Secondary burners

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Stateguy

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Dec 27, 2012
45
I don't see any blue flames coming from the secondary burners is there something broken or am I doing something wrong. I think maybe that's why my glass turns black when the air control is lowered. I have the Vermont Montpelier.
 
How seasoned is your wood? This is usually the problem for lack of secondary burn and black glass.
 
My flames from up there are only blue at certain points in a burn, usually they are bright orange/red/yellow.

Do you have any flames up there? What temps are you seeing on your stove top? Is the stove loaded right up or are there only a few splits in there? How long as the wood been cut / split and stacked? Are you using hardwoods or softwoods?

Here's an example of secondary combustion (turn your volume off)



pen
 
You might be throttling it back too soon. If your wood is at all wet (seasoned less than 1 year), you need to run hot to get secondary action, as the stove temps are cooler due to boiling out all the moisture from the wood. I also find throttling back the stove too soon causes glass blackening... unburnt gasses condensing on the glass.
 
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I agree with the earlier answers......either it is the wood, or you are throttling down too quickly.
 
Get that stove hot before shutting down, your secondaries should fire right up! As weird as it sounds, I spent several minutes (well, hours in total) just watching and learning my stove. I'd experiment with your Vermont using the suggestions mentioned above. Good luck!
 
This is about as good as mine gets....cruisin' at 500*F....took an hour of small adjustments...:(
 
Sounds like wet wood.
This is about as good as mine gets....cruisin' at 500*F....took an hour of small adjustments...:(
That is what mine looked like about a few hours ago The front of the stove was 650.
 
You are basically describing me for the entire month of December until I gave up on this "seasoned" cord of wood I just bought, stacked it for next year, and bought some Envi-blocks and kiln dried hickory. No more black glass or lack of secondaries. New problem is the super dry wood turns into an inferno if I don't turn the air down soon enough. I'm still babysitting the stove, just for different reasons. Quite the learning experience.
 
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I have secondaries throughout most of each burn cycle but the color is not always blue. When the primary fire is burning storngly the secondaries and primary flames will meet in the middle, but you can identify the secondaries as flame coming from the tubes, rather than flame extending up from below.

I think you are shutting the air down too much or you've got unseasoned wood. Your glass shouldn't get blackened in a normal fire. I occasionally get some smudges on the glass when piece of wood decides to shoot gases out at the glass, but never blackened glass.
 
My NC30 constantly runs on orange, redish secondaries.Its running really hot now on some oak a buddy gave me last spring so I just choked the air way down and the dancing really started on the secondaries.

 

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The flames come from the wood past the tubes and past the baffle(they just go straight up) I put in 1peice in at a time once I have a good Amber of coals the wood is seasoned 9 12months and mostly use oak. What size diameter should I cut the logs
 
This is about as good as mine gets....cruisin' at 500*F....took an hour of small adjustments...:(
.....The flames, every so often, would jump off the top of the wood, and do a slow roll at the tubes....the wood was Maple, and Hickory at 16% on a fressh split....maybe 3 pieces (2 Hickory, 1 Maple) the size of the one off to the side. If I throttled it back a little more, it would momentum.
 
The flames come from the wood past the tubes and past the baffle(they just go straight up) I put in 1peice in at a time once I have a good Amber of coals the wood is seasoned 9 12months and mostly use oak. What size diameter should I cut the logs
Well Oak isn't seasoned after 12 months, it takes 18-24 months for Oak. You won't see much secondary action with only one piece of wood either.
 
Like the other 30-NC vids, here is mine... Little long, but shows about 12 minutes of burn before you see what my stove top temps and flue temp are. This a good ways into my burn. Some ash own the splits if you look close. Got bored that night ;)

 
Well Oak isn't seasoned after 12 months, it takes 18-24 months for Oak. You won't see much secondary action with only one piece of wood either.

Yep, you need to put some wood in that stove; seasoned wood that is, and you won't believe the difference.

pen
 
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Oak takes at least 2 years to be ready to be burned.
 
A single piece of wood doesn't sound right. Are you operating the stove according to the manufacturer's directions? I assume you have a manual for the stove and have read through it several times to get a solid grip on how it should be run?
 
Whatever wood you have and no matter how wet or dry it is putting a stick at a time in the stove ain't gonna get it done. Fill at least half of the firebox and get a steady burn going. Slowly turning the air down in little steps as the temp comes up. Leave enough to keep flames in the firebox. Real secondary burn is the gases burning on top of the wood. Not crap looking like it is shooting out of the secondary holes.
 
Yep wood needs friends at least 3.

Haven't heard that one in a long time. Grandpa use to say that when he was loading the fireplace for the night.
 
Haven't heard that one in a long time. Grandpa use to say that when he was loading the fireplace for the night.
I use to baby the stove to much but now if i need to just add 1 split to stay warm i would soon just let it go out and let my electric heat kick in.

Edit. Sorry that came out wrong.
 
I use to baby the stove to much but now if i need to just add 1 split to stay warm i would soon just let it go out and let my electric heat kick in.
Take that back! Right now!
 
Take that back! Right now!
Yeah that come out wrong I just think a one split fire is not efficient as a loaded stove I hope that makes since.
 
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