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[intensedrive]

Can anyone explain or show pictures on how to stack wood in a conventional boiler for maximum burn times?  I usually just throw what ever fits into the firebox.  I normally run across a bridge burn at least 10 times a season where the wood is scattered in the box but barley touched by fire, everything is ashes and I have large chunks of wood not touched.  Is there a methodical way to stay wood to increase burn time?

[mlappin]

I imagine every stove has it’s own personality but on my old natural draft homebuilt I’d roll one large piece in far enough so I could stack the smaller stuff in front of it close as possible to the door. Small stuff on bottom and the middle, large pieces on top and the sides so as the small pieces burned up the larger ones would fall towards the middle. I only had problems with bridging if I was trying to burn wet or green wood. I imagine a forced draft conventional is a totally different natured beast.

[coolidge]

Try loading it differently, north south and then try east west. I tried that years ago in my Optimizer and I think the east west had a bit longer burn time, but that was years ago and I may not be remembering correctly.

[tinfoilhat2020]

my old conventional natural draft i pulled coal bed to the front and stacked wood in a tight pile from the back of the coal bed to about 2 inches from the front of the door...smaller splits on the bottom and bigger rounds or splits on top. that seemed to work best.
With my heatmor that is forced draft with front and back blowers i stack 5-8 splits in the back and 5-8 splits in the front(depedning on weather. Seems to work great.

[dodges]

 I'm with ya Intensedrive!  First year heating with NCB-175 so I have the round firebox with grates and air under the middle.  I'm having the same issue.  The stuff on the outside is not burning.  Wasn't an issue before with it being so warm and I only had to load a couple pieces but now that its got cold finally I'm needing to load more.  I am burning a bunch of junk wood that I wouldn't drag in the house before but still!  What I'm trying now is loading my split stuff on first with split side down on the coals then loading my rounds.  I stack it in a pyramid shape since nothing on the far outside is burning anyway.  It seems to be working a lot better but I definately haven't perfected it yet. 

[BigAlsc]

What I do in my ncb 175 is to throw a large round on the coals that I raked to the middle then add to the outside stacking triangle shaped to the top middle. I have an '08', so have to make sure grates are all the way back and a piece of angle to fill gap in front. Clean air gaps with a rake, stir coals and repeat.

[yotehunter66]

I just chuck it in and build like a pyrimid with it. More towards the front of the stove.

[DaveWertz]

I've been playing with this for yrs. I get truck loads of untreated rail road ties. I have a big problem with bridging of the wood when loaded. I found it better for me to first line the bottom N to S then the following row E to W or vise versa. Lately I have tried standing them upright with great success in burn times and recovery times. Hopefully this is my last yr dealing with wood LOL.