That and the efficiency of the unit. People keep saying there are only so many btus in a load of wood but if you can get allot more of those btus into your house rather than up the stack You will obviously have more useable heat.
No burn time with my Quadra Fire 5700
- Thread starter Don Z
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
- Status
Tenn Dave
Minister of Fire
You about right, but how can manufactures get away with telling the customers about the 21 hours burn time when in the real world its not possible.
Are most people using these stove for looks and heating one room, because this stove is in my basement and is used 24/7 to heat a 1700 sq. ft house. The Baker had no problem heating the house. Do you know any people that have this stove and use it the way I do. I would love to here their input. Are they having any problems with to many coals and not able to get wood in the box? To burn down the coals, I have to set the stove on high fire to burn. Now the stack temp drops to 200 and the house start to get cold again. See the pattern. Yea I might have had an out dated Baker stove but it burn the coal to ash.
Looking for input be for I send this back or sell it and put back my old unfriendly smoker back in. thanks
I don't know what to tell you.. a 3cuft firebox, in a 1700 sqft home, should be roasting you out. Weather absolutely effects burn times, and yes, near as I can tell, all manufacturers have a different view of "burn time" both from each other and from the end users. But we can't fix that here.. so it is what it is.
I know you stated that your wood is two years split and stacked.. That usually means it's good, but not always. It would be very nice to know the actual moisture content of your wood. A two pin moisture meter isn't very expensive, and is darn handy to have. Lowes and Home depot carry them. Take an average sized split off the rack, and resplit it and check the moisture on the fresh split face.. you may be surprised.. EPA stoves are way more sensitive to moisture levels than the old stoves.
Weather is also an issue, two days ago we were at or just below 0F, with strong winds.. my stove was going through wood at a pretty good clip, 6 hours between loadings, and air about 1/2 open to keep the temperatures up and the coals down. Today it's 25 degrees warmer, I loaded at 5:30 this morning, air is still full closed,(2:30 pm), house is 72F, and I probably won't reload for a couple more hours, although I will open the air some here in a few..
I know you stated that your wood is two years split and stacked.. That usually means it's good, but not always. It would be very nice to know the actual moisture content of your wood. A two pin moisture meter isn't very expensive, and is darn handy to have. Lowes and Home depot carry them. Take an average sized split off the rack, and resplit it and check the moisture on the fresh split face.. you may be surprised.. EPA stoves are way more sensitive to moisture levels than the old stoves.
Weather is also an issue, two days ago we were at or just below 0F, with strong winds.. my stove was going through wood at a pretty good clip, 6 hours between loadings, and air about 1/2 open to keep the temperatures up and the coals down. Today it's 25 degrees warmer, I loaded at 5:30 this morning, air is still full closed,(2:30 pm), house is 72F, and I probably won't reload for a couple more hours, although I will open the air some here in a few..
I havnt burnt a 5700 but we have a few customers with them and haven't heard any complaints in fact one was raving about it. I have burnt my fathers 3100 quite a bit and it heats 1800 sqft fine what wood are you using and what moisture content?
I have a mixture of all woods, but the last three weeks I have been burning Hickory, Red Oak, and some real old Locus. Just to make sure this stove will perform. For example, last nigh there were 4 inches of hot coals, top coals were red, I stir the coals so Black coal were in the mix. I let the black coal turn red before I packed in oak pieces to fill stove. This was at 11:30am by 3:00am all wood was burnt and now more coals and stack temp was 195' and house was 65'. Raked the coals again but stove on High fire with timer. When back to bed less coals stack temp was 175' and my house oil burner came on at 64'. As far as moisture content I have no idea, I will look in to the moisture tester.
Osagebndr
Minister of Fire
Are you gradually shutting your air down. And getting good secondaries before shut down. The wood types your burning should give IMHO atleast 6 hrs of usable heat. I had a reg buck I burnt for awhile and got rid if it for a new stove(EPA) and I have to say the new throws heat but not like my old one did( I don't have a blower in my new stove either) however I use far less wood and I'm burning the same species you are. You should be getting better heat times than your seeing. How full do you load your stove? And I can also say that oak takes atleast 2 if not three years to season I found out the hard way this year that even 3 yr old oak can have too much moisture to burn effectively in an EPA stove
There are two settings, one is draft that sits high on the box, its set at 1/4 to 3/8 open. Than the lower setting is just less than half. stove temp will go up to 450' maybe 500'. What is a safe temp it should run.
