'Nother FV question--

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scotsman

scotsman

Feeling the Heat
Aug 6, 2008
453
West Texas
What is the best technique to minimize ash? I'm getting unburned chunks of charred wood in my stove instead of ashes. I want to burn everything to as small an ash as possible.

Also, when the air is cut down to about .75 to 1.0, I get the curtain of flame suspended above the wood (which does not appear to be burning!) and it looks like there's soot forming on the glass just where the rounded corners are on each side as the window frame turns toward the peak. Anybody else have this happen? Is is a bad sign or good sign?
 
1. There's been a lot of discussion about coaling with the FV recently. Bumping the air open during the end of the burn cycle helps a lot. Dry wood cut small also helps. My FV is keeping up with the colder temps (like 0!) pretty well, especially after resplitting some of the larger pieces I had. Of course I'm throwing wood in much more frequently. I remove ash about every 2 weeks.
2. A little soot on the window isn't a problem, it'll burn off later when the firebox/glass temps are higher. Its not unusual to get plenty of creosote in the firebox when burning low; about the only problem is that the buildup on the inside of the door can get a little smoke into the house while reloading. I think I've cleaned the glass only once.
3. Re the issue of thermal shock to the cat, I've opened the stove door a few (maybe 4,5?) times with the cat still engaged and no sign of crumbling yet. Not suggesting this is OK to do, but a few slips now and then won't necessarily kill it.

Hope its working out for you.
 
The key to burning down those coals is to get that draft open full about the time the wood has burned down to just coals or just a little before that. I actually open the draft full a long time before it is down to just coals. Let that thing burn. When it is down to just coals it can also be a good idea to take the poker and rake through the coals to loosen them which will cause them to burn up faster.

Glass getting black seems odd for you Terry with your wood. Perhaps you are cutting the draft just a tad too much. I suspect that wood still has some oils in it which is causing the black. If it does not clean off by itself, then the next time you let the stove cool, take a small piece of newspaper and just dampen it. Dip it, or just touch some ashes and you will find that black practically melts off the glass.



Rick, there should be no creosote in the firebox or on the glass. If you have creosote that means your wood is not very dry yet. We can run our Fireview many times with the draft closed and we still do not get creosote. And that is amazing that you empty ashes only every 2 weeks! We're doing it about every 4th day.
 
My trick to burning down the coals matches Dennis's. I was reluctant at first to go to a draft of #4 for fear of hurting something when the cat was engaged, but once I see that stovetop temp start to dip below 400 I crank it to #2 then when its near 300 or even 350 I go to #4. This really helps burn those suckers down quick and like Dennis said, run the poker through them - I do it each time I change the draft.I have a feeling if my flue was insulated the draft would be better and coaling would be less of a problem The Fireview has a pretty low Flue temp so it needs all the help it can get to keep that draft moving. It seems this stove's high efficiency works against it because a low flue temp hurts the draft, which makes coaling more of a problem. My biggest complaint with the FV is I wish it had an automatic thermostat to open the draft as the firebox temp dropped. But this would also cause the stove temps to decline quicker. I wonder if the next generation of EPA stoves are going to be so efficient and have such low flue temps that the liners will all have to be super-insulated?
 
Instead of turning up the air at the end just give it a little more air at the beginning of the burn. My low burn setting is usually at .5-.75 and I get some unburnt chunks and long lasting coals for over 12 hours. When I burn at or about #1 I get a hotter fire and less coaling and she's ready for reloading in 7-8 hours. Keep playing with your air settings and you will find your sweet spots for different heat outputs and burn times.

How is the stove heating your place so far Terry? Looks like you guys had some nasty weather a few days ago.
 
During the really cold days and nights I have to burn on a high initial setting (.75 to 1.0) and also increase to 2.0 to 4.0 as it burns down. The windows in this house are awful (builder's specials!) and the FV has trouble keeping up - especially when its so windy. The plan is to replace a bunch of windows this year and hopefully the FV will coast a little better at a lower setting. At the very least I want to take advantage of the Energy tax rebate for some windows!
 
fire_man said:
During the really cold days and nights I have to burn on a high initial setting (.75 to 1.0) and also increase to 2.0 to 4.0 as it burns down. The windows in this house are awful (builder's specials!) and the FV has trouble keeping up - especially when its so windy. The plan is to replace a bunch of windows this year and hopefully the FV will coast a little better at a lower setting. At the very least I want to take advantage of the Energy tax rebate for some windows!
Click to expand...

I put new windows in a couple years ago and it made a big difference. Have you tried the 3m plastic?
 
Backwoods Savage said:
The key to burning down those coals is to get that draft open full about the time the wood has burned down to just coals or just a little before that. I actually open the draft full a long time before it is down to just coals. Let that thing burn. When it is down to just coals it can also be a good idea to take the poker and rake through the coals to loosen them which will cause them to burn up faster.

Glass getting black seems odd for you Terry with your wood. Perhaps you are cutting the draft just a tad too much. I suspect that wood still has some oils in it which is causing the black. If it does not clean off by itself, then the next time you let the stove cool, take a small piece of newspaper and just dampen it. Dip it, or just touch some ashes and you will find that black practically melts off the glass.

Rick, there should be no creosote in the firebox or on the glass. If you have creosote that means your wood is not very dry yet. We can run our Fireview many times with the draft closed and we still do not get creosote. And that is amazing that you empty ashes only every 2 weeks! We're doing it about every 4th day.
Click to expand...

