Wood burner virgins

[P]

Having spent two weeks at our newly acquired French property there seems to be something we are not doing right with the wood burner.

 

The inside of the door constantly became black and only seemed to clear partially when it was very hot – what are we doing wrong?

 

Thanks

 

Paul

[Clair]

Which make is your woodburner? not all of them have the 'self-cleaning' glass...

I have a Jotul F600 which  is equipped with an air wash for the glass. Air is sucked in through the air vent on the top and down along the inside of the glass.

[Patf]

We have to clean ours every day. You can buy special spray on cleaner from diy shops, I think it's caustic so wear rubber gloves. If we only make a small fire and keep it to the back of the hearth it doesn't make the door black. It could also be the type of wood because the black stuff is resin, I think. Pat.

[Clair]

A non-caustic way of cleaning the glass is to dip a scrunched-up pad of newspaper into water and them into cold ash before rubbing it on the glass.You can simply throw the paper into the fire when you've finished.

[andyh4]

You may also not be burning the right sort of wood.  Pine, or wood that is not properly dry (means left to dry at least 2 years) will tend to give more tars and soot.

 

[Teamedup]

We have friends who bought fires after us who never have other than a very slight smokinp up eventually. Ours is black again within an hour. We even tried making more air holes, but nothing works. So now I leave it black. I won't use caustic stuff everyday. I did that for tooo long really.

Does your fire throw a lot of heat out as a general rule? If it does then don't worry about it. I've seen fine looking fires with clean glass, pretty flames and why they don't heat, I don't know, but they don't do the job. Seeing the flames is no indication of how well a fire heats after all [:)] And that is the way I judge them these days.

Yes, burn the dry wood and not resinous.

 

[Val_2]

For years I used Cif or other non-scratch cleaners and now since using a damp rag dipped into some of the burned ash in the drawer it comes off like a hot knife through butter and gets easier and easier to do. Invest in a glass scraper to do the corners and edges.  What you burn has a lot to do with it, how much paper and how much you pile in there in one go to make a fire. Never burn any sort of pine as the resin also clings to your flue liner and can catch fire.

[Teamedup]

I have to disagree there. Ours goes black no matter what we used to burn and so quickly that is was quite demoralizing when I used to try and keep it clean. When we used it a lot we used to burn well dried wood, mainly chene, sometimes some charme and fayard along with the chene; but mainly chene.

[Dick Smith]

I thought this was a thread about human sacrifice! I got all excited...

We have the same problem and we take one of two stances:

• Clean with newspaper dampened and dipped in the ashes, or
• ignore it.

[alnmike]

Great Dick!! When we have mature - ie 2 year old + wood we don't get much blackening on the door. If the wood isn't old we do get a dirty door and as Dick and others, either use rolled up newspaper/ash or just leave it. We get loads of heat from it!!

[Lautrec]

Here is a tip that a friend passed on to me. When lighting the fire, always leave one door ajar, maybe just an inch. This seems to draw the smoke away from the door and the glass remains clean. and it also helps the wood to catch up faster. Always works for me.!

[tenniswitch]

[quote user="Lautrec"]Here is a tip that a friend passed on to me. When lighting the fire, always leave one door ajar, maybe just an inch. This seems to draw the smoke away from the door and the glass remains clean. and it also helps the wood to catch up faster. Always works for me.!
[/quote]

I also find that that helps: the greater the temperature differential, the faster the wood catches.  But the main thing for us is to have really, really dry hardwood (i.e., not only well-aged, but aged and stored under optimal conditions).

[P]

Thanks for all the replies - seems 2 options - put up with the black glass or buy a super-duper burner like Clair. On that basis we will try the various cleaning and firing methods and see where that gets us and if it does not sit there imagining the flames.

Paul