Right now I m having to have the door open to burn down the coals. I don't like doing that. I put the stove on max setting s and the coal turned gray and was going out.
I will be leaving to go to breakfast, but I will get back to you when I get back. stove should be burnt out by then
If i have to many coals i just shovel them out i dont know why you keep waiting for them to burn down and if you want longer burn times shut it down harder. I don't remember which is which but after start up the start up air needs to be closed all the way. And then start closing down the other control. You should be able to run with it closed almost all the way if you wood is good and you have good draft
Osagebndr
Minister of Fire
Don z check out the bring out the big guns post and look at the pics hog wildz posted of a loaded stove, let us know if your loading similarly. I'm not real familiar with quads start up procedure but some keep they're primary air open for more heat output , not fully open just maybe Medium / low area . I shut my stove down at some point and that depends on how the burn is looking but you will not get a long burn with the air open and you also have to let the stove warm up to its " sweet spot " to shut it down and get good secondaries. Mine can last upto 4 hrs . As far as safe operating temps you may want to search some older threads by going to the home screen and typing that in. That's how I found out about my stove .
Is it normal for this stove to leave so many black coals on the bottom of the fire box. I spend more time trying to engineer how to burn the stove with no help from Quadra Fire. It gets to the point I cant get any wood in the box since there so many coals. But here is the problem, if I leave all setting on High fire which means all drafts wide open all air tubes clear from ash and coals with damper open. My normal draft is about 10" w/c. But with damper close it is 5" w/c.
Stove temp is 100 to 150 at most. There is no way I can heat my at that temp. Wood is Dry 9% to 15% moisture content.
I am ready to remove this stove out and put back in my old efficient Baker wood stove. It was the Burning King
If you can help it would be appreciated.
Don
Stove temp is 100 to 150 at most. There is no way I can heat my at that temp. Wood is Dry 9% to 15% moisture content.
I am ready to remove this stove out and put back in my old efficient Baker wood stove. It was the Burning King
If you can help it would be appreciated.
Don
Those black coals should be raked so they sit in the incoming air from the "doghouse."
Any new splits should be placed behind them & once the black coals start to glow,
the incoming air will be heated enough to ignite the newer wood.
Any new splits should be placed behind them & once the black coals start to glow,
the incoming air will be heated enough to ignite the newer wood.
Questioning the method used to measure MC as it is darn near impossible to get cord wood stored outside in PA to 9% MC.
Anyhooo - tons of black coals in the bottom of the stove are attributed to one (or both) of a couple of things. Fuel quality or burning methods. I guess you could also throw fuel TYPE in there as some species coal more than others.
I have the cast iron cousin to your stove at about the same cuft firebox. A deep bed of glowing coals in my stove will yield about a 350-400F stove top temp. If that is not enough to heat your home (and during bitter cold it will not heat mine either) you may want to adjust burning methods. At the end of the flame stage and beginning of the coaling stage, monitor stove top temps. Adjust primary as needed to maintain stove top at desired range. Basically it is just being a little more diligent with air management and will also feed more air to the coals both burning them up and giving higher heat. Give that a try and see how it treats you.
For example last night, coals were about 5" high, I raked all coals away from the 4 or 5 holes rear of the stove and cleared the one in front opened up all drafts and damper, never saw high temp over 200.
Would there be any advantage on making a fire rack for the wood to sit on. I know room is limited but would that help.
I would love a 350' that would heat my house. It did with my other stove.
When you are talking about primary, is that the lever at door or at the ACC levers at bottom right side of stove.
I use a Ryobi Moisture Meter.
Primary = primary air adjustment, not the ACC. Ever try throwing a couple of small sticks of lesser wood (say pine or soft maple of 2 or 3") on the coals? It will help recover stove top temp along with the increased temp burning down the coal bed. 3 or 4 sticks of that can really make the stove take off.
No fire rack in that stove. Not designed for it and could cause uncontrolled burning (overfire).
