Sure, if it starts to rot or get punky. Wet wood will get lighter as it dries, and dry wood will get lighter as it... well, whatever it does to turn into that flaky, mushy, powdery junk (look up dry rot). But that should not happen if the wood is kept dry.
Harman TL 300 Users
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uptrapper
New Member
MishMouse said:
I totally know what you mean, I once made the mistake of buying a thermometer from walmart, darn thing won't show anything below -20. Thats the point when you really need to know the temp. A few winters ago my wife went out to start her car and said wow its really warm out today what the temp, I looked and it was -20, that how you know you live in the north.
Mike
BJ64
Minister of Fire
trump said:
They use the same concept as your stove. They burn the wood and the combustion gases. From what I gather from their website, I believe they have some degree of forced combustion air.
Seasoned Oak
Minister of Fire
FIREFIGHTER29 said:
FF29 WHere did you get your internal flue pipe gauge? whats the brand name? and what did it cost? I can,t find a good gauge anywhere,not even at the farm supply store where thay sell wood stoves.
Seasoned Oak
Minister of Fire
Does anyone here have any experience with CAT stoves and what can you say comparing them to the TL-300. The obvious diff is they light off at 500 Degrees,
I have never owned a cat stove, but the idea of possibly having to replace the cat after a couple to a few years use was enough to make me stay away from them. It would not be bad but the prices for a cat can be expensive.
The cats may be expensive, but your Harman combustion package will run $300, so take good care of it. It seems a cat stove needs a new combustor somewhere between every year and every ten years depending on who you talk to and how they run their stove, but a lot of people seem to get 3-5 years out of them. I don't know if anyone has a good handle on the lifespan of a Harman combustion package - I would hope 10 years (as long as you don't overfire or physically damage it).
Seasoned Oak
Minister of Fire
uptrapper
New Member
I have thought about trying to heat water with my stove too, but never came up with anything that would be safe enough to even think about using. I would be also be intrested in a safe idea someone had.
Mike
Mike
MishMouse
Minister of Fire
trump said:
I would start here: http://www.woodheat.org/dhw/dhw.htm
There is some very interesting articles at this site.
We finally got our stove installed last week! We are 3 days into burning and still are not sure if we got the afterburn going. We get the stove flue temp to about 600, have a thick coal bed and then switch to AB. Our temp then drops to 300 or below and it seems like the fire has gone out!? Have not heard any loud sounds. When AB is working is all the flame gone?
MishMouse
Minister of Fire
LisaP said:
First a few questions:
1) When you say 600 is that external double wall temp or internal?
The internal flue temp should be around 1K when you start the AB or around 500 stove top.
2) When you say 300, what temp are our measuring?
3) How seasoned is your wood?
Ways to determine if AB is working properly.
1) No smoke from chimney
2) Stove top temps should stay above 400 when on level 1 and should hover around 450
3) An occasional flame or a rolling flame on the top of the wood
4) The amount of heat expelled when you put it in AB.
Before if you hold your bare hand over the top back of the stove you should feel heat but not enough to be unpleasant.
If you have it in AB you hold your hand over the top back and it will get uncomfortable quite quickly.
5) You may also hear a rushing sound when you first put it into AB sorta like a jet.
If none of these are happen or if you had a stall.
Just fire the stove back up to 1K internal flue or around 500 stove top and try again.
Since this stove is a downdraft stove it take a little while to get used to, but once you figure it out you will be able to get 10+ hour burns (stove top above 400) on level 1.
PS: On Saturday it was -10 outside, I was downstairs grilling a T bone steak on the grill over the woodfire and the temps in the basement were above 80.
Thanks for the input- I think it is going into afterburn, but it is hovering around 300 (internal therm. on the double wall chimney). I see a red glow in back of stove. I will try to get the temp up to 1000 before switching into ab, that may be our problem. We are getting the grill next week, can't wait to try it out.
Seasoned Oak
Minister of Fire
LisaP said:
Make sure your AB is fireing or you may convert your whole load of wood to creosote. i did this once and although the stove burned for 25 hours on one load of wood, i had a lot of creosote inside the stove , in the flue pipe , in the chimney. wood stoves like to burn hot, you need 1100 degrees at the AB chamber to light off the smoke, usually translates into 400+ stovetop temp. draft is importamt too in maintaining AF fire. You need good draft. A hot fire usually produces good draft. The colder it is outside the better your draft will be.
Seasoned Oak
Minister of Fire
I made a wood stove out of an old oil tank , to heat up a large area and it throws a tremendous amount of heat with just a few pieces of wood in it, i guess its all that Sq feet of sheet metal is a good heat exchanger, the stove pipe will glow red if i let it get tto much air.
Seasoned Oak
Minister of Fire
MishMouse said:
WHen you say 10 hour burn on level 1, do you mean the air adjustment all the way to the left as in minimum air. i got 27 hour burns already on the air at that position.
I have been part of these discussions concerning the TL 300 since I own one. Questions have always been when do I know it is in after-burn? All mentioned is true. What I simply do is wait 15-30 minutes when i have a the bypass shut and air down i simply look at the chimney for smoke or no smoke. No smoke all is well!!
