Tips for Heating Your House with a Fireplace or Wood Burning Stove
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ม.ค. 2018
- Tips for 0:08 keeping fireplace glass doors clean for beauty and heat, 1:23 replacing fireplace or stove door gaskets, 1:39 best types of wood for kindling, 3:34 getting a slow fire cooking with wax or a bellows, 4:18 building a drying rack, 5:14 fireplace gloves, tongs, poker, fire extinguisher, 6:06 air purifier, 5:46 putting out a chimney fire, and 6:26 adding wood ashes to your garden.
Based on 35 years of experience heating our house with wood.
A quality bellows is an easy way to get a fire going fast: amzn.to/2tHCnp1
It's wise to have a fire extinguisher in your house: amzn.to/2U8ov1V
Keep a Chimfex on hand, designed specifically to put out chimney fires: amzn.to/2RM7NCu
Recorded with a Sony FDRAX53 Camcorder, which I highly recommend: amzn.to/2WG2oCo
The audio was recorded with a Tascam DR-40 Digital Recorder: amzn.to/31sGJMx
As an Amazon Associate I earn a commission from qualifying purchases.
How to Keep Glass Doors Clean: At 0:47 I remove the top gasket on the right door, and you can see how much cleaner the right glass is from the left as a result. Newer inserts and stoves have a vent built in for that, which you can open when you have a fire, close it otherwise.
Replacing the Door Gasket: A Stove Gasket Kit or separate Gasket and Stove Gasket Cement can be bought at most hardware stores or online. See if yours are compressed and leaking. Pull or scrape it out and measure the size for replacement. Follow the directions on the glue.
Types of Firewood: For kindling, oily woods like cedar, redwood, tamarack, pine or fir catch easy and burn quick. Look for chunks of tight straight grain wood that's easy to split. For your main firewood, deciduous hardwoods are best. I use alder, maple and cherry, dense wood like vine maple or oak are even better. Knots and branches are dense and burn a long time. Wet woods like cottonwood take 2 years to dry and then have little heat value.
Using Ashes in the Garden: Great for lawns, fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Wood ash is about half as alkaline as dolomite lime, so use twice as much to raise the Ph. Don't put ashes on acid loving plants like blueberries and azaleas, and not on raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, or potatoes, unless your soil is very acid to start with. Ash adds valuable minerals - mostly Potassium, also phosphorus, calcium and boron. Especially good for apple trees.
About Chimney Fires: Burning a consistently hot fire with dry hardwood will help keep your flue clean. The only chimney fire I ever had was from burning cardboard boxes, which create a lot of flames. Don't do that. It went out when I closed the doors and shut off the air supply. Keep a fire extinguisher handy, and better yet, there's a Chemical Fire Extinguisher you can buy and throw in the fire that will quickly use up all the oxygen and the fire should go out. If necessary call 911. Get your chimney cleaned if it needs it.
Also, see these videos:
Heating efficiently with a fireplace or wood stove: • Heating Your House Eff...
DIY Hepa filter for clearing smoke out of your house: • HEPA vs DIY Air Filter...
A rack for cutting branches and small wood: • Easy Kindling & Small ...
2 hours of a crackling fire with time lapse at the end: • Real Crackling Fire, 2...
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I've always been told do not close doors on a fireplace????? Please tell me why you do.
If you burn a fire with the doors open, the warm air from the room goes up the chimney as fast as the fire can heat it, and it won't heat your house much. Fireplace inserts and quality glass doors are ceramic glass, which can take 1,000°F, and designed to burn with the doors closed. Cheaper glass doors, usually bi-fold, for sale on Amazon are tempered glass, and say NOT to close the doors with the fire burning. In practice, you can close the doors if your fire is not very hot, and flames are not close to the glass. I shattered a cheap bi-fold glass door once by filling the fireplace with paper, lighting it and closing the doors - flames were right up against the glass.
Great information. This is my first time heating my home with a King 623. I have a lot to learn. Thank you for taking your time to share.
Thank you for the video, well narrated
We want to go backpacking with you someday!
Let us know when!
