Ookpik Tiny Woodstoves

This article will provide valuable insights and suggestions for effectively operating your tiny wood stove. By following these tips, you can maximize heat output and burn time from your stove, all while promoting a cleaner and more efficient burn.

Seasoned wood and briquettes

It’s crucial to use only dry and seasoned firewood or fire briquettes in your wood stove. Avoid burning any other types of fuel to ensure safe and efficient operation.

Any sort of pressed log with added chemical should be avoided as they can produce so much heat if not used correctly that they can turn any wood stove bright red from over heating.

Dry and seasoned wood will provide a cleaner and more efficient burn over non-seasoned wood. Burning non seasoned wood will result in a dirty stovepipe and possible fire.

Stovepipe Thermometers 

A stovepipe thermometer is a handy tool to have  for a couple of reasons:

It will tell you if you are burning too cold which will create creosote build up in your chimney/stovepipe, or too hot which can damage parts of the tiny wood stove.

It is also an easy way of knowing what’s going on with your fire, if the temperature reads low, the primary air should be opened a bit, if it reads hot, then the primary air control should be pushed in.

Fire Bricks

Fire bricks can be added if desired.

The drawbacks of using firebricks are that in such a small stove, they take up so much room in the firebox that they almost cut the burn time in half because of the limited room for wood or briquettes.

The benefit of firebricks are they help to retain heat from the fire, and can reduce the required clearance to combustibles of your tiny wood stove. 

The drawbacks of fire bricks are the standard size 1.5” thick bricks take up so much room inside the stove, it’s hard to load up the firebox with wood for an over night burn when they are inside.

It comes down to personal preference, deciding whether you want to get longer burns out of your stove, or shorter burns while getting a bit more heat out of your fuel.

Do not burn waste paper or cardboard 

It may be easy to get rid of unwanted paper and cardboard by burning it but unless you’re using it to get a fire started it should be avoided as to not create unnecessary creosote in your stovepipe or dirty the stove’s glass window.