Roospike, what causes dirty glass is water from the logs coming out the ends before they burn. The water collects on your glass, and while it sits there collects smoke and dirt particles. Afterwhich the fire warms up, the water evaporates and the crap it collected burns on your glass. Burning extremely hot fires can burn it off your glass, I’ve found I can only get the center of my glass hot enough.
I think Frank Ivy isn’t having much trouble with his glass because it sounds like his wood is seasoned, dry and split. You’re burning actual unsplit logs. Bark on trees is nearly waterproof, some species are waterproof. These unsplit logs you’re putting in your stove have got to be simply loaded with water. What happens when burning wet wood is, the water has to evaporate first and all the heat from your stove is used to evaporate it instead of heat your house. It cools your stove down negatively affecting your secondary burn and fire efficiency, and building up creosote. Read this article, http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/fuelproc.htm I’m having issues with dry wood this year, I think this one of the top 3 worst wood drying years of my life and my wood has been seasoned over a year (split last year) and I stacked it to dry back on July 1st and covered the tops with plastic (but not the sides). Last night goes on record as being the worst fire in my life. I completely packed my insert with 6 log splits, it took me 2 hours to get the wood burning at which was one tiny little flame which never got bigger, my secondary burn never kicked in, and my fans kicked in for only a half hour and shut off and this morning was so cold I thought the fire hadn’t started. I brought some logs in this morning and they weighed a ton, at lunch time they’re going back on my pile to dry more.
