How to light a stove correctly. Rules for firing a Troika stove with a closed heater

For beginners in the art of bathing, any business is a wonder. Many people ask the question of how to properly heat a sauna so that it has long-lasting heat and excellent steam. Let's find out!

The stove in the bathhouse is the main ruler! The entire heating process depends on what kind of stove is built in your bathhouse.

After all, in order to heat the bathhouse, you need to heat the stove correctly, add a new portion of firewood in time, keep an eye on the coals and firebrands, and not miss that important moment when you can close the bathhouse for heat.

Stoves in baths are made of brick and metal. Each of them has its own approach, each is heated differently. The choice of firewood plays an important role, because traditionally the Russian bathhouse is heated only with wood.

The heating time of the stove, its heating, heating of the heater and water depend on good, high-quality firewood. Only high-quality firewood creates this unique bath spirit and aroma in the steam room. How the bathhouse will be heated and what the heat and bathhouse spirit will be depends on the quality and quantity of firewood!

How to properly heat a sauna with a metal stove?

Good day.
Tell us about metal sauna stoves. How to heat them correctly? In order to leave your answer to a question, you must log in or go through a quick registration procedure Register!

Heating a metal stove is fundamentally different from heating brick stoves. Brick stoves have many different types, but metal stoves have only one - direct-flow.

Before we learn how to properly heat a sauna with a metal stove, let’s figure out what the essence of direct-flow stoves is. In direct-flow furnaces, flue gases are almost directly directed into the chimney. There is a “labyrinth” inside the thermal unit and, thanks to the circulation of smoke, flue gases pass through it and exit into the chimney. And the longer this “labyrinth” is, the more significant amounts of heat will remain in the furnace, and only a small part will escape into the chimney. In direct-flow bath installations consisting of metal, smoke circulation is formed thanks to plates or other structural dividers are used.

The draft in the stove must be properly adjusted. If it is excessive, then the unit will hum, and if it is not enough, then smoke will go into the room. How to achieve optimal balance? For this purpose, there is a gate located on the pipe or a blower door. The more the gate and door are open, the more intense the thrust will be.

In addition to draft, which must deliver a sufficient amount of oxygen to the stove for efficient combustion of fuel, a supply of secondary air is also needed. It is necessary to extract maximum heat from the flue gases that are sent into the chimney. Therefore, additional air is supplied to the upper part of the stove for deep combustion of residual volatile compounds.

Why do you need the first furnace fire and what will happen if you don’t do it?

When I bought a new stove, specially selected according to the parameters for my large room, I thought that it could be directly mounted on the foundation.

However, in the stove manufacturer’s passport it was written that it must first be heated outside twice.

Why is this type of heating needed:

• In production, the metal is not processed for finishing, and scale and traces of technical oils remain on it. If you heat it right away in the bathhouse, all these odors will remain in the room for a long time.
• The stove has additional elements: an internal heater, a tank for heating water, an anti-infrared casing, a heat-resistant door with glass. All of these products may not work properly when the temperature rises; in this case, the manufacturer will simply replace the stove under warranty. If you install it, then if problems are discovered, it will be much more difficult to replace the stove, and some manufacturers may simply refuse to replace it.
• There may be internal problems with the passage of combustible gases, which can lead to the fact that the gases are discharged into the pipe in an insufficient volume and such a stove must also be replaced by the manufacturer.

How to properly heat a sauna with a metal stove. Lighting up the stove.

The first thing you need to know is that you should light the stove with finely chopped absolutely dry firewood, birch bark, and paper. It is highly not recommended to use lighter fluid when lighting. First, you need to completely open the blower door and the damper. Thanks to this, maximum traction will be generated. However, if the weather is warm, this may not be enough. Then, if smoking occurs, then before refueling the stove, it is worth burning a little paper in it, which will warm up the chimney, which will improve the draft.

After the stove flares up, close the ash door. How tightly to close it can be determined by the flame - the combustion should not be too intense, but stable. If you do not close the vent on time, the wood will burn out quickly, and most of the heat will escape with smoke through the chimney.

It is also important to consider that you cannot refuel the stove entirely, because this will negatively affect fuel combustion and significantly shorten the service life of the stove. Firewood needs to be loaded in stages - when the first batch has burned down to coals, you can load the second.

Preparing the oven

When you decide on the choice of bath fuel, it’s time to prepare the stove itself for the fire dance. Things are not so simple here. In order to light a stove quickly, you need good draft. A fire will not burn without good access to oxygen.

For this reason, it is necessary to thoroughly clean the furnace mouth and vent from combustion products - ash and coals. The grate on which the firewood is stored must be clean and its slots must not be clogged.