A good way to extinguish a Chimney Fire, is to pour a pan of water on top of the fire in the fireplace or wood burning stove. The water will vaporize and travel up the chimney, extinguishing the flames with the steam that you created. "Always notify the Fire Department for a Chimney Fire". Even if the fire appears to be out, it may have extended into a crevice in a wall or roof. 🚒🔥👨🚒
Thanks for the good advice! Probably need to be careful not to get burned by the steam, or use too much water and have coals wash back out into your house. Then close the doors and damper to shut off the air supply.
@@HartzHomestead when we bought our house the people who had previously lived in our house were idiots they burnt fires in the fireplace regularly but they never got the chimney cleaned so one day of cource they had a chimney fire and instead of fixing the chimney they threw in a gas insert so when we bought the house I installed a new chimney linear and replaced some bricks and removed the gas insert so now we have a nice wood burning fireplace and I clean the chimney 1 or 2 times every fire season
@@boywonder5691 If you always burn dry wood, and have air tight ceramic glass doors, and give the fire the right amount of air at the base of the fire to keep it burning hot, the chimney will probably not even need cleaning. I've never cleaned our chimney in 35 years, and only once had a minor chimney fire when I made the mistake of burning cardboard. It quickly went out when I closed the doors. We do have a clay tile liner with a space between it and the bricks of the chimney, so it's insulated from the cold which helps reduce soot as well. But if it does need it, cleaning the chimney is important.
@@HartzHomestead most of the time there is very little creosote when I clean the chimney but I just clean it often to prevent chimney fires becsuse I don't want to have to rebuild the entire chimney or worse the entire house should there be a chimney fire
@@boywonder5691 That's good! It means you're burning clean fires, and staying safe.
I assume you split the small wood inside because that's where the camera was. The shock of slamming that down on a hearth is a good way to crack the brick work. My BIL would split wood on my mother's ramp going into the garage. It never cracked until he used it to split wood on.
I've been splitting kindling on this hearth for 35 years and it hasn't cracked. It looks like sandstone but I think it's a durable concrete product, held up with steel angle iron. I have put dents in the hearth when wood split easier than expected (bad for the hatchet and the hearth). Bigger wood I split outside though.
@@HartzHomestead , makes it warmer for you then.
my fireplace is quite old-fashioned and I fear it would crack the brickwork hearth that is inline with the floor.
I noticed you don't use a grate for your fireplace, do you find it easier not having one? We just bought one and logs tend to roll off them.
I've never tried a grate. I do prop my logs up with a couple smaller pieces going crossways, so air can come up through the ash cleanout directly through the middle of the fire, making it burn really hot. As logs burn down the coals all stay together, whereas on a grate they would fall through.
@@HartzHomestead I bought 2 grates for our stove (Olympic fireplace insert) and they both melted. Cheap Chinese 'pot' metal I guess - but it WAS hot (up to 600 degrees sometimes) - probably because of the lumps of anthracite coal I added on REALLY cold nights.
So I hired a blacksmith who build me a 'trivet': 'A' shaped 1/2" square steel bar heated and bent into the shape of an 'A'' with a cross-piece at the bottom of the legs.
Then (on the bottom surface) he added 1" legs (short pieces of the same steel bar) at the peak and bottom of the 'A' legs to keep it up out of the ash and a series of 'bumps' on the top surface to prevent logs sliding/rolling. Finally he added an eyelet to the peak of the 'A' so I could lift the trivet up and out with the poker while all was still hot.
Cost me $75 but was cheaper than buying cheap grates and lasts forever. Kept the heavy logs tilted and up out of the ash, let the air flow under and up and gave me a space to stuff newsprint, firestarters and split cedar shakes (shingles) from Home Depot. Add in 2 pieces of (REALLY) dry wood (kiln dried from Estonia - split and 1ft long) under the main logs and within 15 min I had a 500 degree fire.
I added extra (hardwood) logs along the sides away from the center to dry completely after laying on the outdoors rack in the weather. They'd start burning after a few hours and kept that side of the house warm until morning.
BTW: those gloves? Get welder's suede gloves - reach up to the elbows and protect your sleeves.
