“John Davidson asked about one of these with low heat a few days ago, a large Dutchwest w/ double wall connector (not related I’m quite sure). Strangely, these comments are the other end of the spectrum.
Low heat output or lack of efficiency could be several things. Check the tightness of the fireback bolts and push the shoe all the way in so that its rear edge seals with the soft refractory behind. Leaks behind the shoe or if the shoe gasket is missing would slow down or even extinguish a fire, depending on where the leak was or which portion of the shoe gasket was missing. A good coalbed is needed. Hot coals should be piled around the shoe and loose ash removed (stir at every reload). The outside air kit would not be expected to result in much more heat from the stove (just less cold air infiltration to the house) and a fan would help distribute heat better.
If there is not enough heat coming out, is that on the highest setting? Hopefully, there is a realization that at the lowest setting you get low heat output. If he’s at the highest setting and the output is still low, the loose shoe is the likely culprit.
Unless there is a compelling clearance issue requiring double wall connector, single wall could be used to get more heat from the pipe as well.”
Mike from Athens, once again sorry for your dillema concerning your stove. I guess maybe the Everburn, as far as the results indicate from this board, was really ready for rollout. It happens with many things that look good on paper, in theory, limited variable testing. I have burned the Heritage for 4 yrs and have been generally satisfied. Over the yrs, based upon my own observations and tidbits gathered from this board, here is my advice concerning the Heritage.
1) Heritage is made for continous burning. If your lifestyle allows for it, burn it 24/7. Meaning that after loading and dampering dwn b4 going to work. One should realistically expect that it would needed to be reloaded 6 to 8hrs later.
2) At cold start-up, kindling and 1st few splits should be really dry. Even with well-seasoned wood, it can take some time to get up to good operating temps, therefore the hot fire comes in real handy and will afford you a better, longer burn. Not so well seasoned wood can be burnt, but not b4 the stove has been cruising at operating temps for at least 3 hrs. it is amazing how not so well seasoned wood can kill a fire. This had lead me to actually have 3 piles: start-up wood, well-seasoned, not so well seasoned.
3) During early fall and late spring, proper draft is imperative, unless you like smoke spilling out of the back of your stove.
4) Now don’t ask me why, but the Heritage burns hot and long with north-south fires. Like I said, I don’t know why, and after reading this board I was still very skeptical on north-south burns being better. But this supplier around me was selling “chunk” for 100/cord. Let me tell you that the hottest, longest burn I have ever gotten was with burning this chunk. This nice thick (avg 7 inches in dia.) and 10” long chunk in a north/south burn is phenomenal (sic).
5) Lastly, do not damper all the way down. With the heritage, unless you have some air coming from the doghouse, there can be alot of charcoal at times.
I should say that these have been based on my observations and are the only ones that come to mind. I am sure that other heritage burners would like to add their input
I thought the seal between my flue pipe/collar was in OK shape, even though it is only screwed down (per the instruction manual). However yesterday I was getting ready for another long burn, loaded up the box w/ fresh splits, turned the air up, opened the bypass, and let it go for about 10 minutes. The fire was really roaring, strong draft was evident. I closed the bypass which always forces that large pressure blast through the reburner and causes the largest rumble momentarily. I didnt see any smoke, but I did see a spark shoot out towards the wall. So there must be a small leak, even tho I cannot seem to see/hear it.
I cannot move the stove at all, so I wont be able to reseat the flue pipe into the collar. Will simply applying some gasket cement around the connection point be sufficient?
I ended putting gasket cement on mine, the way you are talking about. Seemed to help quell the thermonuclear meltdown events I was having. You might have trouble getting a good bead with the horizontal exit, though. I was able to get the glue to run into the crack. It got nice and fluffy and sealed it up nice. Try to use black instead of the clear stuff, though. Mine looked pretty crappy because the clear turned into white on my black flue collar and stove pipe.
Oh yeah…..,the thing is just plain sensitive….. its dang cold here, the stack is warm, I can hear a faint rumble, and the smoke is clean (what little there is), life is good.
Most times, the everburn only works when the flue magnetic reads 500+. On rare occasions it has worked as low as 420 (my stove is a stoner? who knew), but that worked maybe twice in 2 seasons at most. Tonight the flue magnetic reads 350 and it’s burning well w/ the primary air inlet set to half, and I can raise/lower the temp w/ the inlet and the stove is still burning properly. In all other prior fires, the air inlet is either set to max to try and get the everburn to work at all, the other times its completely closed to prevent it from burning the house down. Tonight is the behavior I’m used to with the stoves I’ve used to in the past.
