First truly scary moment...

  • 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
Not open for further replies.

wrxtance

Member
Sep 3, 2010
44
NW CT
I've been burning our new Lennox/Country C260 insert for about 1.5 months now. Its great - hold lots of wood, puts out the heat, etc. Our wood has been just ~ok~ probably needing to season another 6+ months before its good. So, I've been routinely running the stove with a fair bit of air for a while (20-40min) to get the load off and running before shutting the air down for a nice long burn. I've had a couple "oops" moments getting the stove top temps up to 700+ but once the air is shut, the flames stabilize, the temp drops, reburn is consistent, and all is well.

Well, last night, put on a full load at about 11pm (perhaps on a larger than normal bed of hot coals) and just did the "normal routine". Stove top was about 650 at 11:15 so I said all good and shut the air down, did some stuff to prep for bed and popped back into the room and the stove was going nuts. I watched the temp gauge - 700, 725, 750, 775 in a matter of minutes - GOTTA STOP THIS NOW! Turned the blower on MAX and still no drop in temp. The reburn tubes were flaming like never before making a "warbling" noise like they do when its windy sometimes (looked out the window and there was no wind). I managed to open the door for 30 seconds at a time 3 times or so and I could watch the stove temp drop a bit but it would shoot back up to 750+. This went on for a good 45 minutes until the logs started to coal up and finally the temps started dropping. The stove room went from 75 to 84 in that 45 min!

Man, that was about the most nervous I have been in a while... I don't know if it was just the perfect storm of loading geometry, coal bed, etc. or perhaps a small chimney fire? The reload in the morning went off just fine but man, nerve racking to say the least!

At times I was close to convincing myself to pull flaming logs out, wet down a rolled up newspaper and toss it in, etc. but I just held steady. I probably would have gone nuts if I had hit 800F.

That's my story.
 
Wow!, alot of us can relate.
 
I see this happening alot lately around here. I guess my question is to those in the know, What is the true temperature these stoves are made to withstand? Also, under normal conditions (clean chimney pipes and all) at what point should we really get SCARED? I know there is a wide variety of stove brands and types so every case is different. Not sure if im asking the right question, that being said, i guess my question is, are we just waiting for the unthinkable to happen due to runaway stove temps?
 
Same thing happened to me last night. Loaded the stove before bed with some oak and cherry, coal bed was rather small and raked to the front.
Within about 45 minutes, the whole load was glowing red and firebox full of flames. I had shut the air down all the way and had blower on hi.
This seemed to do nothing, so I fully opened the door. It seemed to die down somewhat, until I closed the door again, then it went right back to where it was.
I cannot go to bed with the stove under this condition so i have to sit there waiting for everything to calm down. By then, my "night load" of wood is practically gone.
I think the temp in my living room topped out at 90*! :grrr: What a waste of heat and wood.
 
The owner's manual for the Century Stove my Country replaced said not to exceed 840F stove top temp. The chimney liners are supposedly rated to 2100F. The only thing the Country manual says is to the effect of "if the stove is glowing red, its too hot". If my stove was glowing red, I'd be calling 911. The deflector piece that pushes the primary air onto the door for the air wash was starting to glow red during last nights fiasco. I have never seen it do that before but I didn't get too freaked out because the part is actually inside the stove so doesn't really count? - the burn tubes, etc. glow red and from what I gather, that's normal.

I did shut the lights off a few times to see if anything external was glowing, luckily I never saw anything!

The boost air/doghouse/whatever you want to call the tiny open hole under the door was acting as a reburn tube last night too - shooting a 4" long flame into the fire box! Never saw that before!
 
You know, the first time that happens it will pucker you up a bit. The way I look at it now is: If my fuel load is not excessive and within what I consider a reasonable amount/type, AND my set-up is not hinky in any way, AND I know my stack is cleand, AND I'm taking reasonable precautions to limit the air....all that being true....I'm going to trust in my stove and the install and consider it as acceptable and not undertake anything heroic that might increase the danger or damage my stove. 800*? Not something I'd plan on, but I'm going to keep the faith and stand by to try and spot the trend, make sure all of the above conditions have been meta, and ride it out. I look at temp ranges on stoves as sort of like hull crush depth ratings on a submarine. You don't go there intentionally, but you probably have more leeway than you realize when you do.

That said, I still keep a ball of tinfoil handy to jam into the secondary intake :).
 
