milk bottles. I have thought about that before and tried, without success, to find a definitive answer. There are at least 3 very common plastics usually used for bottles that are just carbon, hydrogen and perhaps oxygen. PET, (C10H8O4)n PP, (C3H6)n PE (C2H4)n Now although they won't burn cleanly and will produce soot, do they produce any 'nasty' products of combustion? I mean, burning PVC is really bad, it contains chlorine and a combustion product is dioxins that are really very poisonous, but pure hydrocarbon plastics I'm not clear on. I mean, I wouldn't promote running a stove on them or sticking your head over the flue for a lung full, but I wouldn't do that with paper or wood either. A few strips of milk bottle would likely be a super firestarter, but would it be any more nasty than a wax soaked sawdust ball? When I've tried I've been unable to find any decent scientific paper that explains the combustion of these plastics. I hence stick to free news paper, plenty of kindling and the occasional baby Bel waxy shell but if a plastic milk bottle could get it roaring fast and be no more polluting then...?

They are all hot though, don't expect miracles.

Bugger that! I handle wood too much anyway, I'm not moving stacks around as well.

You need to be clear spud yes. You need to be correct too! 🤣

So add some redex too

Keep turning which way!?

A neat and tight stack of splits will definitely take up less space than the unsplit rings. No doubt at all in my mind.

In my mind slumbering and banking up are slightly different. Possibly just me though! I thinking of banking up as shoveling ash over the fire, usually to slow an open fire and more awkward with a stove but possible to an extent. It keeps embers in longer than just closing the vents down as it insulates them and keeps them glowing. I've done it more often by accident by doing a hot reload using a very ash producing log type but have experimented doing it on purpose by shovelling ash on top, with signs of success.

I agree, or dries easily but gets very light as it does so burns fine but very quickly. If you've plenty of wood and can be picky I'd possibly pass, if not then it's fine to take.

They won't take long to dry again.

I get that and agree, oak is the extreme case of hardwoods, really low sappy volatile content, it's dense cellulose. It burns hot and long in the right conditions, but does need the hot fire AND to be very dry. The energy in the volatiles in softwood is high and they also burn easily. They do burn quicker but they dry quicker. I am not complaining that I get so much oak but the Scott's pine I've had, the silver birch, holly, yew, these are stunning wood. The much maligned Leyland cypress is pretty good too.

I reckon so.

Oak is piss easy to split with an axe it really is. It's definitely wet wood though if the birch burns fine.

I agree opening a window and the stove reacting indicates it's sucking air from the room. If the top vents are clear that makes sense doesn't it? Those vents are open to the room. Opening the window and getting a reaction suggests the room/house is sealed pretty tight, and the stove needs more air. YouTube checked your external air pipework haven't you? If not then check that's not been blocked by a mouse nest or something. How tall is the flue and is the flue top higher than the rest of the house? Ie the stove isn't in a single storey extension with flue stopping not far above the roof, but main house is 2 or 3 storeys. Buy a packet of smoke pellets, screwfix etc have them. And test the draw. Use a blow torch to warm the flue from inside the stove for a minute or so, light the smoke pellet, put in stove and shut the door, vents closed. The stove will fill with smoke. Open the vents and the smoke should rapidly exit up the flue. It should do this with any windows shut. Do the test with the door to the room shut and again open, and again with any bathroom and kitchen extractor fans running and doors between them and the stove open. If the smoke doesn't exit up the flue in every case then the draw is too weak, and we can then try to work out why.

Not quite sure I follow but sounds like, stove modified and top/airways vents blocked? So you're primary air was all there was and the metal plate l largely blocked that too. Hmm, yeah, I don't think any wood burns well without a decent air supply! Hope you can fix the top vent.

You've blocked the grate so now the bottom/primary air is very very restricted. Had you experimented with a bit of tin foil you'd have taken a few fires to learn how much to block the grate and how much to leave.... Now you need to take your 8mm plate and get some holes drilled in it. Sounds like moisture in the wood too though I reckon.

Gareth wins the internet today 🤣

Likewise I don't have trouble and find the ash soon builds up on the grate, but if yours doesn't try a bit of tin foil spread across the grate before you build your fire. It'll stop the ash dropping through.