On 11/03/2021 20:21, newshound wrote:
On 11/03/2021 14:05, David wrote:


Reporting back.

I found the pallet thing which the wood burner was delivered on, hidden
away.
That does the job adequately (shifts around but keeps the axe away from
the hard standing).

I still don't understand your need for this. Do you miss a lot?
Even if you do then any slab of thick wood or plastic ought to do.

The good bit is that splitting the wood down a little further has made a
big difference to the speed that the stove gets up to temperature.
Once the coals are red hot the bigger bits burn well.

Only really needed for starting the fire. I tend to use newspaper dry
bits that drop off my pine tree and dried tangerine peel with a few thin
strips of selected kindling made from corners of logs and any thin ones.

I assume the slow starting was due to the ratio of volume to surface area
- not enough surface area for the fire to catch well.
Also (see why wooden beams don't burn as fast as you would expect in a
house fire) the carbonisation of the surface can retard the spread of the
fire.

It is surprising how resistant to catching bulk wood can be. Edges and
corners will always catch first.

The "area to volume" thing you mention is correct, but the other good
argument for splitting especially if you use timber from logs is that
this gives them a better chance to dry. Most commercial logs are not
dried for very long, and often only in thick sections which dry slowly.

My log supplier seems fairly good at seasoning it, but I still have them
in my under cover log stack for several months prior to burning and in
the inglenook warmed by the fire for a few days after that.

My local logs typically come as cylinders between 4 and 8 inches in
diameter, or sometimes split from bigger rings into pieces typically 6
inches across. I used to split a dustbin full into pieces that were
typically triangles of 3 to 4 inches on each side. I'd stack these up
each side of the woodburner. I'd burn from one side, then refill that
and start burning from the other. That way (after the first load), I was
always burning wood that had been split and in a warm place for a week
or so. This generates significantly more heat than freshly split wood,
because damp wood steals heat by sending water vapour up the chimney.

It is certainly the case that wet wood doesn't burn at all hot. The
drier you can get it prior to putting it in the burner the better.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown