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5 Cheap Wood Stove Tricks Old Loggers Used (Without Them You're Wasting Half Your Heat) — Transcript

by Harlan Sawyer · 3,261 words · 466 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00It's 6:30 tomorrow morning.
0:02You open the stove door and there's a
0:04black half-burned log sitting in a bed
0:06of dead gray ash. The glass is brown and
0:09the kitchen is 58°. So, you do what the
0:12fella at the stove store told you. Load
0:14it full, shut the air down, go make
0:16coffee. Partner, hold that split a
0:18second. That log did not burn last
0:21night. It smoldered.
0:23And a smoldering stove throws close to
0:25half the heat in your wood up the pipe
0:26as smoke.
0:28That's why the glass is brown.
0:30The house is cold and the shed is lower
0:32than it ought to be.
0:34Five things fix it. None costs more than
0:36a box of matches. And the last one is
0:39worth about a cord a winter by itself.
0:41I'm Harland Sawyer.
0:4342 years cutting timber on Sawyer Ridge,
0:46Pocahontas County, West Virginia, 1969
0:49to 2011. Near everything I'm about to
0:52show you, my grandfather Enoch wrote
0:54down in a scaler's tally book he carried
0:56from 1931 until the winter he died. He
0:59made me promise it wouldn't go in the
1:01ground with him. This is me keeping that
1:03promise.
1:04In the fall of 1975, my neighbor Virgil
1:07Cutlip's daddy Clell bought the first
1:09airtight stove on this ridge, $189 at
1:12the farm store in Marlinton.
1:14A door that sealed like a bank vault and
1:17a salesman who said what every man on
1:19the ridge wanted to hear.
1:20Load it once, burn all night. Clell did.
1:23By the middle of February, he'd burned
1:25eight cords in a three-room house. The
1:27windows were sooted brown and Virgil, 29
1:31with a baby in that house, was splitting
1:33wood on Sundays by lantern. Enoch looked
1:35at it in March and wrote one line in the
1:37tally book.
1:39Clell's stove never once got hot. It
1:42wasn't the stove that ate eight cords,
1:44friend. It was the sales pitch.
1:46Today, most Americans run a stove the
1:48way Clell was taught in 1975
1:51and burn about twice the wood their
1:53grandfather did. But But the twist. The
1:56record now says the Airtight was never
1:58meant to run choked down.
2:00And the men who ran bunkhouse stoves for
2:0150 years before it had a name for what
2:03the salesman sold. A dead fire.
2:06Five pieces to running a live one. None
2:09cost more than a box of matches or takes
2:12more than 10 minutes.
2:13Four of them Enoch could show you before
2:15the coffee's done.
2:17The fifth is what he did with a shovel
2:18of cold ash every night of his life. It
2:20keeps a fire 9 hours on the same wood
2:23you're burning now and it vanished the
2:25year the Airtight came down the hollow.
2:27I'm keeping it for last, partner. If you
2:29want one buried skill back in daylight
2:31every week, hit subscribe now. Costs you
2:34nothing. And it keeps this library open.
2:36Here's number one.
2:38Two fires, not one. Most folks light the
2:41stove in October and try to keep it
2:43going low around the clock until April.
2:47Makes sense.
2:48Relighting is a chore and a fire that
2:51never goes out feels like the whole
2:52point. The rule is this. In the shoulder
2:55season, October and November and again
2:57in March, you burn two hot short fires a
3:00day and let the stove go cold in
3:02between. A wood stove is a chimney with
3:05a door on it. And a chimney only works
3:07when it's hot. Run the stove low all day
3:09on a 50° afternoon and the flue never
3:12gets warm enough to pull. So the smoke
3:14crawls up the pipe and paints itself on
3:16the inside as creosote.
3:18And the heat that should be in your
3:19kitchen is in the pipe.
3:21Here's how you tell.
3:23Look at the smoke at the top of the
3:24chimney. A hot fire makes almost none. A
3:27little heat shimmer.
3:29A smoldering fire makes a lazy blue-gray
3:31rope that hangs around the roof.
3:33Then listen at the stove.
3:35A live fire has a low steady rush like
3:38wind in a bottle.
3:40A dead one is silent. Then look at the
3:42glass.
3:43Brown glass is a smoldering stove every
3:46time, friend. The EPA's Burn Wise
3:49program puts it plain in print. Small
3:51hot fires. Never let it smolder.
3:54That's the modern side confirming in
3:56writing what Enok did with a bunkhouse
3:58stove in 1940. A short hot fire in the
4:02morning and another at supper in a 50°
4:05week burns about a third of the wood of
4:07a stove kept choked all day and the
4:09house is warmer at the two times you're
4:11actually in it. The failure mode is the
4:13afternoon reload. You're home at 2:00,
4:16the stove's down to coals and out of
4:18habit you put three splits on and turn
4:20it down.
