First Fires; Building A Fire; Maintaining The Fire - Osburn STRATFORD Installation Instructions Manual

2.2.3 First Fires

The fresh paint on your fireplace needs to be cured to preserve its quality. Once the fuel load is
properly ignited, only burn small fires in your fireplace for the first four hours of operation.
Never open the air control more than necessary to achieve a medium burn rate. Make sure that
there is enough air circulation while curing the stove. Open one or more windows. The odours
can be smelled during the 3 or 4 first fires.

2.2.4 Building a Fire

To start a fire, place several crumpled up balls of newspaper in the firebox behind the andiron.
Place small dry pieces of kindling on top of the paper, criss-crossing the kindling so that there are
air spaces in between. Keep the fuel far back enough so that air can get underneath. Open the air
controls fully and light the newspaper. Once the newspaper and the kindling is well ignited, close
the door. Once the kindling fire is well established, cordwood can be added. (See Primary Air
Combustion Control section for proper operation of the air controls.). Make sure that cordwood is
always behind the andiron.
The unit will burn best with 2-3 pieces of cordwood spaced 1 to 2 inches apart and allowing air to
get under the fuel. Criss-crossing or arranging the fuel so that air can get underneath, will help the
fire to get started easily. The unit should be operated with the air control fully open long enough
to get the cordwood well ignited
CAUTION: PLACE THE WOOD LOGS FAR ENOUGH FROM THE GLASS TO
ALLOW PROPER PRIMARY AIR FLOW

2.2.5 Maintaining the Fire

Once the wood has been consumed (or partially consumed) and you have obtained a good bed of
embers, you should reload the unit. In order to do so, open the air control to its maximum for
approximately 15 seconds prior to opening the fireplace door. Then, proceed by opening the door
very slowly. Open it by 2" to 4" (52 to 104 mm) for 10 seconds before opening it completely.
This procedure will increase the draft and thus eliminate the smoke which is stagnant in a state of
slow combustion in the fireplace. Then, bring the red embers to the front of the stove and reload
the unit.
Your OSBURN STRATFORD fireplace will work best if a thick bed of hot embers is maintained
in the bottom of the firebox, and a minimum of two large pieces of seasoned fuel are added.
Combustion efficiency is largely related to establishing a hot ember bed, and hot firebox
temperatures.
temperatures, the better. A small intense fire is preferred to a large smouldering fire, both to
improve combustion efficiency and to reduce the amount of creosote build-up.
performance will be obtained by adding relatively small amounts of fuel to a well established
ember bed, and then operating with the air inlet control open long enough to achieve a hot fire.
Use a poker to make an air channel in the embers below the wood. This will allow air to flow
The quicker the fireplace and chimney (flue) get up to normal operating
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The best