Thats interesting that you bring that up Murry. Now that I have had some good cold weather and some time to really play with this stove, I have found that it will actually go in and out of afterburn throughout the burn cycle. I have found that sometimes I will load it up as normal get the after burn going and in about a half hour time it will stall. Then if I let it go, in time it will kick itself back in and continue to burn as normal. It may do this several times a cycle. The times I gave are not solid, it may burn in afterburn for an hour or two before going out. But my stove will go in and out of afterburn on its own.
Do you check your chimney to see if smoke is coming out?
Being a first year wood burner I may be looking into all of this to much, but safety is first.
I do check my chimney and when smoke is coming out it tells me it's not burning clean or the stove is not in the after burn.
I was just at one of the local stove shops and observed their burning tecniques. It amazed me of how simple thier stove operated. It was a down draft stove.
My observations: No smoke coming from the chimney. Flames in the firebox. Reload the man just threw the log in and shut the by pass, again no smoke from the chimney. They were busy so I could not ask questions. Stove temp was around 475.
This only made me think more!!
Being a first year wood burner I may be looking into all of this to much, but safety is first.
I do check my chimney and when smoke is coming out it tells me it's not burning clean or the stove is not in the after burn.
I was just at one of the local stove shops and observed their burning tecniques. It amazed me of how simple thier stove operated. It was a down draft stove.
My observations: No smoke coming from the chimney. Flames in the firebox. Reload the man just threw the log in and shut the by pass, again no smoke from the chimney. They were busy so I could not ask questions. Stove temp was around 475.
This only made me think more!!
Murry, when I first started burning this stove I did look to see if smoke was coming out. Now, honestly, I can tell by the sound of the stove whither it is in afterburn. But on top of that, I still get up on the roof every month and a half or so and pop the cap off for a look. So far this stove is far better than my old englander 12. This time last year I would have cleaned the chimney twice. I have not cleaned it yet this year.
Seasoned Oak
Minister of Fire
FIREFIGHTER29 said:
Iv had time to get back to my TL-300 and the first thing i did was build a little tunnel out of firewood so i have a clear view of the AF chamber. Now that i can see whats going on it is much simpler to get a good afterburn. WHen there is a lot of new wood in the stove(hence a lot of smoke) each of the AF air holes looks like a little blow torch with a flame shooting out about 2-3 inches. later when the wood burns down
some, the whole AF glows cherry red even on the lowest air setting.And the lower air setting seems to increase AF activity However i still have smoke (or perhaps its steam) coming from my chimney even when i am positive my AF is lit. If i try to engage the AF too soon it will start only for a minute or 2 and then go out. also i get no sound (that i can hear) when in AF. But then again the fan might be drowning out the sound. Either way this is the way to burn wood ,any other way except a cat stove is a waste of wood and all the BTU,s that it can produce.
MishMouse
Minister of Fire
I have some new things to report myself.
Last week we had a register installed with a fire vent.
It increased the heat in the upstairs by around 2 degrees.
So basement is running at around 82 and upstairs is at 74.
Just got the propain bill for 6 weeks of use, used only 30 gallons.
During this timeframe we had about 7-10 days that got above 0 for highs the rest were below 0 for highs.
Bill came to around 85 dollars with fees.
Last year at this time before Harman for the same period we used around 150 gallons.
At this rate stove will pay for itself in around 2 years.
To pay for stove plus installation will take around 4-5 years.
Add to that the benefit of the workout that you get cutting, splitting, and moving the wood to various locations, I come out ahead all the way around.
Last week we had a register installed with a fire vent.
It increased the heat in the upstairs by around 2 degrees.
So basement is running at around 82 and upstairs is at 74.
Just got the propain bill for 6 weeks of use, used only 30 gallons.
During this timeframe we had about 7-10 days that got above 0 for highs the rest were below 0 for highs.
Bill came to around 85 dollars with fees.
Last year at this time before Harman for the same period we used around 150 gallons.
At this rate stove will pay for itself in around 2 years.
To pay for stove plus installation will take around 4-5 years.
Add to that the benefit of the workout that you get cutting, splitting, and moving the wood to various locations, I come out ahead all the way around.
trump said:
I would say that 90% of the time I get little to no sound at all from the afterburn. The only time I get the "jet engine" sound is when my coal bed is at least half the way up the afterburn throat in the back of the fire box. Sometimes it scares the $hit out of me when I kick it in lol. The one thing that is a for sure with my stove is I get a ticking sound (like what any stove makes when its heating or cooling) coming from my stove. But I can tell from the fast frequency and pitch of the ticking sound that the afterburn is working. And sure enough if I would look, no smoke. So after a point in time I would not waste my time and freeze myself to look. And to this point I must be doing something correct due to the lack of creosote and the awesome wood lasting potential I can reach.
Seasoned Oak
Minister of Fire
It seems my AB goes out after a few hours on the lowest setting ,and the stovetop temp drops to 300 even with a full load of wood or at least the visible flame goes out ,so im trying it with the fan shut off for overnight burn to keep the AF chamber hotter, ill try various air settings until i can keep AF on all night.
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