Had my first, and hopefully last, overfire in my Hampton HI300 insert last night. Stupid mistake on my part. I loaded a medium size load on coals with the stove somewhere around 350. Like I've done many times. Wood wasn't the best, so I figured it would take longer than normal to get going. Well I was wrong. I left with the damper a little more than half open. When I returned the glass temperature was 850. I've been there before, but this was different. I immediately closed the damper all the way figuring it would starve the fire of oxygen and the temp would start dropping. The opposite happened. Ordinarily the HI300 is very controllable, but in this condition even with the damper 100% closed there was such a strong draft that the fixed supply to the secondary tubes was enough to sustain a healthy burn. Plus shutting off the main air supply meant the heat in the box really started building up. The temperature on the glass shot up to 930, and I noticed the top of the firebox was faintly glowing red (in the dark). Scary.
I remembered reading on hearth.com that opening the door was good for cooling down the firebox. I remember thinking that opening the door would just introduce a flood of oxygen to the fire and things would really get out of control. But i tried it anyway. It works. Yes the fire does spark up a bit, but the flood of room temperature air into the box has a powerful and rapid cooling effect. I opened and closed the door a few times to try to bring the temperature down slowly to avoid thermal shock. In about 10 minutes I had it back down in a reasonable range.
No horrible popping noises, indication of weld problems, warpage, or air leaks. Stove is back to running normal. I had grown a little complacent thinking the stove was totally controllable, because under normal operating conditions, it is. No more leaving the stove during startup for me.
I remembered reading on hearth.com that opening the door was good for cooling down the firebox. I remember thinking that opening the door would just introduce a flood of oxygen to the fire and things would really get out of control. But i tried it anyway. It works. Yes the fire does spark up a bit, but the flood of room temperature air into the box has a powerful and rapid cooling effect. I opened and closed the door a few times to try to bring the temperature down slowly to avoid thermal shock. In about 10 minutes I had it back down in a reasonable range.
No horrible popping noises, indication of weld problems, warpage, or air leaks. Stove is back to running normal. I had grown a little complacent thinking the stove was totally controllable, because under normal operating conditions, it is. No more leaving the stove during startup for me.