Newly built house or recently renovated?
It is advisable to wait six weeks before lighting the stove in a newly built house that has recently been completed,
or in a space that has recently been renovated drastically. The walls and ceilings still contain gases, softeners and
moisture from plasterwork or paint. The warm air-streams may discolour the dust particles in the space, which
may stick to walls and ceilings. Even the moisture in the walls and ceilings will become warm and may cause
yellow stains.
Fuel
Wood
Fir, Poplar
Lime, Willow, Spruce, Birch, Ash, Alder
Fruit trees, Beech
Oak
The Oak only burns on wood. Do not put more than 1 kg of fuel in the stove at the time. Always use clean and cut
logs, which have suffi ciently dried. Please see the above list for drying times. Wet wood does not burn well and
gives heavy smoke emission. It may blacken the glass pane of your stove with soot and build up smut in the fl ue
pipe. This may increase the risk of chimney fi re.
Fresh, moist wood contains about 50% moisture. Cleaved wood still contains 20% moisture after drying it for a year
and moisture percentage will be decreased to 12 to 15% after drying it for two years. Dry wood gives nice fl ames
and little or no smoke, and the fi re will crackle when burning. Wet wood makes a hissing sound, gives much smoke
and only small fl ames which will considerably dampen the pleasure of burning your stove and the heat output.
Wood species and storage
You can use all kinds of woods as fuel as long as it is clean, split and dry. Hardwood like oak, beech and birch burn
slowly, give off much heat and form charcoal easily. Softer woods like spruce, fi r and poplar give more fl ames but
less heat and less charcoal.
The best place to store timber is in a windy spot but sheltered from the rain. This is how the logs can dry in a
natural way. Pile the logs on an old pallet or a frame to let the wood dry from underneath and to prevent the lower
logs from being in contact with water.
Do not put any paraffi n-containing logs in your stove. When the door is closed, the high heat will melt the paraffi n
from the logs too quickly. The polluted fl ue gasses which consequently develop will deposit on and burn in the
glass of your stove and cannot be removed later.
Do not use any wood that is painted, impregnated, glued together or processed in any other way. The fl ue gases
are very harmful to the environment and may aff ect your stove. It is also prohibited to burn plastics and other
waste matter due to poisonous smoke development.
The best way to burn your stove
All WANDERS' stoves are designed so that they give a maximum output. A well-lit wood-burning stove can produce
a yield of about 80%. This means that you need less wood for the same amount of heat. Moreover, a well-lit stove
produces less smoke pollution. Below are a few tips to give you optimum pleasure:
•
Always burn your stove with its door closed; this will improve the output within 8 to 10 times. When the door
of the stove is open, the chimney will draw more air than is needed for proper combustion. The relatively cold
air will cool the fi re. It will also preclude fi re damage by any sputtering sparks, especially from softwood.
•
Do not put more than 2 logs on the fi re at one time. Too much fuel at one time thwarts effi cient combustion
Drying time
1 year
1,5 years
2 years
2,5 years
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