I was over at a friends house tonight and they have a woodstove insert with secondary air tubes and a blower running.
This was a kitchen install with open access to the living room. We were in the living room wearing blankets watching a movie because it was freezing. I watched the stove. It was running full bore. The air control was wide open, and the wood was fully lit but I was not seeing good secondary activity. In about 3 hours time I watched them load 3 times full each with dry white oak.
The secondaries went wild with the off gassing of fresh wood but before long they diminished and the wood was just being consumed. Then I decided that's why we are cold. If they would shut the air down and allow the secondaries to control the heat, the heat would stay in the house instead of going up the chimney.
The amount of wood they wasted I could have probably got a 24 hour burn out of the Ideal steel and the whole house would feel warm.
This was a kitchen install with open access to the living room. We were in the living room wearing blankets watching a movie because it was freezing. I watched the stove. It was running full bore. The air control was wide open, and the wood was fully lit but I was not seeing good secondary activity. In about 3 hours time I watched them load 3 times full each with dry white oak.
The secondaries went wild with the off gassing of fresh wood but before long they diminished and the wood was just being consumed. Then I decided that's why we are cold. If they would shut the air down and allow the secondaries to control the heat, the heat would stay in the house instead of going up the chimney.
The amount of wood they wasted I could have probably got a 24 hour burn out of the Ideal steel and the whole house would feel warm.
