heating garage,

[geraldchainsaw]

ok,   i know its been posted or talked about in the last week or so,  but i can't find it,  so i have to ask again.    i just got a wood burner,  and in reading the directions,  it says,  do not elevate or use with a grate,  build fire directly on hearth,   ok,   that means on the bottom of the wood burner,  i  remember someone said to use 2" of sand,  but how do u start the fire if its on the hearth?,  u can't start a fire on its side,  what has anyone else done to use one of these things?,  and how do u clean the ashes out when u half to?, maybe i've wasted my money again,      thanks    jerry

[Zapato]

Nope, you haven't wasted your money. put a couple of inches of sand on the bottom. Ideally you would have a couple inches of ash works better than sand. Here's what I always did when I had a woodstove. Place two wedge pieces of wood in the bottom with a gap between them. Couple inches is perfect. Wad a bunch of newspaper into baseball size balls, wad them snug but kinda loose. Fill that gap with the paper balls.Then Take some kindling and stack it across the peaks of the wedges over the newspaper. I stack in crossing layers be sure there is plenty of room for air to flow between them. Don't cheat on the kindling use plenty. Then light the paper usually both ends and in the middle. then close your doors I used to leave mine open about an inch so that it would get plenty of oxygen and really roar. Kindling would soon drop down between the logs and would help keep them going. I always ran it HOT for at least a half hour adding more if/as needed. Then would load up the stove close it down and the dampers closed down. With my stove a good load of dry wood would burn 6-8 hours before needing refill. Unless the wind was really howling and then it draws so much air that it wouldn't last as long. Ideally its really doing not much more than smoldering.

Up here in the PNW cedar is readily available so that's what I always used for starting, burns hot , starts easy, gets your stovepipe really hot which helps burn off the days before creosote in the pipe. Heated about 90% of the time with wood for 23 years and every spring would crawl up on the roof and with about 30 feet of pipe to clean never got much more than a half cup of soot.

Goes without saying when you clean ashes out of the stove be sure they go into a metal container. Save them and when you have enough. clean it all out and get rid of the sand replacing it with the collected ash. Store them out of the house or shop.

And if you ever do have a chimney fire grab a pitcher full of water and throw it into the firebox. The steam will 99% of the time extinguish it.

Goes without saying install it to code, get the install checked out etc.  Permits and all those irritating things will pay off if ever anything related goes wrong.

Anyway hope none of this feels insulting, Have seen a few houses go up in flames from bad installs and improper burning and would hate to see that happen.

Zap-

[Zapato]

Cleaning out is easy enough get yourself a small fireplace shovel. Just scoop your ashes into a fireproof container. Any large unburned pieces just use on your next burn.

Do not use you shop vac to suck up ashes. easy enough to suck up a small smoldering ember that could really spoil your day.

Zap- 

[Frankenstein57]

What he said, and I'd add to that, don't park a car with a gas tank near that thing.  Mark