If you’re reading this article, the chances are you’ve been having a frustrating experience with a woodburner.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to increase that frustration before we can solve the problem: it’s probably your fault that your woodburner keeps going out.
Nine times out of 10 operator error is the reason for the unintentional extinguishing of a fire in a woodburner. Please don’t take it personally – using a wood-burning stove is a matter of trial and error. Once you’ve got to grips with it, you’ll wonder how you ever went wrong.
But in the meantime, the most likely scenario is that you’re not quite getting it right.
The main reason for a woodburner going out is that it was never going properly in the first place. Some common causes of this are:
Not cleaning the ashes
Logs burn well on a shallow bed of ashes, but leaving too much can block the flow of air and cause your woodburner to go out.
Not using enough kindling
Your fire needs to be burning well with kindling in order to generate enough heat to set the logs alight. Scrimping on kindling can stop this happening and result in your woodburner going out once the kindling is burnt.
Not opening the air vents
During the lighting process, your air vents should be wide open to let as much oxygen in as possible. If they are closed, the fire may never get enough oxygen to get going properly.
Closing the air vents too far or too soon
Once the stove is going well, you should close the air vents slightly to limit the oxygen supply and create a more efficient burn. Closing the vents too soon or too far, might cause the woodburner to go out.
Not using seasoned wood
All the logs you burn on a woodburner should be chopped, dried and seasoned to get the moisture content as low as possible. If you’re using logs with a high moisture content you are probably doing damage to your stove. Equally, you might be causing it to go out. That excess moisture takes a lot of effort for your stove to evaporate, and that extra strain might prevent the fuel from burning properly. Obviously water doesn’t usually make for a roaring fire in any circumstances.
Adding too much fuel
For average-sized woodburners, around two or three logs should be added each time you refuel. Adding too much fuel in one go might block the flow of air through your stove system and cause the fire to extinguish.
What if it’s not you?
Poor draw
If you’re confident that you’re doing all those things correctly, another possibility is that the draw up your chimney is not strong enough.
This can be caused by your property being exposed and susceptible to windy conditions; by a lack of ventilation in your room; or because your flue is not long enough.
Your flue depends on the movement of air from your room, into the stove and up the flue. All of the things mentioned above can slow this process and ultimately cause the stove to go out.
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