First Fire of Second Season - Need refresher on air controls

Boozie said:

One (on the left hand side is called PRIMARY AIR CONTROL AIR WASH ROD FOR BOTH SIDES; the lever on the right hand side is SHOT GUN AIR CONTROL. I believe I leave the right hand SHOT GUN AIR CONTROL open to keep the glass clean, right? and the other one ... ??? Any help would be appreciated before I blacken my glass again. THANKS Barb

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According to the online manual for the 91, the shotgun is on the left and primary on the right.

The "shotgun" air is introduced into the stove in the front, center, right above the firebrick. It is used to help get the fire going and should be shut once it is well established (primary also fully open when this is open). The primary is what is used to control the established fire. The primary air control is what supplies the air wash vent, which is supposed to keep the door clean. It works pretty well, except in low firing mode (when primary air control is shut completely).

There is no need to worry about shutting the primary completely. There is enough "engineered leakage" around the the sliding vent controls to keep the fire going. There are also vents in the top of the stove, behind the catalyst that keep pre-heated air going to the catalyst so it can keep working, even during a smoky low burning fire. These secondary vents have no user control.

pgmr is absolutely correct in the location and function of the controls. If you are a little unsure of the cat controls as well, leave the damper out completely until you get a good fire going. If you have a cat probe, I wait until the temp reaches 400* and then push the damper in to force the exhaust up through the cat. Fires right off and quickly runs to between 1200 and 1800 almost every time. Shut it down about half way with the right hand control and in another 5-10 min shut it down more or even close it.

Good luck, you picked a good night to fire it up.

You CAN shut the primary all the way, if you don't need a lot of heat, but you don't have to. It all depends on the outside temp and how much heat you want to put into the house.

In my earlier post, I was saying that closing the primary all the way is no cause for concern (other than the glass will probably get a little creosote buildup). If it's above 30F, I usually have mine closed most or all of the way to keep from overheating the house. The nice thing about the cat stoves is they can be throttled down to give a low amount of heat without stinking up the neighborhood with smoke.

If you feel more comfortable with a low fire, then, yes, close the primary control. The fire will not go out, however, as there is no way to completely shut off the air on a modern stove.

pgmr said:

If you feel more comfortable with a low fire, then, yes, close the primary control. The fire will not go out, however, as there is no way to completely shut off the air on a modern stove.

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Oh yes, there is!

Boozie said:

What about at night when I go to bed .... my bedroom is upstairs. Would it be a good idea to close the primary control at that time? I'm a "worry-wart" and want to make sure I'm doing things right and most importantly ... safe. I really appreciate your help and input.

Barb

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I understand the concern about heading off to bed with a fire burning...I think every sane person has those concerns when first starting to burn wood. There are some things you can do to alleviate those "what ifs":

1) Practice your pre-bedtime routine in the day. Get the fire established, set it to the firing level you think you'd be comfortable w/overnight and then keep an eye on it for the next 7-8 hours.

2) I went from solid steel doors on my last stove to the glass door on the Buck. There was concern that a log could roll and break the glass during the night. There have been reports of broken glass on this forum, but I've not heard of a case where it was caused by wood in the stove. The one's I've read about have all been due to operator error.

Even so, you might want to try loading the stove so that the wood can only move side to side, not toward the main door. They call that North-South loading on here.

3) Don't add new wood to the fire and immediately head off to bed. 45-60 minutes prior is probably sufficient to get the fire stabilized so you'll have a good idea of what it will be doing overnight.

4) If you still can't sleep for fear of the fire, simply don't burn overnight.