When the furnace is prepared, water is filled into the boiler and barrels, the furnace valve is wide open - the most exciting moment comes. You can start heating the oven!

I really love this mysterious process of making fire, when a tiny scarlet flame becomes a greedy red flower. It jumps from log to log, filling the entire mouth of the stove.

Selecting fuel for kindling

The degree of heating, the microclimate in the steam room and the consumption of firewood depend on the correct choice. Not all wood is suitable for this purpose. This applies to the following categories:

1. Old boards or logs. They give off heavy steam and smell bad.
2. Rotten raw materials - minimum heat, a lot of waste.
3. Painted logs. This is dangerous for the body.
4. Knotty firewood is characterized by uneven burning. The wood burns before the knots, and they have to be removed from the stove or chips added.
5. Young trees and their branches. They have low heat transfer.

Trees growing near the house are more often used. In steppe areas these are usually branches of bushes. Spruce, pine and birch are taken for kindling in areas where there is forest. Such firewood emits a pleasant aroma of the forest.

What kind of wood is better to burn?

The best option for kindling is dry wood with a minimum of knots. Its preparation is carried out in the middle of winter. Frozen logs are easier to split and contain little moisture. Hardwoods are used more often. A hot sauna is obtained using logs made from birch, ash, alder or when using wood from fruit varieties. Coniferous firewood is used less often - the resin contributes to the abundant formation of soot.

Each breed has its own set of characteristics:

1. Oak is a prestigious and expensive fuel. Leader in heat transfer if the wood is chosen correctly. Oak logs should be from middle-aged trees. Then the steam will be tart and healing, and the warmth will last for a long time.
2. Alder burns quickly, contains almost no resins, so there is no smoke from it. It is distinguished by ardent heat. Its healing aroma invigorates and helps cope with colds. Alder wood dries quickly and can be stored for up to 3 years, while retaining its scent. Destroys soot deposits on the heater.
3. Birch – gives a disinfecting heat with light and fragrant steam, beneficial for the respiratory tract. They burn evenly and set quickly. They do not spark, they form a high flame. When birch logs burn, tar and resin are released, which settle on the chimney. This protects the bathhouse from fire, but you have to clean the chimney more often. In terms of heat output they are in second place after oak.

Birch firewood, known for its high heat output, produces an even flame without sparks

Fruit trees are not always available, and it is not profitable to burn poplar trees. It is best to use hardwood logs. Ash, oak, and birch wood are ideal. But the first two varieties are classified as valuable, and they are more often used for furniture production, which is why they are more expensive. Birch is more accessible and practical. It produces almost no soot and produces a lot of heat. The chimney will always be clean if you add aspen firewood at the end of the firebox.

Aspen flares up very slowly and does not burn for long, but it cleans the chimney perfectly, so it is recommended to combine it with other types of logs

Is it possible to heat a sauna with fuel briquettes or pellets?

Wood pellets are inconvenient to use in a conventional oven. Grate bars with smaller slots or special baskets should be provided for them. Then, when using pellets, the material itself burns first, and then the gases released. Fuel briquettes are much more convenient.

To heat a bathhouse, they will need five times less volume than conventional firewood. But they cost several times more. The heat from briquettes is almost the same, and they burn 25% longer than pure wood. There is a third less ash left after compressed fuel.

The raw material for the production of briquettes and pellets is waste from the woodworking industry. Most often this is dust left over from plywood production. In the process of its creation, phenol and urea are used. When burned, they release substances harmful to health. The smoke from them is corrosive, and there is a lot of soot. If you don’t have firewood on hand or have nowhere to store it, then compressed fuel can be used, but it is not recommended for regular use.

Pellets or fuel granules are made from wood waste and used in pellet stoves

Is it possible to use sleepers and painted boards?

Such materials are absolutely not suitable for sauna stoves. Sleepers most often contain traces of fuel, and due to prolonged contact with the environment, the wood deteriorates and becomes saturated with moisture. The flame from such firewood will be uneven, and they emit little heat and burn out quickly.

Rotten sleepers and painted boards emit an unpleasant odor when burning, as well as toxic substances. Breathing such vapor is harmful to health.

Rules for preparing firewood for a bath

Having decided what kind of firewood to heat the bathhouse with, you should decide when is the best time to prepare firewood. The optimal time is considered to be February - March. Wood that has been well frozen during the winter months chips easily at this time. In winter it is easier to determine whether a tree is rotten or good. To do this, you need to knock on the tree trunk with the butt of an ax: if a ringing sound is heard, then the wood is good, if the sound is dull, then the tree is rotten inside.