I loaded the splits in the same orientation. I took wood from the same pile that is the same age/batch as the last dozen fires. There is a reasonable coal bed but not a massive one like is normally required. I let the fresh splits, loaded about 3 hours ago, to catch for the same amount of time/magnitude as previous fires. The garage (where the chimney runs) is actually colder than normal since I’ve been in & out w/ the snowblower several times today. (that no’earster eventually hit, about 8” of snow)
If anyone is interested, I will provide a back to back comparison of heat output, burn times, ease of operation, and emissions between the Hearthstone and Dutchwest non-cat.
Just wanted to mention that I am interested in your comparison although since you were unable to get good results out of the Dutchwest your comparison is going to be pretty slanted. For what its worth, it took me weeks to figure out how to properly run this stove. Hope you are satisfied with the new stove.
Also, unrelated, but I linked to it in another thread and feel I should put a link in this official Dutchwest discussion and review thread - this is my video demonstration of everburn (its a huge file, you should right click the link and “save target as” to download it, then play it).
EverburnDemo.avi
This also shows the characteristics of the burn - you can see how the fire looks with the damper open, and how it looks about 20 seconds after closing the bypass to activate the everburn secondary combustion. What I should have added is what it looked like 15-20 minutes later with the primary air completely cut off. The flue temps were stable at about 800 degrees F, the slight rumble was still going, and there were basically no flames in the firebox - just nicely glowing orange coals. This is the beauty of “horizontal combustion” - you get nice hot fires that last as long as possible without the wood on top being consumed too quickly, all with little to no particulate emissions. A snapshot from an hour or two later would show the everburn still going, with stack temps maybe down to 700, same old glowing fire with little to no flames - keeping the house warm all night long.
Finally, I just got done going though all the different “everburn” threads, I missed most of the discussions when they happened. One common theme I see is what I think is people closing the bypass too soon. It took me a while to figure this out on my own (especially because there is no guidance, as far as temps go, in the user manual). Even in my original review - you can tell I had only just then experienced my first real correct burn (i.e. thermonuclear). I’m pretty convinced now that to get a good efficient burn, you must take it up to 1000 F internal probe flue temp before closing the bypass (all of my past comments about coals around the throat opening still apply as well though). If you do the coal thing, and the 1000 degree thing, it pretty much works 100% of the time - again, it took me quite some time to figure this out, but now that I have, I’m getting better performance but it still requires a lot of futzing around!
Great vid! I am envious of your hearth setup! Im glad to see that my operations/usage mimic yours. Do you happen to have a magnetic thermometer laying around? I am curious of the temps you would observe (probe vs. magnetic). Im trying to determine a rough estimate of what the interior temp is based on my magnetic readings, as I dont yet have a probe thermometer.
Like yourself traderg, I’m getting better, more consistent results the more I use the stove. But the behavior has also been better due to outdoor conditions (dang cold!) and good drafting conditions. I’ve also found that creating a small V shape using two small splits on the lowest level when adding new splits sometimes helps. So if you are looking top-down, the vertex of the V would be closest to you at the front of the stove. Then load large splits on top of those parallel to the stove front as normal. Seems to channel the hot gases/smoke towards the throat where the everburn intakes are.
Great vid! I am envious of your hearth setup! Im glad to see that my operations/usage mimic yours. Do you happen to have a magnetic thermometer laying around? I am curious of the temps you would observe (probe vs. magnetic). Im trying to determine a rough estimate of what the interior temp is based on my magnetic readings, as I dont yet have a probe thermometer.
Like yourself traderg, I’m getting better, more consistent results the more I use the stove. But the behavior has also been better due to outdoor conditions (dang cold!) and good drafting conditions. I’ve also found that creating a small V shape using two small splits on the lowest level when adding new splits sometimes helps. So if you are looking top-down, the vertex of the V would be closest to you at the front of the stove. Then load large splits on top of those parallel to the stove front as normal. Seems to channel the hot gases/smoke towards the throat where the everburn intakes are.
Hmmm That “V idea sounds good, but I would have thought it would work better if the point of the “V” was towards the BACK of the stove, rather than the front…. After all the throat and intakes for the Everburn chamber are at the rear of the stove.
Yea, I too have found that the way you configure the wood definitely impacts the secondary burn success. I think just a big pile of hot coals at the throat is enough, but a “hot coal tunnel” works even better, I think many configurations would work, even two paralel small splits going front to back with the rest of your wood piled on top left to right might help create the tunnel.
Burning… I don’t have a magnetic stove pipe thermometer. I own too many darn thermometers already to buy another one But I too would be interested in knowing how those temps compare…
On the “V” setup…..yes, two short splits facing N-S would be ideal, however I buck all my splits to about 18-20” which obviously wont fit in N-S orientation. The reason I place the vertex at the front is because I dont want the open end to cut off the intake tubes in the lower/back section of the stove outside the throat. Also concerned that they would interfere with drafting which is so critical to making everburn work successfully. Probably a trade off between reduced velocity & blockage of tubes, altho likely lopsided in one direction…...question is which direction?
