Can you heat up a stove too fast?

I know that it is not good to heat up a cast iron stove too fast. I always tried to heat up my CDW stove slowly. With my T5 I am not as worried, because of the steel firebox, but maybe I should be. I still have cast iron around the steel firebox, but feel that isn't heating up as fast, and is not in direct contact with the flame. It is nice to start the fire and have lots of heat pretty quick though.

I think the only way to heat a stove up too fast would be to drop a cold stove into a fire, when you start a cold stove with kindling and paper it heats the stove and chimney up relatively gradually even if it seems like you have an instant blazing fire.

Getting the chimney temperature up is usually the first priority. Then getting the stove temperature up (usually best done by closing draft part way after chimney is warm) is next. It does depend upon how your stove is built. Steel, cast or stone? I would not worry much about a steel stove. Cast just a little slower and stone slower yet. However, do not misunderstand on the slow and slower. That does not necessarily mean a long time. Many folks do read these type statements and then they would not consider a soapstone stove because it is slower to heat up. By analogy, consider a 4 cylinder car and a V8 car starting at a point and you'll see that a V8 can get to the mile marker faster. But then the little car can still get there in decent time and there are many other benefits enjoyed with the smaller car; mainly the amount of fuel it took to get to that mile point.

I once asked chris from BKVP about this. He said as long as the stove has been broken in properly, there's absolutely no problem heating it up as fast as possible.
So this is true for BK stoves, I'm not sure about all others.

BrotherBart said:

Bring up any cold stove at a reasonable rate. I don't care what the stove is made of. If you want a stove to last and serve you well don't treat it like you are mad at it. The heavier the stove the longer it is gonna take to get it up to cruising temp. No time rule fits them all.

Like Dennis said, get the flue up to temp and then the stove.

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I agree..beside a ripping fire on warm up is just a lot of wasted heat going up the chimney..everything in moderation I have always been told by the wise people.

As others have said I suspect that a 20-40 minute warm up would not be a problem regardless of what the stove is made out of . . . there are lots of items made out of cast iron and steel and even stone that are subject to rapid temp changes . . . I probably wouldn't attempt to build a forge out of my woodstove, but normal fire starting techniques after a proper break in procedure should not be problematic.

The manual for my stove says to burn it with wide open air intake for 30 minutes from cold. That's about as fast as you can go. In that time I will have flue temps at 1000 degrees and I can begin to throttle back the intake air. Stone stoves take forever to heat up so the actual stove won't be heating the room for a long time but the flue is hot, the exhaust is clean, and the heat thrown through the stove glass is enough to warm your hands.

I don't really think that there is a rule about fast warm ups. It's not like glass where it can crack from thermal shock.

Highbeam, that just proves that even though that was printed in a manual, it can still be wrong. If I loaded our stove and let it rip for 30 minutes the house would be on fire!

Again I'll take exception to your comment about the stone stoves taking forever to heat up. Forever is a very long time. What would you consider a decent time?

Backwoods Savage said:

Highbeam, that just proves that even though that was printed in a manual, it can still be wrong. If I loaded our stove and let it rip for 30 minutes the house would be on fire!

Again I'll take exception to your comment about the stone stoves taking forever to heat up. Forever is a very long time. What would you consider a decent time?

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same with my manual, says run air wide open till stop top hits 500+. I just don't agree. I have to close it half way after a few minutes or melt the inner liner.
After engaging cat, I sometimes open up air for ten minutes and then readjust.