Are inserts objectively harder than stoves to run properly?

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sigsegv

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Feb 22, 2014
9
Seattle, WA
I've been burning fires in my insert pretty regularly for a few weeks now. I've been scouring the forums, trying to learn what I can about how to run it as efficiently and safely as possible.

I've come to the (maybe wrong, educate me please) conclusion that inserts are just harder to run well than a stove. Not that either is rocket science, but consistency is key for an unattended glowing hot fire inside your house.

Methods by which stoves are controlled:
1) Selection of splits, size, and positioning.
2) The primary air damper.
3) The flue damper. These don't exist for inserts. Inserts will also tend to be the most hamstrung in terms of draft control, as liner length is not really configurable unless you're building your house from scratch. A freestanding wood stove with a dedicated chimney pipe (not in a masonry chimney) is often built to an ideal length during install.

Feedback indicators from stoves:
1) Eyes, looking at the state of the fire
2) Stovetop temperatures. My insert is particularly bad in this regard, but from what I can tell most inserts have mediocre at best positions for a stovetop thermometer. Freestanding woodburning stoves have good locations to quickly and easily measure the temperature of the stove.
3) Flue temperatures. This gives you a measurement of both how much heat is being wasted up the chimney, and how strong your draft currently is. I've not seen a good way of measuring this in an insert.

Both #3s are not available on inserts. Both of these seem important for getting consistency out of a wood fire, both in terms of efficiency and in terms of not burning your house down.

Is this accurate? I've not seen this addressed in FAQs anywhere.
 
My insert couldn't be easier to use. Leave wood 3 years to season, light fire, sit back. I would never be without the stovetop thermometer, no mater how familiar I am with running the insert, appearances can can be deceptive.

TE
 
If ignorance is bliss, I'd agree with your "couldn't be easier" assessment. :)
If you acknowlede that a stovetop thermometer is more important than just looking at the fire, why disregard the importance of understanding flue temperature in order to run the stove as safely and efficiently as possible?
 
sigsegv said:
If ignorance is bliss, I'd agree with your "couldn't be easier" assessment. :)
If you acknowlede that a stovetop thermometer is more important than just looking at the fire, why disregard the importance of understanding flue temperature in order to run the stove as safely and efficiently as possible?
Click to expand...

I don't, but flue temperature from an insert is impractical, so I live without it. My primary point is if that all my wood was seasoned 3 years, I likely wouldn't need that stovetop thermometer at all. Due to the exceptionally cold winter, I finished the wood I had planned to burn this year, so recently I was burning oak and hickory that was c/s/s two years, not stored in a sunny location, and it's been difficult; without the stovetop thermometer, I'd have been struggling to burn cleanly.
As for running my insert well, I got barely two cups of creosote from all of last season's burning, and a peek down my liner today looks almost perfect. Not only that, but my insert is oversized for my house, or at least the space it's in, so I am usually trying to run it as cool as possible without generating creosote. With dry wood it's easy.

TE
 
A flue damper is not really something a stove should need; only in cases of excess draft due to very tall chimneys. Many times it is just a band-aid for some other problem. And the chimney length is given by the architecture of the house. The 3-2-10 rule does not give you a lot of options how tall your chimney needs to be. Your main advantage over an insert is that the homebuilder did not decide for you where to put the stove.

I admit a flue thermometer can be helpful but I have been running my insert without it for 4 years now and don't feel like I am unsafe or run it uncontrollably.

For the stove top temp I recommend the following: Get an IR thermometer or two identical stove thermometers. Remove the surround and top air channel (where the heated room air gets blown through) to access the actual stove top. Put one thermometer on the stove top and one in a convenient location in the front (or choose two points with the IR thermometer). Run the insert a few days like that without the blower running. Compare stove top temp with the temp in the front at different points of the burn during those days. If for example stove top shows 700 F and 500 F front you know from then on that there is a temp differential of ~200 F. Put the insert back together and you are good from then on just measuring in the front. If that still makes you uncomfortable think about a hearth-mounted stove with a rear-vent like Jotul or Woodstock.
 
