still having trouble with temp control nc-13

Hi Charlie, you might want to check around underneath the front end for a couple more small intakes ( glass wash). What type of wood, Pine or such or hard woods -oak or such? Softwood outgases faster than the hardwoods so might account for whats going on. Another question what size splits?
It is normal for temps to climb when the secondaries are putting on the light show.
Might want to give Englander a call, techs are very helpfull.

ckarotka said:

Once she gets hot 550-600 I back down the air and all is good for a short time, minutes. then she starts climbing in temp and runs away. I then have to close the air from 1/4-3/8in open to fully closed and she dies and the temp drops, flames go out, I open back up just a hair and off to the races again!! Anyone have any suggestions? I've read all the threads I can and tried every known trick with no success.

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Are those stove temps, external stack temps, or internal stack temps?

Alan

I dunno, but would like to throw out that this is very similar to the problem I was having with my 30 when I first started using it. As a newbie to secondary burn technology, it took some time for me to figure out that sweet spot for starting to close down. I am going to assume you've BTDT, but my instinct is that you need to close it down a little earlier, because you are igniting some massive outgassing with your secondaries when you close at that high temp and that's what's causing your temps to surge.

Have you tried closing it down once you hit like 450? I generally do a two stage closing on mine, but I don't really pay too much attention to the temp at that point, I can gauge by how much wood looks engulfed by flames, etc.

I've got 2 Englanders. The NC-13 has been relegated to shed use and the 17-VL is in the house. My wood has been split and stacked multiple years and checked with a moisture meter (white oak). I mainly monitor the inside stack temp of double wall pipe. With both of them I've found it works best to leave the door cracked slightly on an initial load (cold start or few coals) until internal stack temp gets to around 700-800 degrees. Then when I shut the door I can usually cut the air back to around 50% right away and after another 5-10 minutes can close it almost completely down. I've had similar situations to yours where it seems to be a rip roaring fire but once I close down the air that last little bit it seems to smother it. There have been times when I can't stay to baby sit so I just let it smother when I shut down the air all the way and leave. When I come back in an hour or two it's fully recovered and burning beautifully. Sometimes it just takes some patience, but like you, I hate seeing it smolder and smoke.

The way the wood is stacked in the stove makes a big difference on my stoves as well. If I really cram it in tight and don't allow some gaps for air to flow around the wood it never seems to get going. Sometimes I won't be able to get the fire to take and the fix is just to reach in and move one of a splits a little for better airflow.

Maybe smaller splits would help too. The only time I'd put in a load of big splits like you're talking about (4 and it's full) was on really cold nights when I needed a long burn. The only way I could get it to work with a full load of splits that big was to have a large, hot, coal bed going before adding them. Then I'd still usually need to leave the air open for a while and get the stack temps pretty high before shutting it down.

I seem to have the best control on my stoves when there's a big fat juicy coal bed down there, they keep things going when the air is shut down. Try and shut down the air on a fire with big splits and few coals, regardless of stove temp, and it's not happy. But after it's burned down a little to make its own coals it's fine.

With my NC-13 I could load up at 10pm and have enough coals left at 7am to get another fire going without much trouble . That's not to say the stove would really be putting out any heat at that point, just that there were some coals left (this is with Bur Oak, anything much softer was gone long before I was out of bed). Reloading time varied a lot depending on outside temp and if I was home or not but every 4 hours to keep decent heat out of the stove doesn't sound too bad. I usually load up in the morning, come home at lunch to load it up, then again when I get home from work. Probably another load between getting home and going to bed.

If I'm home most of the day I prefer smaller loads instead of cramming it full. I seem to get better and more controlled burns that way and they last surprisingly long.

Alan

Is this problem happening on reloads mostly? are you raking coals to one side or to the front? it's a 13, so I imagine you are raking coals to the front and burning with the wood in an East/West orientation, no?

You might try a cigar burn method or something different than whatever you are doing now. I don't know that the answer lies in this thread, but here is a thread started by me last year when I was having runaway problems that I worked through.

I was seriously worried that my wood was too dry or my draft was too good, but it really was just how I burned that made a difference. If you are still worried about your draft, then get a damper and be done with it.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/i-keep-getting-too-hot.75100/

ckarotka said:

Hi guys and gals,
I haven't posted in a really long time just lurking for a spell. I installed a nc-15 a few years back. Last year I had some great wood. Dry 2 years split and stacked, then moved to the garage and sat another 3 months before burning. Fuel is not a problem. Stove was inspected no damage or gaps, and chimney 16-17ft straight up 2ft higher than ridge in good working order, all is safe and sound, plus new gaskets last fall. But I still can't really load her up without babysitting all night. Once she gets hot 550-600 I back down the air and all is good for a short time, minutes. then she starts climbing in temp and runs away. I then have to close the air from 1/4-3/8in open to fully closed and she dies and the temp drops, flames go out, I open back up just a hair and off to the races again!! Anyone have any suggestions? I've read all the threads I can and tried every known trick with no success.