4:21That's the smolder.
4:23If it's 50° outside, let it go out. Do
4:25this tomorrow. Morning fire, hot, 45
4:28minutes, damper open, let it die. Supper
4:31fire the same. Count your wood at the
4:33end of the week against the week before.
4:35Ruth kept that count for me on the
4:37calendar in 1981, the first winter in
4:40this house.
4:41And the two fire weeks came in at 11
4:44splits a day against 19.
4:47Number two.
4:49Crack the window. Most folks have spent
4:51good money making the house tight. New
4:53windows, foam in the sills, a door that
4:56seals.
4:57And the stove got harder to light.
4:59And nobody put the two together. The
5:01rule is a wood stove needs air from
5:03somewhere and in a tight house you have
5:05to give it to it on purpose. Think of it
5:07this way. Every pound of smoke that goes
5:10up the chimney is a pound of air that
5:12came into the house from somewhere
5:14first. In Enok's day it came through the
5:16walls. In a house built or sealed after
5:19about 1980 it can't.
5:21So the stove pulls against the whole
5:22house like a man sucking on a straw with
5:25his thumb over the end.
5:27Here's the test and it takes a match.
5:29Stove burning, house closed up. Turn on
5:32the kitchen range hood or the clothes
5:34dryer.
5:35Now crack the stove door an inch and
5:37hold a lit match at the gap. If the
5:39flame leans out toward you or the smoke
5:41rolls out the door, your house just beat
5:44your chimney. That stove is starving and
5:46on a still night, it can run backwards
5:49and put the smoke in the room where you
5:50sleep.
5:51The fix costs nothing, partner. A window
5:54nearest the stove opened 1 in on the
5:56side on the side of the house the wind
5:58comes from. Some folks put a 4-in duct
6:01through the wall behind the stove with a
6:02screen on it, which is about $20 and
6:05does the same job without the draft on
6:07your ankles. A stove that's starving for
6:10air burns the same wood and gives you
6:13less fire.
6:14Every dryer load you run is pulling the
6:17heat you paid for out the pipe. The
6:19failure mode is opening the window
6:21across the house. That just makes a
6:23breeze through the rooms you're sitting
6:25in. It goes by the stove low.
6:28And the stove takes the air before you
6:30feel it. Do this tonight. Match at the
6:33door, range hood on. If it leans out,
6:36crack the window. 2 minutes. Stop right
6:39there, partner. Two pieces in and you
6:41can already see the shape of it. The
6:43wood was fine both times. What changed
6:46was the fire getting the heat and the
6:48air it needs. And a hot fire is the only
6:50kind that puts the heat in the room.
6:52Number three, which way the splits lay.
6:55Most folks throw wood in the stove the
6:57way it lands. Some pieces front to back,
7:00some sideways. Whatever fits.
7:03The rule is the splits lay side to side
7:05parallel to the door in a flat layer and
7:08you decide how many before you open the
7:10door. A stove burns from where the air
7:12comes in. And on nearly every stove, the
7:14air comes in low at the front and washes
7:16across the load. Splits laid front to
7:19back give that air a lane straight
7:21through the pile. So, the whole load
7:23catches at once, flames up pretty, and
7:26it's coals in 40 minutes. Laid side to
7:28side, the air hits the front split, the
7:30front split burns, and the ones behind
7:32it wait their turn. Same wood, same
7:35stove, friend, and the burn goes from 40
7:37minutes to an hour and a half. Look at
7:39it in the morning. Front to back loads
7:41leave a pile of even coals. Side to side
7:44loads leave the back pieces black and
7:46half there, which is right.
7:48Then the count. Heft your splits.
7:51Three of the size of your forearm for a
7:53day fire, four or five for a night. More
7:56than that and you've built a smolder no
7:58matter which way they lay. This costs
8:00nothing. It's the same wood turned 90°.
8:03Enoch called it laying the deck because
8:05that's how you lay a log deck at a
8:07landing, all the butts the same way. And
8:10he'd have told you a bunkhouse stove
8:12loaded crossways at bedtime was a
8:13bunkhouse cold by three. The stove
8:15companies won't say it in the manual
8:17because every firebox is a different
8:19shape and they'd rather sell you the
8:21bigger stove. The failure mode is
8:23packing it. Splits jam tight with no gap
8:26between them can't get air between them
8:28either.
8:29A finger's width apart side to side and
8:31the load breathes.
