I’m offering up the method I often use to start a fire in the empty firebox of my Vigilant II model 2310. I have used non match light charcoal when I have leftover unburnt charcoal from a BBQ meat smoking session. More often than not I use hardwood firewood split up into narrow pieces. No wax or petro chemical starters are used, just paper products and a match or two and it’s zero to full fire with one hod in 40 minutes.Top off with the second hod once the stove temperature settles in. For what it’s worth here are the steps that gets me there.
Start with tightly crumpled individual sheets of newspaper. A friend told me about using the pulp paper drink carriers which burn hot longer than just paper. For a Vigilant use two 4 cup carriers. Stuff a sheet in each of the holes in the 1st carrier and two of the 2nd carrier. Nest #1 into the two open holes of #2, and it will cover most of the Vigilant’s grates. Placing the newspaper on the grates makes for easy lighting from underneath. Center the pulp paper starter over the grates and seal off the perimeter with coal. No need to get fancy. Place the split hardwood over the pulp paper starter.
If the chimney draft is sluggish when cold, warm it with a pied of newspaper bundled into a V. Light the ends of the V and direct the lighted paper to the bottom of the chimney/pipe. Light the paper from underneath and between the grates. Lighting one is enough but lighting 2 or 3 makes it a little faster. Once the wood starts to burn, I’ll add 3-4 more pieces of wood.
While the wood fire starts, I leave the ash pan drawer cracked open ~ ½” and the double front doors open. I have the Vigilant screen in case the wood pops or ejects stuff from the fire. The thermostatic air control is stet straight up and down (at 12 o’clock). I don’t move it from this position as its design is to control combustion air in response to stove temperature. With my system, set at 12 o’clock yields stove top temperatures ranging from 450-700F depending on damping and room heating demands. Your system might need a slightly different setting.
Good dry hardwood usually minimizes the pops. For this example, I used Black Locust wood that usually pops – why I use the screen in the beginning. Believe it or not didn’t get any pops. Once the wood fire starts to roar, regulate the fire by closing/opening the doors to control the amount of combustion and over fire air. At this point, I don’t fully close the double doors. Not closing them minimizes soot formation on the glass.
When the wood is burning strong the ash pan door can be closed. I’ll push the burning wood and wood coals down onto the grates. Around 10 minutes after lighting the paper, the first 2 shovels of coal (I use pea here) are spread over the wood fire leaving room for the wood to show through. The double doors and the ash pan door are opened and closed as needed to keep the fire going strong.
Add coal by the shovel full over the next 20 minutes until the first hod is empty. The fire should be well established in that time. Close the stove doors and damper to allow the thermostatic control to begin to regulate. The flap won’t close by itself until the internal damper is engaged, the exhaust needs to travel through the back of the stove to better heat the bimetallic coil that controls the flap. I leave the thermostatic air lever set at 12 o'clock. My stove top temperature hit just over 700F before when the thermostatic air flap closed to ~1/4”. It might fully close like it did in this example where the stovetop temperature dropped to ~400F. It later rebounded when the stove cooled and then warmed back to 700F cruising temperature. The last picture (+32 minutes) is after nearly a full hod was added.The blue flames never disappeared. The air flap was open about ¼”.
Hope someone will find this useful. I would add a video but mp4 format isn't allowed ... yet