Ways to Make Wood Last Longer in Wood Stoves

Stove

• Match the wood stove to your room. Buying a stove too small means the room is not heated, but buying a stove too large for the heated area means the stove burns inefficiently, uses wood faster than needed and wastes energy. Inserting a cast iron or wood stove into an existing fireplace chimney makes wood last longer by reflecting heat from the brick fireplace. Less wood is burned to maintain the same room heat. Clean the stove, removing ashes and ensuring the firebox has no cracks or fissures. Check the damper, making sure it opens and closes smoothly.

Wood

• Seasoned hardwood is long-lasting stove fuel. Hardwood is denser than softwood, so an oak log puts out more heat over its burn time than a cottonwood log. The dense hardwood burns longer and does not need replenishing as often. Use well-seasoned hardwood such as oak, locust or hickory, with no dirt, rocks or other contaminants. Hardwoods are slow to catch fire, but burn with steady heat and settle as hot charcoal. Called high-coaling woods for their residual coals, hardwood logs last longer than other woods due to their dense grain and fine pores with few air and sap pockets. Split the firewood or cut wood lengths a few inches shorter than the stove compartment. These pieces fit easily into the firebox and burn efficiently as air circulates around them.

Fire

• Start the fire with paper and kindling. Use crumpled newspaper, cardboard strips or paper egg cartons. Stack kindling on the paper. Softwoods such as cedar, pine and other conifers are high-sap woods that ignite easily and burn quickly. Add hardwood branches or narrow-split logs. Place hardwood logs on this fire base. Ensure the logs are burning well before adding more logs. Wood lasts longer when it rests on hot coals and burns with complete combustion.

Considerations

• A fresh fire starts and burns cleanly when the chimney air is warm. When starting the fire, open the damper, twist a newspaper into a torch and light one end. Hold the paper near the flue opening so that the burning paper heats the chimney air. This minimizes smoke and encourages air flow around the kindling. Burn fruit wood with the hardwood. Peach, apple and cherry woods are fragrant and add their aroma to the room. These sap-filled woods burn quickly mixed with the longer-burning hardwoods.