Since it’s been a while since you last reviewed the Dutch West are there any updates? How do you like the DW and would you buy another one again?
Thanks
Well I can say that I keep trying new ways to improve performance… For example, for the last 3 days I have not let the fire go out or the coal bed die down (maybe part of this is that I’m burning wood that creates excellent coals) and the stove is SO MUCH easier to run this way. For example last night I loaded up on a big bed of coals, no fussing, dampered immediately after putting on the fresh splits, and it everburned continuously, with the air control completely off, at 400 degrees. I’ve never even got the everburn to work that low before. Bedrooms upstaris stayed between 71 and 76 while overnight low went down to 14. When you keep a big coal bed, this stove can burn cleanly 24/7 with no problem whatsoever, you can toss logs on whenever there is enough room to fit one in, and damper down immediately with no waiting (and still have the everburn super efficient burn work). The challenge is keeping that big hot coal bed around all the time, especially overnight.
Another thing I did which I think helped a lot was “speed drying” the wood - this is NOT something I have been doing at all previously, I just tried it for the first time this week after reading about someone else on the forum doing it and my friend telling me that’s how he does it too. I should start a whole new thread on that… but basically its not a big deal, just storing my wood next to the stove for 24 hours before burning it, it seems to seriously drive out all the moisture and results in better burning (of course its also probably a fire hazard which is why I’ve never seen it recommended before ).
To answer your question would I buy the Dutchwest again: I think every stove has its quirks, and I also think every few years someone is going to make a better stove. That said - based on all that I have read about various other stoves, I think I’d probably go for a model that is able to achive more consistent clean burning with less fiddling and coal bed management. The price is right on the Dutchwest, its big heat is great, its firebox size is great, its ash removal and gasketed doors and side loading are great. But lack of consistent secondary combustion is a major flaw. One of these days I’m going to have to collect all of the operational details found scattered though this thread and turn it into a “how to run an everburn stove” document/wiki/thread of its own.
TG, have you considered or tried a stack damper as a way to keep the heat in the stove more? Seems like it might be overdrafting a bit with that high a stack temp?
TG, have you considered or tried a stack damper as a way to keep the heat in the stove more? Seems like it might be overdrafting a bit with that high a stack temp?
Doesn’t seem to be overdrafting to me, what is a normal stack temp? When its dampered down I can pretty much get 400 with air off all the way to 800 depending on how I manage the fire/damper/air.
The video shows stack temps starting at 950 and going to higher than 1000 degrees. That’s pretty hot and prolly means the interior pipe is glowing blood red. FWIW, mine runs at 300-400 normally.
I like to get a new fire quickly up to 1000 before dampering down. I guess its just my way of operating the stove without having to babysit it. This is necesary IF a decent coal bed has not yet been established. The raging 1000 degree fire generally levels out around 800 depending on conditions, after about an hour its usually down to 700, and slowly tails off after that. When there is a nice bed of coals it can burn efficiently at 400. I do not see any signs of overfiring. The one guy complaining about his dutchwest said he was getting 3 hour burn times - a pretty clear indication of an excessive draft problem. My burn times are more like 7 hours typically on a full load, although I like to add a log or two at a time instead of big full reloads.
If the stovepipe was single wall it would be glowing. I would think that frequent high heat will accelerate oxidation and reduce life. According to Condar website for their probe thermometer that’s overheating. They recommend reducing draft. Whatever, it seems like a lot of waste heat heading up the chimney.
If the stovepipe was single wall it would be glowing. I would think that frequent high heat will accelerate oxidation and reduce life. According to Condar website for their probe thermometer that’s overheating. They recommend reducing draft. Whatever, it seems like a lot of waste heat heading up the chimney.
My flue IS single wall, it doesn’t glow, but it does give back a lot of the heat going up that pipe. Steel doesn’t really glow until it hits 1375, I’ve never seen any part of my stove or flue glowing and no paint has flaked off anywhere. I don’t think my temps can damage the pipe and the markings on stove thermometers (for example overfiring lines) are not appropriate for all stoves, I’ve seen some that say 700 is overfiring.
I’m here to tell ya Green, that chart is right. And 3/8” plate glowing at 1183* didn’t scare me as much as 24 gauge tin pipe would. This house would empty out.
Even at full load blast off on a bed of hot coals in the 3.5 cube box I haven’t seen higher than 750-800 stack probe temps. And don’t plan too any time soon.
But I too would be interested in knowing how those temps compare…
