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Upside Down Fire – Top Down Fire

post #1 of 5
8/12/11 at 7:15pm
Thread Starter 

I've been browsing this great site and love the information contained.   One thing I couldn't find is a post about "top down fires".  I was a VERY skeptical convert to these last year and now I love singing the praises of this crazy process of setting up and starting a fire.

 

Here is what it looks like:

 

top-down-fire.jpg

 

Here it is after only about 5 mins:

 

top-2.jpg

 

After about 20 minutes:

 

top-3.JPG

 

Pretty cool, huh?

 

 

Heat radiating from a fire is what really gets things going, and since heat radiation flows in all directions, it doesn’t matter that each subsequent layer of fuel being ignited is below the one burning.

 

Lighting a fire this way is way more reliable and keep the big wood on top from smothering the smaller wood as the fire burns the smaller pieces.

 

Pretty cool, huh?

 

Please don't be as stubborn as I was and give it a try once the weather cools down!!

 

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post #2 of 5
8/24/11 at 3:50pm
Thread Starter 
Well, just split a ton of wood to get ready for winter. Now to decide if I should buy a new stove?
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post #3 of 5
9/6/11 at 6:10pm

This seems like an interesting concept if you have the right kind of stove for it. I noticed in the pictures that you have a wood stove door that closes vertically to the top, which would be perfect for that top-down system. My husband and I used to have a wood stove with a door that closed horizontally to the left. When we got the kindling lit and nearly shut the door to start the air-pull process to get the fire going, the primary draw tended to be from the bottom area of the door, so the airflow essentially went straight up from the bottom making the down-up fire building really effective. Does that make sense?

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post #4 of 5
9/6/11 at 7:09pm
Thread Starter 

It's a great point, but I think this method works with any direction of air draw.... definitely worth some testing!

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post #5 of 5
9/11/11 at 11:07pm

Indeed! I'm curious if there are any others here who have wood stoves different than the kinds we have/had!

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