Fire Building 101, help this dummy!?

Question

What is the best method for building a roaring, lasting fire in a freestanding, wood burning stove? Ours seems to die quite quickly, and leaves large hulks of unburned wood smoldering for hours, preventing adding fresh wood. The chimney and flue have been cleaned, so ventilation should not be the issue. There is a damper lever on the front of the unit, but do I leave it wide open? Or partly closed? Any and all help or advice is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Wood burning stoves are not really meant for roaring fires.
what you need to do for a roaring fire is to open the damper all the way after lighting, you might even crack open the door to draw in more oxygen.
After fire is going well shut the damper close the door and the fire should burn slow and your wood will last longer and burn down completely

Answer 2

BugBear probably has at least part of it right.
The wood may be damp.
Another problem might be that wide open damper.
The stove will burn wood better and more completely
if you throttle the air a little bit so that high temperature
in the stove bakes the wood for a slower, longer lasting,
more complete burn.
Start the fire with the damper full open. Then slowly
close it, bit by bit, until the burning rate just slows.
This eliminates extra air flow which cools the stove too much.
Don't close the damper too far as this will give incomplete
burning and tar up your flue.
You want a steady slow bright flame.

Answer 3

For a fire you need 3 things: Heat, Oxygen, and Fuel. If any of these 3 things runs out, your fire will not work.

For heat, you need a simple match, or whatever you plan on lighting your fire with.
Oxygen: make sure there is a lot of open ventilation and a large steady supply of oxygen, anything you can open or leave open is a good idea.
Fuel, your wood.

Set your wood in a pyramid shape, like a teepee. Place your kindling or whatever you use to start your fire in the middle, underneath all of your large, long burning pieces.
(firestarters are good for this, you can usually pick up some of them for cheap at the store, or if you have any newspaper , crumple it up and make a large ball of it underneath).

Answer 4

Sounds like your wood is not "cured". Green wood has a tendency to burn that way. It burns away the outside and then the "green" part just sets and smoulders.