Overfire

I have a similar question regarding temps. I have a smoke dragon insert (very similar to the old Buck 26000) and I have been using the magnetic thermometer on the stove top jacket direct center which has it centered over the baffle. My question is that the jacket is 2" or so above the firebox with forced air blowing through the channel on either side of the bafflle/smoke chamber so I am not sure what temp I should shoot for. During a normal load the thermometer cruises at 300-350 but I can open the air and easily get it to 5-600 (if left at those temps eats wood crazy fast) at those jacket temps I wonder what the actual firebox temp is. Like the OP I am unsure if I am potentially over firing.

Old School said:

I have a similar question regarding temps. I have a smoke dragon insert (very similar to the old Buck 26000) and I have been using the magnetic thermometer on the stove top jacket direct center which has it centered over the baffle. My question is that the jacket is 2" or so above the firebox with forced air blowing through the channel on either side of the bafflle/smoke chamber so I am not sure what temp I should shoot for. During a normal load the thermometer cruises at 300-350 but I can open the air and easily get it to 5-600 (if left at those temps eats wood crazy fast) at those jacket temps I wonder what the actual firebox temp is. Like the OP I am unsure if I am potentially over firing.

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Good questions. I have a new PE NEO 2.5 flush mount insert. How would I mount a thermometer ? Its flush mount.

I have an insert and I take a measurement in the middle of right above the door. With the blower going I think the top is 200df higher what the gun is showing so in my case for a steel stove 700 would be the red zone therefore no more than 500df on the gun. The highest I have seen so far was 480 usually it's in high 300s or low 400s

On my old XTD I would place a magnetic on the top in the middle, right in front of the exhaust so the air from the blower would not be hitting it. If taking temps from the IR I would hit the same spot, an overfire for me was anything past 800.

When you have an overfire is when you've lost control of the fire and it looks like hades,if you can control the fire it's not over firing you just left the air open to long.

brad wilton said:

When you have an overfire is when you've lost control of the fire and it looks like hades,if you can control the fire it's not over firing you just left the air open to long.

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I hate to argue but I am pretty sure that overfiring means stove got hotter than what its manufacturer determined as a safe temperature. Runaway stove means you lost control of the stove which a lot of times will result in overfiring. You can over fire stove without loosing control of it.

What is to hot in one stove will not be to hot in another. Hot is hot but some stoves can handle higher temperatures. The best spot to use the IR would be at the spot on your stove top that reaches the hottest temperature. For mine it would be a bit out from the flue collar. I can read 700f there and find other spots on the stove that are in the 500s.
Edited!
Happy New Years eve everyone!

I belive that steel stoves can handle higher temperature I asked a manufacturer of my stove and if I can remember correctly he said that my stove can handle 800fd. Cast stoves should be run at lower temperatures. I say 700 would be red zone but again it all will be different for each stove.

Steel doesn't melt until about 2400ºF ...even at 2200ºF 'forging temperature', you still have to hit it with a pretty big hammer to get it to bend. So I would think anything below that and you'd be fine.

Over the years, people have posted being 'nervous' at anything from ~400ºF on up. I'm not sure why the anxiety sets in before the steel would melt. Assuming the install is correct and the clearances are met, the stove would be fine even at temps where it would be glowing.

I agree that most stoves probably have decent margin to go above their max recommended temperatures, which usually are in the 700-800F range. But 2200F ?!?!?! Let's not get carried away! There's a lot more to consider than simply when iron or steel starts to get soft. There's the welds; there's thermal expansion causing deformations; there's different materials with different thermal expansion rates causing strain at interfaces.
Best bet is to keep the stove under the manufacturers recommended max temperature.

If you have not shut air down basically your just burning your wood up ,heat is going up chimney and your throwing more pollution into the air more like a smoke dragon then an epa stove.