You should pay attention to the number of knots. If there is a large number of them, it will take a lot of time to dry the wood, moreover, such firewood will burn unevenly, since places with knots burn longer than clean wood

It is impossible to find a tree completely without knots, but you should not use complete culling.

If you have a chainsaw, then it will be more profitable to buy whole logs and cut them yourself than to purchase already chopped firewood. But if such a tool is not available and there is no desire to manually chop wood, then they can be purchased ready-to-use.

When purchasing firewood, you should monitor the following points:

• Wood moisture content. Standards set the humidity level within 20-25%. When the humidity is below 20%, the wood will burn even better.
• Uniformity. When receiving delivery, you need to make sure that only the firewood that was ordered was delivered, and not a mixture of different species.

How to light a stove in a bathhouse

It all starts with the preparatory stage. He is the most labor intensive of all. Before starting work, it is advisable to find out how to heat a bathhouse if you have no experience in this matter. Firewood is prepared in advance. Dry logs are carefully placed in an accessible area, but not too close to the fuel door, so as not to provoke their spontaneous combustion.

Preparing the sauna stove

It needs to be put in order - open the stove, clean the ashpit, remove all the ash and coals from the combustion chamber. This waste does not need to be thrown away - it makes good fertilizer.

If the stove structure is equipped with a water tank, you should make sure that water is present there. Then the draft in the chimney is checked. All doors and dampers open. Next, a match or splinter is lit and placed in the combustion chamber. If the flame flutters and moves upward, then the draft is fine.

In its absence, it is dangerous to start kindling. All the smoke will go into the room, and then you can suffer from carbon monoxide.

Light the stove and add wood

First, the seed is made. Tree bark or crumpled newspaper is placed on the grates in the stove opening. Wood chips and finely chopped logs are placed on top. Gaps must be left between them so as not to interfere with the free circulation of air. Do not use gasoline for ignition. This is fraught with the risk of a fire, and the released steam will lose its healing properties due to the presence of chemicals in it.

First of all, wood bark or paper is placed in the oven, and only wood chips are placed on top

The order of kindling is as follows:

1. We ignite the seed from below. We close the firebox door so that no smoke comes into the dressing room and the flame flares up well.
2. If a steady sound comes from there, there is combustion. If it is absent, the procedure is repeated again.
3. You need to close the ashpit and open the valve.
4. Firewood is added at intervals of 5-15 minutes. It all depends on the degree of dryness and heating of the stove.
5. After the first batch has burned out, the firebox door is opened, the coals are leveled with a poker and logs are laid.
6. Firewood must be placed so that the distance between it and the top of the firebox is at least 25 cm. Fuel is placed closer to the door, away from the chimney.
7. During the combustion process, you need to monitor the water level in the boiler and add it as needed.

To heat the sauna faster, it is not advisable to water the heater during the heating process. It is better to wait until the bath procedures begin.

How much to heat?

Certain factors indicate the readiness of the bath:

• The temperature in the steam room is not lower than 60 C⁰;
• In the boiler, the water reaches its boiling point;
• The last portion of firewood burned down to red coals;
• The stones were well heated.

For the convenience of determining the temperature in the steam room, it is recommended to use special bath thermometers

In winter, this takes 5-6 hours, and in the warm season, 3-4 hours is enough. As soon as the required temperature is established in the bath, the firebox can be finished. If there are no blue flames above the coals, which is considered a sign of the presence of carbon monoxide, the vent, firebox and smoke damper are completely closed.

Preparatory stage

So, how to properly heat a stove in a bathhouse? First, the steam room must be in perfect order. All items that are not used during the steaming process should be removed from the sauna, all debris should be removed and the floor should be thoroughly washed. The shelves must be washed with an antiseptic using a brush. It is also necessary to wash the walls and ceilings of the premises. Then you should open all the windows and doors and let the room ventilate.

After cleaning, you can start heating the stove. All furnaces have their own characteristic features, so the heating will also have its own characteristics. But there are basic points that are the same for all types of stoves. Failure to follow the rules of kindling can lead to tragic consequences, such as fumes, heat stroke, and fire. Let's look at how to properly heat a stove in a bathhouse with wood.

This process consists of the following steps:

1. Preparation.
2. Kindling.
3. Loading firewood.
4. Completion of the heating of the bath.

Next, we will consider step by step how to properly heat a sauna with an iron stove.

After opening the firebox door, you need to assess the condition of the firewood and firebrands.