Cleaning the glass: Good choice of glass! However, don't use anything sharp enough to scratch it - no razor blades! Anything which can scratch the glass will create places for the soot to adhere. Same as bubbles in a beer glass.
Remove the door, lay flat and level atop cardboard sheet (to catch the drips), spread paper towels over the glass until completely covered. Spray ammonia (using a cheap 'dollar store' misting spray bottle) to soak the towels and let sit for a few hours. Come back with a PLASTIC 'spatula' and scape the wet towels off - the sludge of soot will release and just throw the towels/sludge into the garbage. You can scrub with a plastic scrubber (using a cheap plastic scrub pad similar to 'steel wool' pads). Do NOT use 'Scotch Brite' pads (3M). The green ones are approx 80 grit/sq inch and the blue 400 grit - just like sandpaper classification and will create a permanent 'haze' on the glass.
@@lp115lp Thanks for all the info. Glad your new grate is working so well; makes sense as it would allow air circulation from underneath and keep the wood together. I'll have to try ammonia for cleaning the glass. And yes, burning dry wood is really important; a hot fire produces more heat and less smoke.
I understand you've done this a long time, and I respect that. But you can split that wood safer with a hatchet if you lay it down horizontal, slam the hatchet down into it (often getting it stuck in), then picking up the hatchet and kindling as one and slamming it down. Sort of like bunting, but from the side. You won't risk cutting your fingers or hand.
I guess we each have our preferred way to split wood. Some kindling would be a pretty small target to hit using the method you describe, and I've always found wood splits easier from the end than the side. I've never cut myself with a hatchet, just gotten slivers a couple times with really splintery fir.
hi,liked your videos,with what material is the door made of?
The doors were custom welded for us by a fireplace shop using Pyrex glass. They also gave us an option of tempered glass, which was cheaper, but I shattered some once with a very hot fire, or ceramic glass, which can take even more heat, but Pyrex has worked fine for 35 years and I've had some very hot fires.
and the frame was made of?
@@freemovies57 The frame is welded from steel, and painted black with high heat paint. There is also a stove gasket material around each piece of glass.
Just wanted to give a little tip go down or call your local newspaper and see if they sell their end rolls I bought 2 newspaper end rolls last year for $2 and I still haven't used one of them
I get end rolls for steaming silk, they are harder to find now that there are fewer print newspapers in business. For starting fires I have a friend that gets the NY Times and is happy to give me some.
can you burn pine logs in a fireplace
yes. it must be seasoned indoors for a year or two
You can burn any wood as long as it is dry. If the pine has a lot of pitch in it though, it would be best to mix it with some deciduous wood, like alder, maple, or other non-pitchy wood, or you might create excess creosote in your chimney. Also, it might crackle and pop a lot.
Of course, as long as it is dry you have nothing to worry about
If the fire goes out of control it is better to wide open the closest window, the fireplace doors and any other flue controls on the chimney.
This way all the heat escapes fast and the fuel cools down enough to burn safe.
People have the tendency to tund down the air intakes and flue dumper in this situation. This makes things a lot worse because of the huge amount of heat energy that builds up in the fireplace.
Such situation can go as far as sucking oxygen from as far as the chimney top, melt the fireplace and start a chimney fire.
I've never heard that. Interesting concept. The one time I was burning too much cardboard with the doors open and a chimney fire got started, I shut off the air supply and the fire died down. It might be different if you have a lot of creosote in the chimney. I only burn hot fires with dry wood and the creosote is minimal.
Cardboard, paper, plywood, tree branches and many more, aren't suitable for use as "solid fuel".
I quoted "solid fuel" because in fact what burns is gaseous fuel released from solid stuff exposed to heat.
When temperature rises in the fireplace, more fuel is released by the "solid fuel".
Shutting down all the air intakes works only if the fireplace and the chimney are perfectly airtight. Nothing is perfect! Any leak will feed the heated fuel to produce more heat and increase the pressure difference between the fireplace and surrounding air.
Wide opening the system will release all the heat and fuel mixture fast enough not to start a chimney fire. Everything cools donw in a minute.
Leaving the doors wide open while buning cardboard or even proper firewood is a invitation to disaster 😀