Can I heat up too fast from cold start?

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prajna101

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Oct 15, 2009
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Portland OR
I was reading a thread here about how long it takes people to get their stoves up to heat from a cold start. I generally thought it took me about an hour or so. But I never really put any effort in and never recorded it. So last night I decided I would try to see what she could do. I put in more kindling than I normally do, a bit more paper than normal then smaller splits than normal. 80 degrees to start. 150 at 5 min. 290 at 10 min. 385 at 15 min and I shut the air down. Good secondarys. At 20 min it was 495 and I turned on the fan. She cruised there for an hour or so then I loaded some larger wood on for the night.

So, My thoughts from the experiment is that I could get her hot fast. BUT it got me to thinking. Is that a good idea? I guess I am burning cleaner sooner that way, but how about being nice to my stove. It seems like it gave it less time to come to an equal temp and perhaps that is not nice way to treat her. Perhaps a bit of foreplay is better to not stress anything.

Any thoughts? Its it better to come to temp fast or slow?

Todd
 
Other than cleaning out your chimney in a good or bad way, I see nothing wrong with giving it hell. Provided you are not an owner of a SoapStone stove like me.....
 
I haven't had any trouble with coming to temps quickly last year. There are some expansion/fatigue arguements that can be made, but in the end, the only guidance in my manual is for break in burns, and then they tell me not to let anything glow. I do expect that if I were to always run it fast and hot, it would wear out quicker, but if that is worth getting warmer quicker then it is the price of doing business.
 
It should do no harm with a steel or cast stove, but with soapstone it is best to be a little slower. I still heat ours up pretty quick compared to others but have had no problem.
 
Once it is broken in I think it is fine. When we light fires it is usually because we want heat ( sometimes for ambiance ), so the sooner the better.
 
60ºF > 900ºF in ~30 minutes, have done that many times - no problem for a steel stove. Have seen recommendations not to crank a soapstone that hard, though don't know if it is on the theory of 'shocking' the stone or overshooting the 500-700 'overfire' temp. Should not be a problem for cast iron as far as the metal is concerned either (car exhaust manifolds do much more than that), though you might get some pretty big expansion differences across the joints.
 
Starting from cold, you are not going to "Shock" a cast or steel stove fast enough to harm anything. Your steel frying pan or cast iron dutch oven will go from room temp to 600F in a matter of minutes. No harm.

Burn 'em, if ya got 'em.
 
It's true that you won't harm the steel by heating it up to fast but the differences in expansion could harm or crack the joints/welds.

The risk depends on the design of the stove and the quality of the joints.

To be on the safe side, I always bring them up a little slow - ie get a small fire going for a 20 minutes or so and then bring it up to full.

In an hour or less , I'm at full operating temp.
 
Those Banzai start ups are a lot harder on the chimney than they are on the stove.
 
BrotherBart said:
Those Banzai start ups are a lot harder on the chimney than they are on the stove.
Click to expand...

Good point. If anything is going to expand and contract with rapid temperature change, my flex liner is high on the list. I hadn't even considered that.

Would clay tiles fair worse or better in a rapid heat up than flex?
 
CleanBurnin said:
Would clay tiles fair worse or better in a rapid heat up than flex?
Click to expand...

This is purely speculation, but I would have to guess NO. Clay being clay it does not have the expansion/contraction properties that steel or cast does.
 
Steel and cast iron stoves tend to heat up fairly uniformly. Now if you load the thing to the gill will kiln dried firewood and open up the ashpan door to fire it up, yeah, you can probably warp a plate here or there.

The stoves made out of rocks have a bigger risk of cracking. It takes longer to heat up the soapstone uniformly. That's why stoves should be made out of cast iron instead of rocks. ;^)
 
Jags said:
CleanBurnin said:
Would clay tiles fair worse or better in a rapid heat up than flex?
Click to expand...

This is purely speculation, but I would have to guess NO. Clay being clay it does not have the expansion/contraction properties that steel or cast does.
Click to expand...

My guess is worse, as clay flue liners are not supposed to be attached to their walls but have air space to allow for thermal expansion. Many (most?) clay liners are motored right to the chimney without that space, so I would think a more rapid heat up may lead to more potential cracking.

I read a theory that flexible liners tend to collect less creosote because they flex as they expand and contract with temperature fluctuations, causing buildups to loosen and fall away. Don't know if that's true, but if it is, fire away!
 
cycloxer said:
That's why stoves should be made out of cast iron instead of rocks. ;^)
Click to expand...

Oh NO you di' en't! :gulp: :lol:
 
branchburner said:
My guess is worse, as clay flue liners are not supposed to be attached to their walls but have air space to allow for thermal expansion. Many (most?) clay liners are motored right to the chimney without that space, so I would think a more rapid heat up may lead to more potential cracking.
Click to expand...

The fact is - is that I don't know, but I think an argument could be made for the mass/speed of the clay being heated compared to the mass/speed of the steel.
 
cycloxer said:
Steel and cast iron stoves tend to heat up fairly uniformly. Now if you load the thing to the gill will kiln dried firewood and open up the ashpan door to fire it up, yeah, you can probably warp a plate here or there.

The stoves made out of rocks have a bigger risk of cracking. It takes longer to heat up the soapstone uniformly. That's why stoves should be made out of cast iron instead of rocks. ;^)
Click to expand...

Where were you three months ago when I bought my soapstone stove ... I wish I had your advice then!
 
AlexNY said:
Where were you three months ago when I bought my soapstone stove ... I wish I had your advice then!
Click to expand...

I was just kidding around. Soapstone stoves make very good 24hr burners as they have a very high thermal mass. I prefer the cast iron stoves with all of the air voids in the casting to provide a soft, lasting heat, but I am a traditionalist.

Like with anything, regardless of the material or design, if you treat the stove right, it will last a long time. If you run it rough, well, your mileage my vary. I'd imagine you could crack a casting, warp a steel plate, or crack a stone fairly easily if you try hard enough
 
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