If the following symptoms occur, it is necessary to fully open the valves and close the blower half-door tightly:

• the firewood is burnt out;
• gray ash formed;
• the coals turned red;
• no flame;
• the stones turned red;
• water boils in the boiler;
• in the steam room the temperature rose to 60 – 90°C.

Next, windows and doors open. If soot forms on the stones during heating, it must be washed off with water. Then carefully and quickly water all surfaces of the steam room. After this procedure it will not become colder.

The first step is to take care of the cleanliness inside the bathhouse and in the oven. The bathhouse should be cleaned after each use. Residues of leaves, sweat and soap should be swept and washed off the shelves. If it is not known whether the bathhouse was cleaned after use or not, you should play it safe and carry out cleaning procedures.

It's also worth checking the stove. Soot and wood combustion residues can clog the air passages, leading to reduced draft. Carbon smoke can enter the room, and steaming will become uncomfortable and dangerous.

If you neglect cleaning, the bathhouse will become dirty and uncomfortable. High humidity increases the risk of mold and mildew. This can negatively affect not only the condition of the premises, but also the health of the person who is in it.

Bathhouse with brick stove

The sauna stove, made of red brick, heats up quickly and does not cool down for a long time. Due to this, a high temperature is maintained in the steam room even after the end of the fire, if the chimney was closed in time. The algorithm for kindling and adding firewood remains unchanged, the only difference is that firewood can be placed in a large volume in a brick stove.

A few large stacks of logs are enough to bring the room to operating temperature. Therefore, when lighting a brick stove, it is better to use wood with good heat transfer - oak, birch or ash. They are laid so that there are small gaps for air between them. If you do this closely, the flame may go out. After 1-2 hours you can go to the steam room.

Bathhouse with a metal stove

In order for the firebox to be effective, the operating features of the iron stove should be taken into account:

1. It heats up quickly. After 15-20 minutes from the moment of kindling, the optimal combustion mode is achieved.
2. It is better to lay out the seed for the stove in the shape of a well, leaving a palm-width of free space between the kindling materials. The structure must be stable and located near the door. Crumpled paper is placed between the logs.
3. Storing firewood should be frequent, but in small batches.
4. If the stove overheats, it will need time to cool down, which is equal to the interval between the formation of coals from the previous load and the ignition of a new portion of wood.
5. Do not touch the door with wood; its heat can cause it to catch fire, and this will cause a burn.
6. Fuel consumption will be greater than for a brick stove.

If you are not completely sure that there are no carbon monoxide gases, it is better to leave the pipe valve slightly open.

If there is good draft and to save wood, the chimney damper can be closed halfway an hour after the start of the fire. But then you will have to carefully ensure that smoke and carbon monoxide do not get into the dressing room.

Anyone can learn how to properly heat a sauna stove if they take into account all the recommendations. The main thing is that the firewood gives off heat well and warms up the room. This effect is achieved due to slow burning. If the wood is fresh, you can enjoy the fragrant steam, and the time spent in the steam room will benefit the body.

Sauna stoves - installation and operating instructions

It is prohibited to use any flammable liquids to ignite the stove. There are times when the firewood is slightly damp. And since you won’t be able to quickly light a bathhouse with such firewood, you can use a dry alcohol tablet, which should be used according to the attached instructions.

After the paper has ignited, you can close the firebox door. At first the combustion process will not be very active. This occurs due to air pockets formed in the chimney. As a rule, after a few minutes this problem is eliminated and cravings return to normal.

With the firebox door closed, you should listen to the sounds coming from the stove. If after a few minutes a characteristic hum is heard, then the firewood has flared up. Otherwise, the kindling will have to be done again.

It is necessary to open the sub-door. It should not be completely closed, otherwise the flame will go out because air will not flow.

To ensure the correct temperature and humidity conditions, the water heating furnace is placed in such a way that all rooms are heated at the same time. Knowing how to heat a stove in a bathhouse, what its arrangement is, you can easily create the desired microclimate in the room.

A classic oven is built according to certain rules.

• In the lower part there is a door and a vent, from here air is supplied to the area where the fuel burns.
• The grate is a massive steel or cast iron grate on which firewood is stacked.
• The ash zone, or combustion chamber, is the main unit of the furnace, where complete combustion of fuel and heat generation occurs.
• On top there is a steam heater and a steel or stainless steel water tank.
• Removal of combustion products from the ash zone occurs through a chimney. To regulate draft, dampers are installed in it.

The operating principles of a sauna stove are quite simple, but not everyone can immediately achieve stable combustion. Fuel leaks often occur. How to heat a sauna correctly, what fuel to use? True connoisseurs of such procedures under no circumstances use flammable liquids for ignition.