Now I'm leaning on my geographic location as the problem. Superdraft even from a short stack? My house sits at the bottom a hill/"mountain" a change of several hundred feet in elevation. Stack is open to a generally steady west wind with large pine around the house in the other directions. I live very close (with in a mile) to an imaginary line where the weather changes severely from one side to the other, talking 2-3in on my side, of snow to 6-12in on the other side.

Oh ya a damper did nothing for this problem either. My plan for this year is to limit the amount of intake air. I plan to plumb the 2" intake down and under the stove in the middle right under the control lever. Then put a ball valve on the end and slowly play with closing it and leaving the air lever open about 3/4in.
Has anyone over done something like this or have another possible solution?

Thanks,
Charlie

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Member Precaud has experience with putting control valves to control the secondary air. You might PM him. He has a technique to get longer heat out of a stove that you might be interested in.

Dont know how he manages it for an over night burn but essentially the theory is if you have control valves on your stove for the secondary air. He lets the fire burn till its in the coal stage. As in the coal stage emissions are not an issue as all the bad stuff has been burned out of the wood at that point. So he then at the coal stage completely shuts off all primary air and secondary air to the stove and the coals will last much longer and give off more heat over a longer period of time this way. As think about it a minute about 20% of the heat is wasted up the flue when air is let into the stove but with the stove completely shut down you are saving that 20% heat loss. So coals give you more heat that way in this mode of operation. I have never tried this but thats the theory.

One more thing its been said on this board when talking about getting all night burns and how is this measured. Whats been said is that 50% of the heat from a load of wood comes from the coal stage not all from the flaming stage.

Manual Draft Damper, may work if you use it before the stove gets too hot. As a manual draft damper will also hold heat in the stove and when those stoves with secondary air get super hot they are super smoke gas burners and the heat will hold in the stove really well if you have just closed the damper down. So try to close that damper early in the process just like Danno said turn your air intake down earlier. Use both earlier in the process before the heat gets built up.

Plus search on this board for Rake coals forward technique. If you are loading really dry wood on a really hot and thick bed of coals I think we all have trouble with that.

Plus being a small stove you may be over stuffing it. Especially if your stacking wood high in the front as this kind of blocks the exit path to the flue pipe. What this creates is with the slightly blocking of the path out of the stove, what you get is back behind that highly stacked wood in the front now you have a very little space left with super heated secondary air feeding this small space with smoke gases. What some of us have found is this little area acts like a super heated burn chamber and heats the stove up really hot and its easy to stay hot as its a small space with very little outlet.

I have heard it mentioned several times on this board be carefully staking your wood high in the front of the stove on the type of stove you have.

BrotherBart said:

You have to back it down in stages. And do it with the temp on the way up. Sudden primary air adjustments do not give the fire time to adjust to the new airflow rate and will choke it. Start with closing it around a quarter at 400. Another quarter at 500 and another at 600. Then let it cruise.

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Took me a few fires to figure this ^^^^^ out on my 13NC. Especially with a hot bed of coals in the stove. I'm burning 2 year old really dry maple/ash now when needed to keep the house warm overnight. When my 13NC is cruising with the primary air totally off, my stove top thermometer will rise to 700-750* from the 550-600* when I shut her down. Twas alarming at first; basing this off the "danger Will Robinson zone" on the thermometer, but now I realize it's just heat soak and the secondaries are doing what they're supposed to do. I suppose if it got much hotter than that, I'd plug up the air intake.

I'm gonna get a probe thermometer for the doublewall eventually,............what should those temps run when cruising???

Loaded the 13NC with 3 splits of maple at 10:30PM last night..............aired her down in stages like above, went to bed at just after 11:00PM with her cruising at 600*. Don't know if she got hotter than that overnight, but this morning at 8:00AM the stoveroom/livingroom was 74*, stove top was about 200* and we had frost last night here. Loaded her up at 8:30AM with 3 more maple splits (still had a few coals for startup) and now at just after 2:00PM, livingroom is 77* with coals in the stove with it in the upper 40's outside.

I was checking the chimney outside this AM on the above reload to see how much smoke I was getting at different stove top temps. With the wood I'm burning now, hotter than 550*, there is essentially no smoke coming out my stack. So I would think that 600-700* maybe even 750* would be considered "normal" cruising temps................as long as you have a controlled fire going and not an inferno in the box.

I've found that my 13 likes to run at 650-700 stove top temp. For overnight burns, I start with a good pile of coals(size of a dinner plate), rake them forward and put 1 big round in the back. This is usually a 10" or 12" piece of pine. I'll also put in a couple splits of russian olive, with knots or a branch root. This will give me a couple good coals after 8-10 hrs.

For temp control, I do as BB suggests but I close it down to about 1/4" of control rod. If you have a good coal bed on reload, you can start closing as low as 300.

If I find I need a blast of heat, I will use a couple splits of cedar fence post with a large piece of juniper fence post on top. Most of my wood is fence posts from my brother-in-laws ranch, and have been standing and drying for most of a century. And, at the rate I burn them I should be good for another 5 yrs for firewood.

Russian Olive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeagnus_angustifolia