8:33Do this tonight, side to side, finger
8:36apart. Count them before you open the
8:38door and watch the morning coals. Here's
8:40the part where I'm supposed to tell you
8:42the stove companies hid all this from
8:43you. They didn't, exactly. What happened
8:46is that in 1974 the oil embargo hit and
8:50inside of two winters every farm store
8:52in America had an airtight stove on the
8:54floor.
8:56And the pitch that sold it was load it
8:58once, burn all night. That pitch sold a
9:01million stoves and it taught a whole
9:03country to smolder.
9:05Nobody outlawed the hot fire. They just
9:07sold you a stove that would tolerate a
9:08dead one. Not a conspiracy, friend. Just
9:11how markets work and if you've been
9:13running yours that way for 40 years,
9:15that's not on you.
9:17They're good at selling. Now, the next
9:19two are where the difference actually
9:21lives. The first three get the fire
9:23burning right. These two are what make
9:25the wood last and they're the two Clell
9:27Cutlip never got told. Number four, char
9:30it before you choke it. Most folks
9:32reload and turn the air down in the same
9:35motion. Load, shut, walk away.
9:38That's the habit the Airtight taught,
9:40and it's the one that browns the glass.
9:42The rule is, after every reload, the air
9:45stays wide open until the new wood is
9:48black on every face.
9:50And only then do you turn it down.
9:52Here's what's going on in there.
9:54Fresh wood on hot coals doesn't burn at
9:56first. It cooks. The first 10 or 15
9:59minutes on the fire, a split is boiling
10:02off its water and driving out gas. And
10:04if you shut the air during that stretch,
10:06that gas doesn't burn. It leaves, up the
10:09pipe as smoke, as creosote, as heat you
10:13paid for. Once every face of the split
10:15is charred black, and you can see flame
10:17licking off the wood itself, the gas is
10:20burning, and the load is ready to run
10:22slow. Look for it. Black on every face,
10:25no bare wood showing.
10:27Listen for it. The rush picks up and
10:29steadies.
10:30Then feel the stovetop. It'll have
10:32climbed, and that's when the damper
10:34comes down to the scratch, and not
10:37before.
10:38Costs nothing but 10 minutes of standing
10:40there. The Chimney Safety Institute of
10:42America says most creosote is laid down
10:44in the first minutes after a reload on a
10:46choked stove, and a sweep at the house
10:49runs $250 in my county. 10 minutes
10:52against 250, partner. That's the modern
10:55side confirming in writing what Enoch
10:57did with a pocket watch and a cup of
10:58coffee. The failure mode is charring
11:00with the door open. Some folks crack the
11:03door to speed it up. That works. And it
11:05also throws on the floor and runs the
11:07pipe past where it ought to be. Door
11:09shut, air control wide open, that's all
11:11the air it needs. Do this at the next
11:13reload. Load it. Leave the air open. Go
11:16pour coffee. Come back when the cup's
11:18half gone and look for black on every
11:20face. Then turn it down.
11:22I'll be straight with you before the
11:23last one, because I owe it to you. If
11:26your stove is from before 1988,
11:29with no baffle, no secondary air, and a
11:32firebox the size of a foot locker. No
11:34trick of Enoch's turns it into a long
11:36burner.
11:37Fine. Believe that if you want.
11:40But in that one case, the stove
11:42companies are right. And a new one at
11:44$1,200 will pay for itself in wood
11:47inside of four winters. And if your
11:49glass is brown and the pipe's been
11:50choked all season, the creosote in that
11:53flue may be past what a brush moves.
11:56Call a sweep.
11:57When he comes, ask him one thing.
12:00What stage was it?
12:01And how thick? If he can't give you a
12:03number, he's selling, not sweeping.
12:06Don't run a stove choked down overnight
12:08in a bedroom with no carbon monoxide
12:10detector. And don't do any of this if
12:12your chimney's unlined masonry, which is
12:14a different conversation.
12:16I'm not your fire marshal.
12:19If your stove came with a manual, follow
12:20that, too. This isn't either or.
12:23But here's the thing. There's no money
12:25in you knowing any of this. That's the
12:27whole reason nobody told you.
12:30Number five, the morning bank.
12:32The one Enoch did every morning of his
12:34life from 1931 until the winter he died.
12:38And the one nobody teaches anymore,
12:40because the man who used to teach it is
12:41the man who now sells you the stove
12:43that's supposed to make it unnecessary.
12:46The rule is you don't bank a fire at
12:48night with fresh wood and a shut damper.
12:50You bank it with a hot bed, one big
12:52piece, and a shovel of cold ash on top.
12:55Here's the mechanism. A banked fire is
12:58not a burning fire. It's a fire held
13:00just below burning.
