- Allow the fireplace to burn fast and develop a bed of coals. This typically takes around 45-60 minutes after starting your fire.
- Once some of the fuel (dry, seasoned wood) has broken down into red hot coals you can start to slowly adjust your combustion air and flue damper controls over the next 1-2 hours.
- Your controls should not be closed more than 50% until after the second hour of burning. You want to ensure you have a large bed of coals before turning your controls down that far.
- Closing the flue damper (right-hand side control) will slow your burn rate and cause more heat retention.
- Closing the air intake (left-hand side control) will slow the burn rate of the fire, make it less intense, and causes the wood to burn longer.