My insert protrudes a few inches into the space so it makes measuring stove top temps just as easy as a free standing stove. Difficulty reading a stove top thermometer isn't a universal issue with all inserts. I can see that is not the case with your insert. I used to have an insert that did not have enough stove top space to allow for an accurate thermometer reading so I placed the thermometer on the face of the insert. I'm sure it wasn't super accurate, but it gave me a good gauge.

Also concerning your list of "feedback indicators" add to it: looking at the chimney to confirm no smoke is pouring out. That is a great indicator of how cleanly and efficiently you are burning. Good burn= little to no smoke.
 
Inserts often have a shallower firebox. They can be strictly E/W loaders. For me that makes it a greater challenge to burn in them than the inserts that have a deeper, squarish firebox. Burning in a square firebox Summit insert vs a Summit freestander should be very similar.
 
One thing with inserts, or maybe it's just me but besides adjusting air as the burn cycle goes along but I also find I need to adjust the fans throughout to get the heat out and keep the temps where I want.
 
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I've got an insert and I say yes, not because it's harder to use/run an insert but because the typical insert is used in a fireplace, whereas a free-standing stove is more likely to be more exposed, more centrally located, and all around easier to spread the heat.

I think they both burn all right, but it's not really about burning wood. It's about heating a house.
 
I find I can run the PE a lot easier than the 13.

Go figure.
 
btuser said:
I've got an insert and I say yes, not because it's harder to use/run an insert but because the typical insert is used in a fireplace, whereas a free-standing stove is more likely to be more exposed, more centrally located, and all around easier to spread the heat.

I think they both burn all right, but it's not really about burning wood. It's about heating a house.
Click to expand...

gotta agree .. insert is buried deep into fireplace. your fan has to move the heat into room. free standing stove radiates heat into room without fan. insert has advantage of using chimney/fireplace mortar zone designed for hot fires. which is much safer than a free standing stove unless a hot zone is created. but it hard to get safer than operating a wood stove inside a fireplace.

had all sorts of problems with Buck 91 insert heating my 2500sf open layout single level home.

couldn't figure out what was wrong .. solution was to insulate entire firebox including damper with 2,000f rated mineral wool. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...neral-wool-instead-of-block-off-plate.124737/
now Buck 91 acts like a different stove .. all that insulation prevents heat from going up chimney or anywhere else.
now heat is contained within stove until fan pushes into room. stove heats up faster and hold heat better, etc.
 
Last edited:
Our Regency I3100 is a breeze to run (with good wood that is.) We have a magnetic thermometer on the front that I confirmed accuracy using an IR. In many cases the "Stove top" of an insert is not actually the top of the firebox, but the top of the surround that's used to channel hot air out, so I wouldn't use the "stove top" as the temp reading.

Flue damper shouldn't be required for a modern insert, unless you have extreme draft conditions.

If you want flue temps, install a probe in the flue and get yourself one of these flue probe sensors : http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=20_3&products_id=291 and plug it into one of these: http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=292 They also have contact and magnetic sensors that could be placed virtually anywhere. I have one with a screw eyelet sensor that's going onto our insert this spring (when it stops burning long enough to get the surround off. I plan to screw it onto one of the liner attachment screws and use the IR and the magnetic to get good baseline readings, then I'll know what the "normal" temp should be and set it accordingly.

The "state of the fire" is probably one of the worst things to use to judge operations. Two seemingly identical fires with flames roaring away can have very different actual temperatures and be very deceiving. One of the "rookie mistakes" often made - turn it down well before the box has gotten up to temp because it looks like it's a really good fire.
 
I have no problems with running the Clydes. No problem with flue temp either. My IR laser thermometer can determine flue temp. by pointing the therm. at the flue collar.

There is a space above the top of the Clydesdale to be able to do that. They are a breeze to run.
 
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