What size of wood is typical for your splits. Maybe take a few and resplit so that there is a variety of sizes burning??
No fire rack in that stove. Not designed for it and could cause uncontrolled burning (overfire).
What size of wood is typical for your splits. Maybe take a few and resplit so that there is a variety of sizes burning??
Hey Don, I have a quad 5100 that is new this burning season. I have found that I can burn through a load of wood very quickly if I don't follow the proper routine. For me, it is a must to run wide open for approximately the first 30 minutes. That means the ACC controls pushed in and the pulled out to engage the timer, and the top right air control all the way open. After 30 minutes, if I've used enough kindling (when starting a cold stove) I can start to slowly close down the air on the top right. Meaning maybe a 1/5 of the way about every 5-10 minutes. If the wood is good and dry, I can get my top right control closed all the way and still have good secondary action and maintain approx 400- 450 on the front of the stove. Closing all of the way like this will leave some black coals, in particular if I have used large splits (bigger than 3-4"). I have to run somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3 open on the top right to keep my coal bed from building up too much. FWIW I am heating a 2100 sq ft ranch and can do so easily as long as I load approx every 6-8 hrs. I was disappointed with my burn times initially as I wasn't getting very far past 3 hrs on burn time. There is a learning curve so don't give up yet. If you aren't getting a good secondary burn from your tubes you will never get longer burn times that produce heat. Those tubes should be getting red hot when you are burning efficiently. If you aren't experiencing this, you're not there yet.
Hey Don, reading your posts and coming to the same conclusion others have, I would think its wet wood. Quad 5700s are normally a heat hammer. If you are fully loading that stove with seasoned well wood (45-50 lbs), that would be around 320-350K btus, times about 70 percent heating efficiency which would be around 250k btus. Over an 8 hour period, that is over 30K btus per hour, a pretty good heat output. 1700 sqft- does this include the basement? If not, is it a finished/cement basement? What size basement? Unfinished basements are always difficult. What size chimney are you using, ideally a 6 inch flue will bring the best performance. If you are keeping the ACC air open and have the primary air control open like I think you are saying you do, with dry wood, stovetop temps should easily exceed the ideal stove top temps (for that stove 350-750 degrees). Heavy coals with little secondary off-gassing and burning are also indicative of wet wood. Normal cruising settings should be around 1/4 to 1/3 primary air open, ACC closed, stove top temps 500 degrees or so. If that's not being achieved, wet wood or inadequate draft would be the suspects. Stay with it, you have a superior heater. BTW, here in the real world, burntimes should be around 8-9 hours normal heat output, around 6-7 heavy heat output, again controlled by the primary air setting, assuming good wood and a well drafting chimney. Good luck.
After reading through the thread, I think as previous poster mentioned the burning technique could be an issue; but more importantly, I truly believe that you should split a piece of your wood and test the freshly split face side with the moisture meter. My oak measures at 0% outside, but when split in half the freshly split face side measures at 18-22%. Also you should bring your firewood inside for 24 hours and let it warm up to room temperature; otherwise, the water crystallized when below freezing and throw off your reading.
I have a Harman 300i insert, which uses the same secondary burn tubes and I have included a picture of that in action.
I have a Harman 300i insert, which uses the same secondary burn tubes and I have included a picture of that in action.
Attachments
That makes sense, I will try some small pieces on the coals and see what happens.
I take a 8 to 10" log I will split it twice to make 4 pieces since the box is smaller and has a step down cavity. It makes it easier to load and hold more.
Its a little more splitting time but the stove seems to work better.
About the Fire rack that is good info, that saves me time on making one and possibly an over fire.
How are these Stove companies getting away with misleading the customers and still in business. If it was me I would be on a street corner with a sigh HOMELESS.
I store the wood in basement, on a large banana boat on 6 wheels, that's what they call it, you see them in a grocery stores.
So it will be inside at least 10 to 14 days at a time. And yes the wood is split then tested. I had to prove that to a locale stove dealer the wood is Dry.
It was funny My wood was dryer then the wood he was selling.
Out side, my wood sits on two 10x30' rubber tarp to stop moisture from getting in from the bottom (ground) and it sits on a incline so water doesn't lay on rubber. And then covered.
- Status
Similar threads
