Isle Royale accidental overfire - it happens... be careful

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Baron62

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May 3, 2008
24
CT
I woke up this morning to find the new woodstove overfiring with the temp guage pegged. My 14 year old son who is always first up in morning, was helping out by putting wood into the woodstove. Well, he opened the Primary air and Startup air full open, loaded with wood and proceeded to watch TV in the other room. I came into the room about 45 minutes later to find the stove quite hot. I closed the controls completely and within 15 minutes it was back down to 500 degrees. It cleaned the glass nicely and demagnitized the thermometer. Stove seems to be fine. I will definitely be doing more family training.

This year we transitioned from a VC Intrepid to a Quadrafire Isle Royale which is a totally different stove with the added Start up air control. Using the start up air is like leaving the door open on the old VC. He has always done a great job operating the VC but this is a different beast. I did train my son several times on the new stove including the night before. The night before while training he gave me the typical teen age comment as he half listened to me. "Yah Yah Dad it is just a woodstove....do you think I'm stupid". He learned a lesson from that experience and so did I. More TRAINING.
 
More training, less TV. %-P Glad you were standing by dad.
 
Don't worry about it. We all do that once in a while and as long as no metal is cracked or no glass is broken ...you are golden...It's a good heads up as you say and I bet you won't do that again for a long while.
 
Nice going with your kid Quad....he'll learn better the way you handled it.

Even after too many years of stove loadings, forgetting to lower the air, or close the door for startup fires, we routinely use a loud timer when laoding. Got too many things going on, too often: meetings, phone calls, PC work, woodpile lurking, visits, and yes the unmentionable. The timer is a PITA but works especially with the steps involved in the cat stove; the non-cat is simpler. Saves the overfires.
 
Scary. No harm, no foul. It is easy to get preoccupied with other things. Events like
this are good safety reminders for all of us.
 
I'm glad all is well. It is a good safety reminder for all of us.
 
downeast said:
The timer is a PITA but works especially with the steps involved in the cat stove; the non-cat is simpler. Saves the overfires.
Click to expand...
Not so true with the non-cats. I pegged the thermo (somewhere over 850F) on mine last night. Scared the living snot out of me.
I had been doing really well for a newbie. I put in a new load on the coals and gave it the air to get it primed. Full primary and open bypass.
I went upstairs and got distracted by the Sox game. Half way down the stairs I knew I had screwed up bad. I cut off the air and prayed.
I shut off the lights and no metal was glowing but it took a long time for the temp to get down to a sane level and even longer for my heart to drop back down where it's supposed to be. I don't know if I caused any damage or not.
The timer does sound like a PITA that wouldn't get used more than a few times. I was just wondering with the wife if there's such a thing as an overfire alarm.
We have such a thing for boiling syrup. I'm gonna look into the temp. range of that device after I check my stove.
Let's be careful out there !
 
For this reason alone I was sold on having a stove with a built in thermostat on the damper. As long as it is set at #3 or less it will not let the stove overfire. It will just simply regulate it to maintain a controlled safe but hot burn. If I was to forget to set the stat it has a fusible link to let the damper fail in a closed safe position.
 
That fusible link is a nice safety feature. I loved the thermostatic damper on my old Resolute. Wish all stoves had this.

FWIW, this confirms why it's a bad idea to use the ash pan door to turbo-fire start the stove. Crap happens and people get distracted.
 
Brian VT said:
downeast said:
The timer is a PITA but works especially with the steps involved in the cat stove; the non-cat is simpler. Saves the overfires.
Click to expand...
Not so true with the non-cats. I pegged the thermo (somewhere over 850F) on mine last night. Scared the living snot out of me.
I had been doing really well for a newbie. I put in a new load on the coals and gave it the air to get it primed. Full primary and open bypass.
I went upstairs and got distracted by the Sox game. Half way down the stairs I knew I had screwed up bad. I cut off the air and prayed.
I shut off the lights and no metal was glowing but it took a long time for the temp to get down to a sane level and even longer for my heart to drop back down where it's supposed to be. I don't know if I caused any damage or not.
The timer does sound like a PITA that wouldn't get used more than a few times. I was just wondering with the wife if there's such a thing as an overfire alarm.
We have such a thing for boiling syrup. I'm gonna look into the temp. range of that device after I check my stove.
Let's be careful out there !
Click to expand...

Ah yes, those Resolute Acclaims; many many negative experiences with them. The air control is a coil device, at full air and no damper bupass, it will overfire. Look over the owner stories here.
Our non-cat Oslo has one air control: it can't get too much air, and cannot be damped low for no air. It is a mommy control to prevent us from shutting off the air completely, or overfiring. John Gulland has a nice explanation and possible solutions for this: it is here somewhere.
 
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