So as the title states, I think I had my first overfire. Ive been trying to find out what the stove likes and have been having a lot of trouble getting the flue to temp and getting it to stay at that temp. So I thought I might not be putting enough wood in the stove to keep it going. So I decided to put 3 larger logs in and the fire started burning real good and the flue temps got up into the high 600's with no sign of stopping. So I decided I needed to shut the air dampners off to get the fire to cool down and that seemed to work. My question is, is shutting off the air dampners the best way to get the temps down in the flue? Is there better ways to do this? Me and my wife are 100% new to wood burning and this was a little bit of a scary situation for us.
Think I had my first overfire.
- Thread starter Asd1984
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hi asd1984 welcome to the forum. you handled it right. you might not have overfired it. what stove are you running? what are your stove top temps? targeting a flue temp is good but you need to keep a eye on your stove top temp also. stove top temp will be higher in most cases but not all than the pipe temp.
With the stoves I have owned, 600 for a flue temp is what I call 'toasty'. Nothing near an overfire. In my view, an overfire is when your stove is shut down as far as it will go and your flue temps are still climbing rapidly - usually 1000 and up. In my experience, it's hard to overfire with 'larger logs'. A stove packed full of dry kindling has a serious potential for overfire. It's not something you want to try just for 'the experience'.
Really depends on how / where you're measuring temp and with what. If you had a stick-on thermometer 5 feet up the pipe on a double walled flue, then yes, 600 might be a little hot...and the bottom would likely be melting. 600F on a probe near the outlet of the stove is hardly anything to worry about.
For 'overfire' it's usually better to go by sight... if you can't see it glowing, then it's not overfired. I don't even worry with flue temp - just keep an eye on the hottest part of the stove and keep it out of the (glowing) red zone.
For 'overfire' it's usually better to go by sight... if you can't see it glowing, then it's not overfired. I don't even worry with flue temp - just keep an eye on the hottest part of the stove and keep it out of the (glowing) red zone.
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