Bussana Vecchia di Sanremo

Living on a hilltop makes collection of proper firewood challenging. Villagers who live here all winter order their firewood from a local supplier who brings it up to the house. For those of us who only stay here for several weeks, finding firewood can be entertaining. This type of firewood warms you up three times: when you collect it, when you chop it, and when you burn it.
The good news is that the sea deposits large piles of wood on the beach in winter. Most of this wood is fairly dry despite the fact that it comes from the sea: these are trees and branches that found their way down the rivers and were deposited on the beach by the tide. One or two hours of wood collection on the Bussana beach should provide you with enough wood to last a week.
There's a dangerous looking tree saw high up in the storage closet as well as a small axe. There should also be a large log on the terrace that can be used to chop/split wood. Don't do his on the tiles in the house or on the terrace and make sure that any kids cannot reach the saw or axe!

Although collecting firewood is a fun activity we often do not bother and buy the pressed woodbricks at the local supermarkets. These are called Tronchetti di Legno and often have a an ECO sign. They cost about 4 euro for 10 kilo and last two days. The advantage of these tronchetti over regular firewood is that they easily burn, have much higher heat output and leave no ashes.

The Brabus stove has 80% efficiency and should, if properly maintained, generate up to 7 kW of power. During winter we only use the two bedrooms downstairs. The studio bedroom has no heating but can be heated if needed using the Zibro Wick odorless paraffin burner (which has 99% efficiency).
The master bedroom and kids room are heated by the wood-burning stove (and use of the kitchen). We maintain proper temperature in the living room by closing the curtain with the kids room.
The Brabus burns 5 to 10 kg dry wood per day during winter.
Before you start a fire in the stove please make sure it is clean. You can remove ashes with the metal shovel. The round fireplate can be removed for better cleaning. Make sure you reinsert the pulling pen in the bottom of the fireplace after you reinsert it. The round fireplate has holes to let in air from underneath. This grating is typically nearly closed when you burn wood, and open when you burn coal or during ignition/start-up phase.

At the start of the fire, there needs to be ample oxygen from below to boost the fire. You can support this by completely opening the round airvent below by pulling thehandle above the ash drawer and by opening the ash drawer a little, as depicted here.

Once the stove is hot (20-30 minutes) you can slowly close the ash drawer and push the lever of the fireplate grate in short intervals inwards to about 80% close.

You maintain the fire by opening the round airvent when you add more firewood or close it to temper the fire so it will generate heat while burning less wood.

It is wise to keep the small window in the living room a tiny bit open to allow for fresh air into the room.

The round airvent above the doors is to mix the hot air from the fire with colder outside air before it passes into the chimney. This creates draught at the inside-front of the chimney that reduces smoke deposit on the windows.

The copper knobs above the windows serve the same purpose: they reduce stains on the windows from the smoke (if moved to the left).

The windows of the stove are treated to withstand the high temperatures. Before starting the fire in the stove you can clean them with an old newspaper that you dip into a little water and next in the ashtray. The ash is slightly abrasive which makes it easy to keep the windows clean. Please support a window with one hand on the outside of the stove while the inside is cleaned. Don't use any detergents because they are useless against smoke stains.

Light the fire by placing two white firestarter cubes on the fireplate. Build small kindle wood around this in the form of a rectangular stack so that it gets maximum heat from firestarters (and old newspaper if you have it). Place one or two eco-friendly burning logs on top.
Combined with air from underneath (open drawer, open grating and open airvent) this should result in a sizeable fire in less than 5 minutes.
Keep the doors of the stove closed to avoid unwanted draughts that create a smoke curtain in the living room.
If you need to open a door, usually the right, to add more kindle or firewood do it slowly.
The firestarters will boost the fire for about 15 minutes. By that time the eco-friendly logs should be in flames as well. Best is to add logs quickly to heat up the fireplace. This gives higher efficiency.
Shutting down the fire is done by letting the existing wood in the stove burn away. By adding some air from underneath the fire by opening the airvent and/or drawer you will make sure all wood burns properly without leaving deposits in the stove or the chimney.

If the heater hasn't been used for a while it is stored with a yellow cap underneath the paraffin tank to avoid leakage. You need to remove this yellow cap otherwise the paraffin in the tank cannot reach the wick element.
After removal of the cap you can insert the white plastic cilinder (left side of picture on the left) in the bottom of the tank area. This white cilinder presses the valve in the bottom of the tank so that the paraffin can fill the combustion area.
Please keep this cap, and any other parts of the heater that are not used, such as the funnel, in the brown cardboard box. You can fill the tank using the small funnel that should be located with the heater.

After placing the filled tank with paraffin in the heater you can light it. The version in the house has electric ignition, provided the batteries (in the back) are still operational. Given the very few times that the heater is needed there will be a big chance the batteries are empty. In that case you need to light the wick with a match. For this, you need to open the grate on the front side of the heater by pressing its right side towards the left. This will unhook the two small pins of the grate from the housing of the heater.

After removing the grate, carefully lift the metal/glass burning tower from the heater. You can now access the wick.

On the front of the heater you see a large brown turning knob and a red and a white button. The knob is to open the flow of paraffin from the tank to the combustion chamber, and to raise the wick to adjust the heat.
When the batteries are operational, you can press the white button to ignite the heater. Without the batteries you'll need a match or lighter.
The red button is to switch off the heater. When you press the red button the paraffin access is closed and the wick is lowered into the heater. This means the heater will stop after some seconds.

To light the heater you need to rotate the big brown knob clockwise to its maximum. This enables the paraffin to enter the wick area. You can hear it making a bubbly sound when you turn the knob.
If you continue to turn the knob clockwise you will see the wick being lifted in the burning chamber.

Take a long match to light the wick. Place the metal/glass combustion tower over the wick immediately after you have lighted it. Otherwise the fire will damage the wick.

The combustion tower is placed with its metal knob on the bottom and towards the front. Please move this metal knob to rotate the tower somewhat to the left and right side. It should rotate freely.

If it does not rotate freely either the heater is not placed horizontal or the combustion chamber is not properly placed over the wick. please adjust if needed.