13:02So the coals stay alive for hours, and
13:04the wood on top chars slow without
13:06flaming.
13:07What holds it there is the ash. Ash is
13:10an insulator. It's what the fire brick
13:12is made to imitate. And a thin blanket
13:14of cold ash over a hot bed keeps the
13:17coals from burning out, and keeps the
13:19piece on top from lighting up. Enoch did
13:22it like this. At bedtime, with the stove
13:24hot from a proper supper fire, he raked
13:27the coals into a low mound in the back
13:29half of the box.
13:30Then one piece, the biggest unsplit
13:32round he had that would fit, bark side
13:34down, set on the coals. Then a shovel of
13:37cold ash out of the pan, spread over the
13:39round and the coals both. Maybe a half
13:41inch.
13:42Then the air control shut to a crack,
13:44not closed.
13:46Then bed. In the morning he pulled the
13:48ash back with the poker, and there'd be
13:50a bed of red coals and a round that was
13:52black and about half gone. And three
13:54splits on that lit without a match. Nine
13:57hours. Most nights.
13:5910. On a still one.
14:02Now feel the difference in your hand. A
14:04banked fire, in the morning the stove
14:07top is still warm to the palm. A choked
14:10fire, the stove top is cold and there's
14:12a black log sitting in gray. Look at the
14:15pipe. A banked fire leaves the glass
14:17clear because nothing smoldered. A
14:20choked fire leaves it brown.
14:22And smell the room. A choked fire, you
14:25can smell it in the curtains. A banked
14:27one, you can't. Costs a shovel of ash
14:30you were going to throw out. What it
14:31saves is the four or five splits a night
14:34that a choked stove eats and turns to
14:35smoke, which over 120 nights is right
14:38about a cord. $240 in my county this
14:41year.
14:42And the round, the big unsplit piece you
14:45can't get to burn any other way, that's
14:47the one piece of wood that's worth more
14:49whole than split, and it's usually the
14:51piece you've got the most of. The
14:53failure mode is a cold bed. You can't
14:55bank a fire that isn't hot. If you've
14:57let the stove run low all evening,
14:59there's nothing to bank, and you'll wake
15:01up to the black log.
15:03The supper fire has to be a real one
15:05first. An hour, damper open, and the
15:08bank goes on top of that. Do this
15:10tonight. Hot supper fire.
15:13Rake the coals back.
15:15One round, bark down.
15:17A half inch of cold ash over the top.
15:19Air to a crack.
15:21And look at it at 6:30. Now, let me tell
15:24you what Enoch found in Clell Cutlip's
15:26stove in March of 1976
15:28because he wrote it down. He opened the
15:31door at 9:00 in the morning and the
15:33firebox was cold and there was a black
15:35log and gray ash. And the pipe, when he
15:38pulled the elbow, had creosote in it, a
15:41quarter inch thick, glazed from 5 months
15:44of never once getting hot.
15:46Eight cords, a three-room house, 5
15:49months, never once got hot. If you write
15:52one thing on a card and tape it by the
15:53stove, write this: Two hot fires in the
15:56shoulder season, none all day.
15:59Match at the door with the range hood
16:00on. Crack the window if it leans out.
16:03Splits side to side, a finger apart.
16:06Count them first. Air wide open after
16:09every load until every face is black.
16:12Supper fire hot, then rake back. One
16:15round bark down, half inch of cold ash,
16:17air to a crack. And under that, Enoch's
16:20line, a dead fire eats more wood than a
16:23live one. Your granddad knew all of
16:25this, partner, every bit of it. Somebody
16:28just never got the chance to hand it
16:29down to you. That's what I was here for.
16:32Now, I want something from you. Down in
16:34the comments, tell me your state, what
16:36you burn, and what year your stove is.
16:39And tell me what you find at 6:30 the
16:42morning after you bank it Enoch's way
16:44because I've got a feeling about some of
16:45those stove tops. And if your people had
16:47a word for banking or did it different
16:50with sand or a brick or a wet log, I
16:53want that, too.
16:54The one that gets the most stories down
16:56there is the one I go deep on next.
16:58Next week, it's a two-cent item, a stick
17:01of carpenter's chalk, and the mark Enoch
17:03made on the woodshed wall every October
17:05that told him, to the week, whether the
17:07pile would make April. And why the man
17:10selling you a face cord hopes you never
17:12learn to make it. This isn't a lifestyle
17:14channel. It's a library, old, dusty,
17:17full of books somebody hoped you'd never
17:19open.
17:20If that's the kind of place you'd like
17:22to come back to, you know what to do.
17:24Stack it dry, friend. It keeps.

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