# Maximizing your Heating Capacity: # Wood Stove Tips It’s getting to be that time of year again when we’re trying to keep the house warm. Follow these tips to maximize the heating capacity of your wood stove. –Wood burning stoves are built and optimized to burn firewood. Other types of combustibles can create significant challenges with respect to controlling the combustion process, which can result at best in higher emissions, and at worst in a chimney fire. –Different types of firewood have different properties. Hardwood, like birch, have a higher density than softer (more porous) varieties like spruce. The energy density of hard firewood is correspondingly higher. It follows that the volume of wood used has to be reduced. Bark has a different composition than the wood it protects and gives higher emissions of certain compounds. Try to avoid inserting many thin logs with lots of bark at the same time in the stove. –When loading your wood stove, pile the logs horizontally in two layers so they aren’t touching the sides or door. Place largest logs on bottom, medium next, then smallest (kindling or firestarters) on top. Avoid using paper to start your fire. Light your fire from the top. This ensures reaching optimal temperatures quickly and will spread the flames to larger combustibles below. It takes considerably longer for your fire to reach the temperatures required for clean combustion if you light it from below, and the emissions will be higher.