New Stove User - Help!

pambler

I have recently moved into a rural property with only electric - it does however have 2 stoves - one in the kitchen which also heats the water and one in the living room. I'm completely new to all this, and struggling a bit!

By googling I think I have narrowed down the one in the kitchen to be an Aarrow Acorn 4. It's quite small and I've had real problems getting wood to burn in it and get/stay hot enough, so have decided to use smokeless fuel on this one. My local coal merchant has recommended Taybrite - does this seem a sensible choice? I've got a thermometer for it, but when the chimney sweep came, he said that this particular stove should only burn at around 100 degrees, which it does seem to do quite happily - it seems very hard to keep it going much higher once it has settled down, even if I put additional fuel in, however the thermometer shows this as being in 'creosote' zone, so I'm a bit worried that it is not hot enough. does anyone have any ideas about this. My aim is to try and keep the coals burning overnight, so that we have a bit of residual warmth in the mornings.

The other stove is a Jotul F3 TD as far as I can make out - I've been burning wood/heat logs in it (just bought in the local garage so far), however, a friend is giving me a load of seasoned logs which should hopefully last me the best part of the winter. I've read somewhere on this forum that wood should burn on a bed of ash - I've been religiously been cleaning mine out each morning - should I let it build up - could someone explain this in a bit more detail.

Sorry for the questions - I've only ever had gas central heating so this is all a bit of minefield for me!

A._Badger

I am not a fan of thermometers, so I can't advise you based on their use. And before the wrath of the thermofans is unleashed on me (!), I'll demonstrate I'm not alone, with this link: http://woodheat.org/thermometers.html

Creosote is a problem only when you are burning wood, so as you are using Taybrite, you can safely ignore that.

Yes, Taybrite is a good choice but there are others you could experiment with. None will give you an enormous difference but some might light easier or perhaps burn longer on your stove. By the way, you will probably be able to get a handbook for your stove as the maker is still active - another reason to buy stoves from established manufacturers!

The same is true of your Jotul - a brand that has been around forever and I would strongly recommend that you get an instruction manual for that one as well. .

In the meantime, the advice about wood burning on a bed of ash is quite right. The theory is that when you burn wood, you should burn it on a layer of ash with the air supply coming from above. The exact opposite is true of smokeless fuel. In fact if you do that with smokeless you will burn out your firebars in no time at all.

With smokeless fuel you need to keep air flowing through the grate, so empty the ash pan regularly and riddle every time you add fuel. Keep the bottom vents open and experiment with the top vent settings to get the best burn.

I hope that helps..

Useless1000

Hi we have the arrow 4 stove and use wood and home fire fuel they are egg shape. When we bank up over night it has always burnt away to just a few embers, but can quickly be got going again in the morning. You should experiment with the top and bottom air vents to see how the fire burns. Bottom is usually for coal and top one for wood. Ours has the back boiler to and works quite well. We use mostly wood , but when we use home fire we mix in wood as well at the same time. Am sure you will get the hang of it. Your jotul stove I think you will find its ment to have a layer of sand on the bottom to protect the metal. Good luck

pambler

Thanks for the advice - I had managed to find and download the user manuals for both of them, lots of info about installing, but not so much about actually running them - but good to know this forum is here with plenty of knowledgable people should I get stuck.

pambler

A.Badger - just reading your post again, I think I have worked out where I may be going wrong - the coals burn well to start then die off somewhat, but I have not been getting rid of the ash, and the rather rubbish bag of coal that I am burning at the moment whilst waiting for my taybrite to be delivered seems to create loads of ash. I will make sure I do that in future - Thank you.