I typicaly run my Enerzone (which is built by SBI) at around 550 on a fresh load with full seconaries. I dont worry until I get over 650. During a runaway we hit 800 once, which discolored the paint a bit, but the stove survived it just fine.

Old School said:

...During a normal load the thermometer cruises at 300-350 but I can open the air and easily get it to 5-600 (if left at those temps eats wood crazy fast) at those jacket temps I wonder what the actual firebox temp is. Like the OP I am unsure if I am potentially over firing.

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I obviously can't speak for all stoves / all temp measurement devices / all measurement locations, but 300-350 for me is a cold burn, some smoke and hard to keep the secondaries going. Once I get things going, I actually close the air down to get in the 500-600 range and burn for a good long time.

I suspect some times an 'overfire' temp may be given to protect paint / enamel finishes, soapstone blocks, etc. And in the case of the manufacturers recommendation, then sure, follow that info. I was speaking mainly to the physical durability of steel.

ED 3000 said:

Corey- I see in your signature line that you retrofitted a vintage stove. Did you post the details on that? I'd really enjoy reading about that. I bought the same stove that I grew up with off CL last year, but have not set it up yet. It is a VC Resolute, and I loved that stove- top load, tough as nails, very effective heater, but would really like to burn up some of the smoke that goes up the chimney.

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I have not posted many details. Back when I did the mods, it was sort of verboten to speak of modifying stoves, so I didn't do any documentation or posts. I won't run this thread off topic with the discussion now. Though I have posted a few threads ...glowing orange secondary tubes and one nightly loading going to 880F stovetop temp. (I've since fixed some air leaks at the ash pan and now keep to the 600F range unless I really need the heat!)

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/burnin-orange-tonight.106714/



https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/four-hours-of-fire-in-one-minute.45772/

BrotherBart said:

Because my liner and the house the stove is in would melt. The clearances are determined by when things around it reach 90 degrees over ambient. Across the room would be over that at the melting point of steel.

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I guess I need to talk with the stove dealer/installers about the over-fire issue. All the knowledgeable dealers made an issue of this as it could damage the stove. With all the brick lining, I think they'd crack first before the steel fatigued. One sales person said that the outside surface temp should run 350-400f but where the heck would you measure that and with what? Clear as mud. I've only had this new stove burning for a week and I love it, so I just moved the air control to what I think is 50% after it gets burning well. If it gets real hot I back it down to what I guess is 25%. I've never been fond of smoldering fires, but I also do not heat exclusively with wood. We wake up to a small bed of coals that can light fresh kindling so I'm good.

Like I had mentioned, 800 + is an overfire in those inserts, if people know that bingo is 840 they will take it as close as possible to that point which by then you are already running too hot.

My little nashua stove will hit 700 and i've not been able to get it any higher. that's with hedge loaded up, coal bed, and the blower off. As soon as i turn the blower on it cools down to 500. Normal wood loads i keep the stove top around 450-500 to put out enough heat from the blower to keep building warm. If it was in a tight house with insulation i would hold a lower temp and close it down more, but the hotter my stove top is, the hotter the air is that's being pushed out by the blower.

Corey said:

Over the years, people have posted being 'nervous' at anything from ~400ºF on up. I'm not sure why the anxiety sets in before the steel would melt. Assuming the install is correct and the clearances are met,

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for me i get nervous right where the chimney pipe goes thru the ceiling. Yeah its proper pipe and clearances are met but its still only a few inches away from that pipe to the wood. High temps are going to push the weakest link in your system to break and i get very nervous testing my chimney link.

I feel I was pushing over fire last night. I normally burn fir but I threw in some pine last night as I'm trying to get my woodshed cleared right out. Well that combined with high winds led to some very high flue and stove top temps.

This is my stove top temps in the pic. Which I think are ok for my stove but I don't normally like to run over seven hundred. I read 660 single wall stovepipe temp about 12"s up from the stove collar before I smelled the smell of running hot and shut the air right down. Things slowly came down but that load ran pretty hot the whole time.