Most of these EPA stoves are made to withstand at least 900-1000 degrees or so stovetop temp easily. In fact the type of burn you describe is about exactly what you're looking for with an efficient burn. The stove needs to get up to at least 550-600 or so before the wood really starts outgassing and the secondary flames take over. Then you can shut the primary air control all the way keeping more heat in the house and sending less up the chimney. You don't need much primary flame on the wood at this point. The first time I got this to happen it was scary, but the temp leveled off on mine at about 800-850. It seems like having the primary air all the way closed would make the stove cool down, but it acutally makes it hotter once you get to the 600 degress plus outgassing stage since the lower airflow allows the stove to heat up more. At this temp the stove is hot enough that it causes the chimney to draw so much that it is sucking as much or more air through the stove as it did with the primary fully open when you first started the fire and it wasn't as hot. That whistling you heard is the air sucking through the secondary air holes. The fan will cool the stove down. Kick it on when you hit about 600-650 and it'll keep things more in control I'd bet. If you turn on the fan before you hit 550-600 it may never get hot enough to get the wood to outgas well and kick those secondaries into overdrive.
 
You know, these forums have saved me unneeded angst. Ours regularly hits 750 on a full load before setting to about @650, then down to 500-550. One of the other dealers at the antique co-op we have a booth in was telling DH the other day that her DH gets worked up over 500 (I don't know what kind of stove they have). The manual from Lopi is absolutely NO help, saying "glowing" (pipe or stove) is a sign of overfire. I do wonder what temps exactly will cause that though.
 
Check out this link (posted by DoubleClutch on this forum recently) showing steel glow color/temperature scale:

http://www.blksmth.com/heat_colors.htm

Looks like it starts glowing at about 1200.
 
have pegged my needle at 900 and nothing even close to glowing, manual is telling us glowing would be a problem, so no glowing means no problem to me.
 
I think what scared me the most was the rate at which the temp climbed. I could see the needle sweeping from 700 to 750 and I was thinking if it kept up that rate of gain, I'd be screwed. Luckily it topped off at about 775 - still the hottest I have ever seen...
 
wrxtance said:
I think what scared me the most was the rate at which the temp climbed. I could see the needle sweeping from 700 to 750 and I was thinking if it kept up that rate of gain, I'd be screwed. Luckily it topped off at about 775 - still the hottest I have ever seen...

I bet the room got nice and toasty? We're getting our first week of sustained cold weather starting tonight and I'll be looking for just this type of burn: hotter than hell and the wood lasts forever!j
 
I have considered making some sort of cover for the air intake, but am not even sure that what I think is the air intake is indeed the only air intake. It is where I would hook up an outside air source. If I get some sort of 4" cover I could throw on there to stop the air going in then all should be OK. Of course the other option is to install a damper. Not sure I want to do that.
 
If you had flames coming from a closed primary then maybe it isn't closing correctly.
 
I now "pause and reflect" before I load the stove instead of after.... ;-)
 
Stoves can take a lot.
The op scareds me more by saying he was close to pulling the wood out..that's when things can go bad in a hurry.

People get upset with me when I say this happens more then it should with a epa tube stove.
But if you read enough on this site you will see it does happen plenty...for sure putting wood in a hot tube stove.

I worry about the newbies and the pulling the wood out thing.

Find the secondary inlets and learn out to block them if you think the fire is getting out of control..do that before pulling the wood out anyways.

Burned informed and safe.
 
I asked Vogelzang about my stove getting hot a couple times as I loaded it with lots of wood on very hot coals and let it get too hot.

I told John there at Vogelzang about the stove getting up around 950 or so.

The stove has been EPA tested and UL tested and certified for both.

He said the stove I have has been tested to with stand those temps that its not something you should be doing all the time but the stove can take those temps for short durations.
 
Your stove gets hot,no big deal compared to a house burned flat.It may not be the best for the stove but weigh the odds of the 2.I like the idea of keeping some ash handy to snuff it out slightly.If you do pull wood out prepare to have a bucket or something full of water to put it in.You'll have time to prepare that much.Hope it doesn't happen again,i'd hate to be put in that situation but i bet i will. Good luck to ya and keep er warm.
 
When stove temps become (Too Hot), the first thing to do, NOT PANIC. When my stove temps were rising towards Too Hot Zone I opened up window and turned on stove blower. Immediately temps began to drop due to cold outside air being drawn into blower, which cooled stove.

Fredo
 
Status
Not open for further replies.