When is it Safe to go to Bed?

I am always careful not to overload before bed. If I pack it too full of nice dry oak it will eventually start going nuclear with the secondaries even with the air shut all down. I can easily have 1200°F on the double wall probe, sometimes higher. At that point with the air down there isn't much I can do. Maybe I should check for leaks. This is a new stove.

I usually load up around 9:30 and start getting ready for bed by 10:30....unless the Quad decides to show me a nuclear stage, then I stay up a bit longer (does not happen much now with a better understanding of the stove's personality).

During the day, 30 minutes and she's cruising steady. Seems at night my stove likes toying with me. Sometimes 1-2 hours before I'm comfortable enough to leave it alone.

lindnova said:

I am always careful not to overload before bed. If I pack it too full of nice dry oak it will eventually start going nuclear with the secondaries even with the air shut all down. I can easily have 1200°F on the double wall probe, sometimes higher. At that point with the air down there isn't much I can do. Maybe I should check for leaks. This is a new stove.

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1200, even higher, would worry me, with the air shut down. Something isn't quite right there--hopefully a bad thermometer. That's too hot.

I am down to about 15-20 minutes on a reload on very hot coals before I start turning down the air, usually upstairs within 30-40 minutes.

northwinds said:

1200, even higher, would worry me, with the air shut down. Something isn't quite right there--hopefully a bad thermometer. That's too hot.

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A sustained 1200 degree flue would have a bunch of things glowing red. My Englander 30 would be a melted pile of steel if I kept it that hot.

isipwater said:

When is it safe to go to bed?

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Never!

I had a hot fire - forgot to come back and turn it down - up to 1400° one time. I had some red glowing on the top of the stove. Hopefully that is all it is and it ruined the thermometer, but I have a feeling something is leaking air. I do have a real good draft - 32 ft from stove to top with 2-15° bends. I can have a nice slow fire, until a certain point around 600 degrees and too much wood the secondaries will take off out of control in a large inferno. Sometimes this can be up to an hour after loading.

Its interesting the difference between the experiences of tubed secondary burner stove owner and a CAT stove. Since it's hard to completely cut off the secondary air they have seen those stoves go "nuclear" before making it harder to walk away from. As a Cat stove owner I have often loaded just before bed. I still have to baby sit it a little because I prefer to get the new wood pretty charred before turning down the air again and closing the damper.

I was thinking the same as I read lindnova's response. With a cat stove, if you want to go to bed, just turn it off. I hate to do it before the wood is baked out enough, since it can result in a creo-clogged cat, but believe me the stove temp will go down to 300F very fast when I turn the air down, no matter what's going on in the firebox previously.

If your stove is running away, your wood is too dry. It is the same as stuffing it full of dry paper. I have said it before, I like some moisture in my wood. We burn a wheelbarrow load a day to keep the house at about 80°. That is oak that has been drying for less than a year. All the wood we are burning was split this summer/fall and left in a pile until we moved it into the pole shed for winter. It burns good and hot and does not "take off". The chimney is clean and the house is warm. The glass has a light ash coating, but no black. I need a longer poker to stir the coals, I know that much.

Do you guys with tubes go to bed with the secondary's still going strong?

Isaac Carlson said:

If your stove is running away, your wood is too dry. It is the same as stuffing it full of dry paper. I have said it before, I like some moisture in my wood. We burn a wheelbarrow load a day to keep the house at about 80°. That is oak that has been drying for less than a year. All the wood we are burning was split this summer/fall and left in a pile until we moved it into the pole shed for winter. It burns good and hot and does not "take off". The chimney is clean and the house is warm. The glass has a light ash coating, but no black. I need a longer poker to stir the coals, I know that much.

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If I used my 1 year seasoned oak I would be waiting 2 hours to go to bedd as thats how long it would take to get my insert up to temp so I can shut it down

HotCoals said:

Do you guys with tubes go to bed with the secondary's still going strong?

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Yes

Isaac Carlson said:

If your stove is running away, your wood is too dry. It is the same as stuffing it full of dry paper. I have said it before, I like some moisture in my wood. We burn a wheelbarrow load a day to keep the house at about 80°. That is oak that has been drying for less than a year. All the wood we are burning was split this summer/fall and left in a pile until we moved it into the pole shed for winter. It burns good and hot and does not "take off". The chimney is clean and the house is warm. The glass has a light ash coating, but no black. I need a longer poker to stir the coals, I know that much.

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Not necessarily . . . could also be a problem with a stove or too much draft or reloading a stove too soon.

There are some folks here who will say that wood seasoned in a traditional way (i.e. not kiln dried) can rarely be too dry.

Personally, I have had a few times this year when the fire was getting a bit too hot for my taste . . . I honestly think it had to do with the better BTU stove chow I was feeding the stove since I had it loaded with some premium wood (i.e. well seasoned oak, beech), but everything else was the same from the day . . . even the load . . . before when I had my "regular" wood (i.e. well seasoned maple, birch, etc.) That said . . . it was easy to tame . . . I just reduced the amount of incoming air with some aluminum foil.

isipwater said:

I am trying to figure out how to know when it is safe to stop watching the fire so I can go to bed.

Currently, I am waiting about 2+ hours after my final load for the night but it seems a bit long. I usually wait this long so that most of the wood gas has released and been ignited.

What I find confusing is that sometimes when I think I have the stove in the safe range (cruising at 500 - 600F) so I can stop monitoring, the stove temp can have a surprise spike. I think this is due to the secondaries gradually/slowly getting things hotter. These surprise temp spikes make it hard for me to relax and go to bed.

What helps you judge when it is safe to go to bed? What should I be looking for?

Thanks.

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I don't know anything about Lopis, but I wait until the wood in my stove is completely scorched before I shut the vent down and go to bed - 10-15 minutes.

i was (am) having problems with mine going nuclear,,,but i go to bed anyway since I installed 2 digital probes. One in the flue and one on the stove top. I set the alarms at the temp i want, and if it gets that high,,, a screaming buzzer will wake me up to do something about it.

I bought the digitals to learn what was happening,,, now I use the alarms to feel safe. I go to sleep now instead of laying there wondering how hot my stove is.

I saw it go nuke the other day,,,it was amazingly fast. Still do not know why,, but the alarms are helping! No full loads unless i will be home is the rule now.

Talk about nuclear, it can happen to us catalytic folks also.I wish I had thought to take photos of the time I wasn't paying attention and my catalyst temperature hit 2000F. Glowing iron inside the stove, flames shooting out of the catalyst inlet back into the firebox.... looked like the gates of down below in there. BUt yet my stovetop temperature was only something like 550.

A full load of very small pieces on a very cold/strong draft day is the recipe.

Anyway, back on topic - I shoot for 60-90 minutes before bed for the last load. Like others have said you can just throttle back on a cat stove and I can all but kill the flame in the box completely - but if there is a lot of small stuff in there the volume of off gassing can cause the cat temps to keep rising through the night. So I make a point to use fewer larger splits on those big cold night loads.

And yeah, watching a full load run during the day.... on a very cold day to simulate worst case draft.... is a good way to build confidence and learn its habits. I did that quite a few times the first year I owned the stove before I trusted an overnight burn or was comfortable to leave the house with it loaded up.

Jdog said:

I tell my self that all the time mjflores that's what it's made for and iv did what u said during the day time and for the most part all was well but I still find myself in the stove room just watching till wee hrs

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Cheaper than cable!

I made a mistake yesterday of reloading the stove 10 minutes before we were leaving. Closed it up before it was fully engaged, came back three hours later and had a smoky fire still trying to catch. Neighbors must have been pleased. Not.