The Art of Keeping the Stove going overnight

Bet the potato thing don't half damp the fire down. I could imagine however a quick injection of steam could shake up any loose deposits.

How high is your chimney ? 705E seems reasonable for France :-)

A neighbour told me that chucking potato peelings on the fire help clear the chimney of soot/tar, not sure it works though.

705€ worth of double lined flue going in on Thursday !

I used a powder called DMO last season . Chuck a bit on every 10 fires in accordance with the instructions & wait for the solids I missed when sweeping to come tumbling down. Seems to work well but absolutely necessary to clear out the fallen stuff before it becomes a fire hazard. 1 x 900 gram tub looks like it will suffice for 2 seasons. NOT a substitute for chimney sweeping though! Anyone remember " rampage me conduit" ?

Our Rayburn has a slide in 'damper' that has an air vent to open in front of it. Some of the heat rises, pulls air up but with the firebox damper closed and bottom air vent too, it keeps water warm and circulating because the thermostat is still active but draws enough heat up the flue to stove it tarring up. This is my third one and they can go wrong, which I did just once, but it almost takes effort to do that. Chuck in some kindling (we have loads of dry vine sticks and very dry laurel, both of which need to be left at least three years of cause deposits) then a log and week the powder to stop soot deposits and the annual cleaning by a 'pro' produces very little soot or side deposits at all. Mostly it is a question of the wood as well. Too many people buy pine for instance. Cheap but a nightmare unless it is several years standing in a dry, warm place before burning. Two and three year old oak are best.

You beat me to it Vic i was about to post something very similar according to our stove Manufacturer which is ESSSE from the UK if the fire has been turned down overnight let it rip next morning to burn off the deposits, note one of the dogs has the right idea flat out in front of the fire![](upload://jp1ZKndC89GRGS2SwiGQeos5kDT.jpg)

Agree with Debra re getting the fire going in the morning, that is exactly what we do.

Can anyone recommend a qualified stove installer who will work at Agnac 47800 and is prepared to fit a stove supplied by customer?

This was the top of the pipe from the woodburner as it enters the chimney on Friday. Chimney was swept 6 weeks ago but weather has made it difficult to get the fire to draw properly on several occasions so I guess there has been a built up of soot/tar. At present the chimney is made of clay oval tubes (busettes ?), a stainless steel flue is going in ASAP

We used to build our wood burner stove up before bedtime and shut it all down to keep it through the night but, having had a huge build up of tar in the chimney I have read up about this and now we open it up initially then dampen it down a bit so it is not blazing away but still a good flame and let it burn out after bedtime. I hope this will avoid tar build up in the flue and consequently a quick start up in the morning and no smoke filled room. Works so far.

I don't think that anyone has mentioned the fact that keeping a woody 'ticking over' at night is not necessarily a good thing. Low fire temperatures = low flue temperatures = more gunge deposits & possible condensation. I used to 'keep the fire in' overnight but gave up last year as I was having to clean the flue 2 or 3 times a year & it was hard work due to the solid deposits.. I now open 'em up & let 'em rip just before departing for my kip which raises the flue temp & avoids condensation. Please note, this is when there is little wood left to burn & no risk of a chimney fire. I don't notice any great drop in room temperature in the morning doing this & simply relight the fire. For those of you who want to keep the fire in all night think 'surface area''. The greater surface area of the wood exposed the quicker it will burn. Pack it in tight & it will last longer.

Now with pictures...

Careful with dry charme (hornbeam) because if the stove is hot it burns away very fast, likewise châtaignier (chestnut).

This is the Sirocco (picture from Amazon.fr) at €132. We don't have the handle at the top and our base is slightly thicker with squarer rather than the rounded edges on the base, but essentially the same. It is really brilliant. A little bit of WD40 each autumn and it really moves some. It is a bit of a nuisance to keep clean, wood smoke that gets to it tends to make it a bit sticky and holds dust, but the effectiveness outweighs that.

You sound as if you're doing everything right! The wood won't always burn slow enough to stay overnight and an alternative to filling up the cavity is to buy some very thick, large logs which you keep for night time. Make sure you are burning either oak(chene) or charne, and that it also dry(3 years old and plus is best) because you get more heat. We also used between 12 and 15 steres a winter to heat our Charentais longeur but we didn' t use the second fire all winter, only at very cold times. We had a warm air pipe system to the room above the poele. Most mornings the embers could be kick started into life (with perhaps the occasional firelighter) by using smaller width logs. However, the fire itself rarely lost its heat so the room had stayed warm. Also with age, one or other of us might be up in the night so we made sure to put a 'top up' on the fire if we were. We used this system for 15 years. The old , thick walls store the heat and visitors always commented how cosy our rooms were. However, this year we have replaced the poele à bois with a poele à granulés to save cutting wood with arthritic backs! I have no idea how this will work out. Its an experiment!

The Godin Carvin in the lounge and Godin Fonteval in Kitchen.

I believe you are right Jonathan, the sweep told me last time he came that new stoves don't have dampers at the top.

Sometimes I wish I would ask my 'beloved' before making work for myself. She told me our fan is a Sirocco with three blades (so much for my memory!) made by Hansa. She showed me the base where the name is! She also looked at ebay to see and it is more like €150 now, the one I looked at (without walking to the kitchen to check) is similar only from Amazon Germany but not on UK or France and has a thin base, so not as stable. We bought ours in 2002 when we went to Berlin, which she remembers because it was just a couple of months before our year in Portugal. It was indeed about €50 because it was a return of goods deal, like second hand but unused, but real price then was at east €100.

The one to look for has a circular guard around the heat collecting 'blades'. She says bro-in-law has a Sterling pump (?) one called a Vulcan that was about the same price as ours. She says his is better than ours!

After my Friday evening spent with the Pompiers, can I suggest that if you are going to try and keep the fire going overnight (or when you are away for a long period), you make sure your chimney is swept and in good nick. A chimney fire is not a nice thing to happen even when fully dressed, coping with one in your pyjamas must be even worse !

As for the fans, I don't have space for one of the stove-top jobbies but do use a couple of PC power supply fans fed from a 12V source, these help raise the temperature across the kitchen by 2-3 °C.

We have an EFEL Stanford wood burner and it is the best fire we have ever purchased. At 2100 I put 4 x 1/2 (50cm) oak logs onto the fire and then turn everything down and that will easily last until 0900 the next morning and still put out a good amount of heat overnight (we actually open the windows and doors in the morning to lower the heat a little). To light I use 2 x small bits of firelighter and 3 logs and it is well alight within 5 minutes. It really is the most easy fire to use and maintain.

We have a small house of only 108 sq mtrs and extremely well insulated and we have 20 stere stored in case we get a longer and colder winter than normal.

We also have a stove fan and personally do not find it makes the slightest difference in heat distribution in our house.

Rgds, Mike L

Ours is a four blade thing, heavy based so stands there and easy to remove if not required, which in mild weather it is. The box is long gone so I can't tell the manufacturers name but at the time in that shop the salesman said it was roughly the same price as the Valiant but his own preference and one he sold most of. I'll email a friend to see if she can go in, it is a couple of minutes from her place, to ask and put it up later - on the assumption that anybody who wants can find that make.