Overfiring question

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marky_mark896

marky_mark896

New Member
Jan 20, 2008
77
Outside Bowling Green, Ohio
Hey guys,

I just had a scare. I've been battling wet/frozen wood for the last 2 days due to our torrential flooding and snow/freezing night temps. I finally got a decent fire going today a few hours ago. It was starting to burn down, so I thought while the temp was still pretty high (500-550), I'd try loading a bigger split that was out in the garage and still a little cold/damp. Almost imediately the temp went over 700*, and kept climbing. I shut the air all the way down, opened the bypass to dump some heat. After I got it under control, I was wondering if what I did was the right thing in that situation? What is the best way to prevent an out of control burn from going to overfire temps?
 
Best thing is not to add wood onto an already raging fire.
 
But seriously... What are the best steps to take if your stove starts heading toward overfire temps. Maybe someone loads too much overly dry material or something. I never thought about it until it started happening, but I think I did the right thing shutting the air down all the way and opening the bypass. Is that what should be done to cool the stove down some?
 
It varies from stove to stove. What you did worked and was good thinking. Turning the blower on high will also help cool some stoves down. On my stove, choking the outside air connection worked.
 
That's true. The blower was already on high, but if it wasn't, that would be a good step to pull some of the heat off of the surface of the stove. I usually do the opposite of that, and turn it off while trying to heat the stove up, so I don't dissipate heat before the stove is close to the desired temp.
 
My epa certified stove has an arir stop welded in place to limit the minimum low air setting. On ocassion i have added to much dry pine to a system with good draft and up up up the temps go. I put a piece of foil over the primary air intake to choke it off. This has always worked. If there is a time when this doesn't work, my plan is to go outside to the clean out T and pop the cap off, spoiling the draft.
 
Your Lopi Freedom bay is good for temps up to 800 on the stove top. You were just getting started. My old Lopi freedom bay would runaway like that on me too and it is one of the reasons we dumped the stove. The air intake is on either side of the air control rod below the ash lip so in theory, stuffing a welding glove in that hole should help.

Opening the bypass while the fire is running away could send a nice big flame and heat up your chimney. I wonder if that is more likely to trigger a chimney fire than if you just let the stove get really hot.
 
A guy I work with runs a lopi freedom also. He told me that he took out his air damper assembly and removed the set screw stopper so he is able to snuff a fire if need be. Said he has overfired enough to come up with this measure. Just an fyi
 
Highbeam said:
Your Lopi Freedom bay is good for temps up to 800 on the stove top. You were just getting started.
Click to expand...
I don't really think I need to go right up to 800*F :). 750*F was plenty.

Highbeam said:
Opening the bypass while the fire is running away could send a nice big flame and heat up your chimney. I wonder if that is more likely to trigger a chimney fire than if you just let the stove get really hot.
Click to expand...
I thought about that as I was doing it, but I didn't know what else to do to drop the temp. FWIW, I went outside and looked at the chimney to see if there were any visible flames after I did that :lol:
 
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