woodburner and flames - silly question

A._Badger

suered wrote: »

Back again with another question

For those of you burning wood exclusively (but in a multi-fuel stove) - roughly how many hours of burning before the ashpan is full? Still trying to work out if I'm running mine right (Fireline Inset).

Thanks

If you are burning wood in a multifuel stove you do not need to empty the ashpan. Indeed, you would be better never emptying it. Allow the ash to build up over the firebars, so that the fire is burning on a bed of ash.

Then you simply take off a top surface layer of ash, every now and then. When burning wood, I tend to remove some when it is a couple of inches thick.

Just in case anyone reading this is in any doubt, be very careful not to do this when burning smokeless fuel., With that, the passage of air coming up through the firebars is absolutely essential to stop them melting (which shows you the difference in temperature produced by wood compared with smokeless!).

How often you will need to empty the ashpan depends on the size of the ashpan, the quality of the fuel, rate of burn and so on but assuming you riddle every time you refuel (which you should) you could be emptying the ashpan every evening, as I have to if running mine at full power for more than about five hours at a stretch.

With wood, none of that applies.

I hope that helps.,

Skulls

suered wrote: »

Blimey O'Riley! So half a bag every 400-500 hours? Now I'm worrying. Mine's on roughly between about 3 to 5 hours of an evening and I think I'm emptying ashpan about once a week - but that's not completely full because of fear of throwing it all over the house on its way outside. Pan is roughly about A4-ish size, I think (fire on now so can't doublecheck) and about an inch high.

I think I will have to start timing how it's on for and stashing the ash in a bag to compare.

Does either the temperature it's run at or the species of wood burnt have any effect?

Thank you again for your patience with all my questions.:o

I think it does, I now only burn Heatlogs. They appear more expensive but, are so much easier to use. Last winter, quite a cold one cost just over £300 to keep the house warm, the log burner is my only form of heating. This year I'm trying out a combo of UK Heatlogs to start the fire, then Home bargain Heatlogs to keep it going.