Quick help request - how to cool down overheating stove

My thoughts are if you have 30' with no angles then you would need a damper IMHO. The EPA stoves need dry wood but they also burn cleaner. It is very unusual to see any smoke coming out our chimney. The EPA stoves will never have a complete fresh air shut off because then people would use it to prolong the burn. What we all did in the old stoves is starve the fire so it would smolder for hours. That would give anyone long burn times the difference is the EPA stove will give you heat instead of smoldering during the overnight burn with no or at least very little smoke.

caber said:

Now I understand. I was wondering for a while why you couldn't just close off the airflow and put out the fire. We have an older stove and have done that on occasions. Seems crazy that new stoves have no way to cut off all the air and shut them down in emergencies.

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My thoughts exactly - where is the common sense in not having the ability to completely withdraw air from the firebox in the event of an emergency! Don't like the thought of losing that control at all.

I have tall chimneys, with DRAFT.

Just put in a BDD on the wood/coal boiler. Jam the BDD shut, and the draft goes crazy... 1.25 inches! With the BDD it's a nice calm .025 inches... much better. Most wood burning stuff is tested and designed, I believe, for a 15 ft chimney, usually 8x8 masonry "or equivalent"... Seems a flat damper or BDD is a necessity for a tall stack. Minimizing air supply and closing the damper would restore control to a runaway fire pretty quick.

Scary... I've had a couple where I set there with the phone in hand... rehearsing what to say...

Ummm... my fireplace insert has a fire in it, and I'm scared... Can see the guys down to the firehouse now... "WTF???"

They'd be happy to come out once or twice a year to make sure you're okay, and that the runaway fire doesn't truly get "OUT" of control. But if it got more than once or twice, I'd expect a call from the fire chief...

Our best bet for shutting off air to the stove is a valve of some sort on the intake air supply which does not include modifying the stove. The next best is to install the flue damper.

On my Hearthstone product, the intake duct is 100% sealed and enters through a rather nice 3" diamter nipple made of sheet metal about 3" long on the rear of the stove. The nipple is removable (and replacable) to bring to the bench for some custom work. Would it really be that difficult to put a butterfly valve in that nipple?

I have a bungalow chimney but I am not in Florida. So when the temps hit low teens even my 14' chimney can suck the stove into the high temp range with the primary air control shut off.

Just fab out a custom 3 inch flat damper... don't want to shut it "off", just seriously limit it.

Highbeam said:

Our best bet for shutting off air to the stove is a valve of some sort on the intake air supply which does not include modifying the stove. The next best is to install the flue damper.

On my Hearthstone product, the intake duct is 100% sealed and enters through a rather nice 3" diamter nipple made of sheet metal about 3" long on the rear of the stove. The nipple is removable (and replacable) to bring to the bench for some custom work. Would it really be that difficult to put a butterfly valve in that nipple?

I have a bungalow chimney but I am not in Florida. So when the temps hit low teens even my 14' chimney can suck the stove into the high temp range with the primary air control shut off.

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If you want to cool a stove toss a piece of damp wood in...

One reason my wife and I are trading out the non-cat QuadraFire for a catalytic Fireview is exactly this scenario, which has happened three times. We certainly have a "bungalow chimney", 35 foot internal masonry granite, 4 flues, and certainly overdrafting is the problem. We have been struggling with the issue of whether to install a flue damper or a damper in the OAK, but we settled for changing stove types.

Does anyone know if the catalytic stoves on the market now can be shut down completely, especially the Fireview, or is this an EPA design issue as pointed out in the Bungalow article?

I sent an email to Woodstock a few minutes ago....

Appreciate all the expertise available around here!!

herbster

I have a Jotul F3 I have gotten it up to 650. I was a bit nervous considering designed running between 400 - 600. Later in the week I read a post on that stated stove top thermometers are off. I checked my rutland thermometers in my stove it was reading about 120 degrees hotter that it should be. I really had nothing to worry about running my stove at 650 degrees.