How to properly heat a metal stove in a bathhouse

The most correct way to fire a metal sauna stove is to add small and frequent firewood. Otherwise, you will have a local overheating of the sauna stove, and then its cooling, which will last until the next fire starts.

At the same time, you can immediately put a large load of firewood into a brick oven and leave it to heat up. Literally two large stacks of firewood in a brick sauna stove can heat a steam room to operating temperature at which you can already steam.

Shall we flood the bathhouse?

Bath procedures represent a whole ritual for which you need to carefully prepare. Every steam fan should know how to properly heat a sauna. To do this, you will have to understand some of the intricacies of this art.

Before carrying out the procedures, of course, it is necessary to heat the room well. Modern people use various equipment: electric or gas boilers. But real lovers only value wood heating. After all, it is the smell of firewood that gives that unusual atmosphere, the bathhouse spirit. How to heat a Russian bathhouse? This is an entire art that can be mastered with some effort. Well, practice will help you quickly master all the tricks.

The difference between a metal and brick stove in a bathhouse

A metal stove warms up very quickly during combustion and can reach operating combustion mode within 15-20 minutes from the start of combustion. This allows you to heat the room as efficiently and quickly as possible. But this also brings with it some inconveniences.

For example, the consumption of firewood for long-term heating will be greater in a metal stove than in a brick stove. Let the brick oven warm up much longer and reach the operating combustion mode. But after the brick stove has warmed up, it can maintain a very stable temperature not only in the firebox, but also in the chimney.

How to level out these differences and add the positive aspects of a brick stove to the advantages of a metal stove? The simplest option is to use a brick shield with a metal stove, as well as install a brick chimney with a sleeve for a metal sauna stove.

In this case, more firewood can be added and the burning time will be extended. The process of heating the steam room in the bath will take a little longer, but the heating will be more uniform. Not only will the area of ​​the room next to the stove warm up, but the farthest corners will immediately warm up as well.

Temperature maintenance

Loading firewood into the stove should be repeated several times. Also, special attention should be paid to the temperature in the oven. The firewood should not completely burn out before the next stacking, otherwise the stove will begin to cool down and the whole process will have to be repeated again.

In summer, it takes approximately 3 hours to kindle, in winter up to 2 times more - 5, 6 hours, no less.

The tips given above will help with the issue of how to properly heat a bathhouse. And the effect of visiting a properly heated bathhouse is an emotional and physical charge for the body.

Covering the stove in the bathhouse with bricks

To increase the time of heat transfer from a metal stove, you can line such a stove with bricks. It is not necessary to completely wall up a metal stove, turning it into a kind of firebox. It will be enough to cover it with bricks on two or three sides, leaving holes for free convection of air flows.

Also, as mentioned above, you can use a brick shield in conjunction with a cast iron or steel sauna stove, through which flue gases will pass before entering the chimney.

The brick stove in the bathhouse produces softer and more stable heat. With the help of a brick shield and brick walls, you can get heat of comparable “quality” from a steel stove.

If you add a concrete base at least 15-20 centimeters thick to the base of the stove, you will get an additional battery, which will first be saturated with heat from the steel stove, and then release it into the steam room.

What wood is best to use for heating a sauna?

Birch is very good, it has high heat transfer, flares up quickly and burns for a long time. You can use oak, aspen, alder, apple, maple.

In terms of heat transfer, beech, oak and hornbeam are in first place. In second place is birch; due to its tar content, it burns superbly. In order for the birch to burn without soot, it is necessary to provide good air access to the oven. Otherwise, the soot will settle on the walls of the chimney, which can then lead to a fire.

In third place in terms of heat transfer are fruit trees, maple, alder and aspen. By the way, aspen is useful for burning out soot in the chimney. Its firewood can be used at the beginning of kindling.

Do not burn with coniferous wood. They secrete resin and make loud noises. Sparks may fly, creating a fire risk. The combustion process is quite slow. Such wood smokes heavily and emits carbon monoxide. Soot pollutes the chimney, which is then difficult to clean.

The wood must be dry or have no more than 30% humidity. It is difficult to heat with raw wood, it is not economical, and the bathhouse will not warm up very quickly. In addition, a lot of condensate is released, which settles in the chimney. The oven will smoke heavily.

Thin and medium logs should be used, no more than 8 cm in diameter.

You can use oak wood to fire the stove in the bathhouse.

Under no circumstances should you heat a bathhouse with old painted boards, rotten wood, or wood that has undergone any treatment. Moreover, you cannot throw garbage or any waste into the firebox.

It is also prohibited to use lighter fluids, either store-bought or gasoline with kerosene.