Don't Flame me for posting this....

MarkSJohnson said:

..... but what is the ultimate goal for adjusting your air input? Output temp? The burn pot keeping clean?

I read a lot about lazy flames and, new to pellet stoves, I think I was burning with too much air for the first month or so. I've backed off a bit on that by closing the damper more, and my flame, though "lazyer", is taller and reaching the heat exchange tubes better. In short, I'm getting temp reading with my IR thermometer that are 50° hotter.

I AM finding daily that the burn pot has clinkers this way. Not rock hard, they break apart pretty easily. And I clean the burn pot everyday anyway.

So what say you, gurus? Do the clinkers indicate that I should be opening the damper more, or is it OK to deal with some clinkers because heat output is the goal?

(I know, I know....it's somewhere in between, right?)

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chken said:

One, I think this is a good topic, what is the goal?

Two, I wouldn't trust the IR thermometer too much, because so much depends upon the exact spot you aim at.

Three, I don't mind clinkers as long as the holes in the burn pot are not blocked. Sometimes I'll find a thin cookie in the fire pot with holes in a grid pattern where the air has been blowing through.

Four, why I try to avoid a lazy flame is because it indicates to me that I'm getting incomplete combustion. And, incomplete combustion means I'm getting more soot in my vent pipe. I don't mind fly ash, as there's no way to avoid that, but I do want to avoid soot, as that will mean having to clean my vent pipe sooner. Plus, my feeling is that once you start to burn dirty, i.e. with a lazy flame, things tend to go downhill quite quickly. So, I tend to err on the side of more air, rather than less. I don't want to see a lazy flame 23 hrs into a burn.

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MarkSJohnson said:

Thanks to everyone for their responses! Swine, I've read the manual and I think it does a pretty good job of helping the user to tweak the damper, explaining lazy flames and such.

But I guess what I was wondering was:

People say you don't want a lazy flame and you don't want clinkers. But what if a "somewhat" lazy flame is giving you the highest heat output? Isn't the goal of the stove to produce as much heat as possible for the fuel that it's given....even if I have to keep an eye on the burn pot more often than most people? (I work from home and can check the burn pot 20 times a day).

Does output temp rule above all else, or are there other concerns that would warrant a lower output temp?

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SwineFlue said:

When in doubt, rtfm (read the free manual)

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chken said:

One, I think this is a good topic, what is the goal?
Two, I wouldn't trust the IR thermometer too much, because so much depends upon the exact spot you aim at.
Three, I don't mind clinkers as long as the holes in the burn pot are not blocked. Sometimes I'll find a thin cookie in the fire pot with holes in a grid pattern where the air has been blowing through.
Four, why I try to avoid a lazy flame is because it indicates to me that I'm getting incomplete combustion. And, incomplete combustion means I'm getting more soot in my vent pipe. I don't mind fly ash, as there's no way to avoid that, but I do want to avoid soot, as that will mean having to clean my vent pipe sooner. Plus, my feeling is that once you start to burn dirty, i.e. with a lazy flame, things tend to go downhill quite quickly. So, I tend to err on the side of more air, rather than less. I don't want to see a lazy flame 23 hrs into a burn.

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GuitsBoy said:

**Free** ???

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