Okay, didn't know about opening the draft to full. I've been moving it to about 2 or 3 about the time flame cannot be sustained on the wood. AND, this issue didn't arise unitl I started to burn the pallet wood during this last weather event we had. When I burn the cedar, it burns to 100% ash 100% of the time--and I'm talking very light, light gray ash with almost no volume. So, the presence of charred, unburned pieces was immediately noticeable. The sooty glass also didn't happen until I began to burn the pallet wood. It is still transparent and looks like a medium dense fog on the bottom 2/3 of the glass with the top 1/3 being clear. The next time I fired it up, that was gone, so I guess no problem there. I had also cut the air to about .60, which seems to be an issue. Apparently, for my conditions, I can't go below 1.0 without causing something adverse to happen.

I 'bout freebled when Rick said he only cleans ash out once/2 weeks. I was glad to hear my every 3 - 4 days is more in the relm of reality. If I burn cedar, I can go five days under the right conditions, but the pallet wood seems to require about 4 days. It obviously isn't as dry as the cedar. Since last Wednesday, I've burned only pallet wood during this last storm, so I could see how it performed AND since all my cedar was wet from the rain and snow. 'Pears I need to mix the pallet wood with the cedar for better results.

Thanks for the input. I'm still working on figuriing this thing out.
 
FYI - at first I always tried to keep flame in the box. I have since learned that it really isn't necessary and oddly it doesn't seem to really affect the total cycle time on full loads. What I mean is that I can burn down a full load in 4-5 hours even without having a blazing flame in the box during the first part of the burn that turns the cast innards bright glowing shades of red. Instead I start out at .5-.75 range (vs 1) and let the flame die out if it wants to. The stove top will spike higher as the cat cooks away at the smoke. Then once the temp starts to drop off - perhaps 1.5-3 hours later I kick the air up to 1.5-2 and then let it finish out the cycle. I haven't gone full bore to 4 to burn down the coals like others here are reporting simply since it doesn't seem necessary for me.

Now the interesting part for me is the temperatures. My old 'max burn' attempts would have the firebox and stovetop running hot - lots of flames in the box so the sides would warm up to 400's and the top would register 500's - but the downside is the flue surface would register right about 300 +/-10. Now with the the way I described above it changes things - during the first hour or two of the burn the sides run 300's and top will run up to 600-650, then during the last phase (coal burn-down) the top will drop to 350-400ish, but the sides will climb up to high 400's or low 500's and really put out the heat as the coals glow bright with the pretty blue 'gas flames' on top. I almost feel like I get more heat from the last bit than the first. Flue temps with this cycle patter will remain at or below 200 throughout (once reload is done of course). When cycling fast (4-5 hrs between loads) the sides never really cool down from the coaling stage of the prior burn and I get a pretty steady top/bottom heat pattern that just seems to pump out the heat. Overall I like this better as I don't have glowing innards and the flue temp stays lower which implies to me that I'm keeping more heat in the house - my rough way of evaluating overall effective efficiency.

As to glass darkening - I have seen this. More when I engage the cat earlier after a reload or if I have bark facing the glass. I have minimized it by making sure I wait the 10 minutes before engaging the cat (I turn air down if necessary to keep flue temp from getting too high) and not having a piece with bark facing the glass. I suspect the oils in the bark shoot out those jets and when they hit the glass the soot it up more - or perhaps the bark just holds more moisture naturally. I still get it once in a while anyway, I expect when I have a split in there that just isn't as dry. It always burns off - during the coaling stage if not before.
 
Todd said:
Instead of turning up the air at the end just give it a little more air at the beginning of the burn. My low burn setting is usually at .5-.75 and I get some unburnt chunks and long lasting coals for over 12 hours. When I burn at or about #1 I get a hotter fire and less coaling and she's ready for reloading in 7-8 hours. Keep playing with your air settings and you will find your sweet spots for different heat outputs and burn times.

How is the stove heating your place so far Terry? Looks like you guys had some nasty weather a few days ago.
Click to expand...

Re: Heating capacity--The jury is still out on that, Todd. Since I don't think the operator errors are all ironed out yet, it seems too early to render a verdict on the stove. Once the operator figures out how to run the thing, then maybe an assessment can be made, however, my preliminary assessment is that the stove IS somewhat too small for this application. I think the WS square footage capability estimate may be very close unless the stove is pushed to around 90% of its rating. Of course, one cannot expect the stove to sustain that level for long enough to produce adequate heat for more than about 10% of the time (at the over 90% level) without running the risk of frequent overfiring of the stove. So, it looks like we (me AND the stove) need a little more experience before we have enough data to decide. It would seem logical that a larger firebox would heat more with less need to push the stove as much as with this one.

But you're right, we have had some winter weather down thissy, but then it's winter and we should expect it. A lot of folks down here expect it to be mild and nice during winter. They've forgotten that we can (and do) get very cold weather here. For example, the record low for this date is -7 F. We have many record lows below 0 in these parts.
 
Slow1 said:
FYI - at first I always tried to keep flame in the box. I have since learned that it really isn't necessary and oddly it doesn't seem to really affect the total cycle time on full loads. What I mean is that I can burn down a full load in 4-5 hours even without having a blazing flame in the box during the first part of the burn that turns the cast innards bright glowing shades of red. Instead I start out at .5-.75 range (vs 1) and let the flame die out if it wants to. The stove top will spike higher as the cat cooks away at the smoke. Then once the temp starts to drop off - perhaps 1.5-3 hours later I kick the air up to 1.5-2 and then let it finish out the cycle. I haven't gone full bore to 4 to burn down the coals like others here are reporting simply since it doesn't seem necessary for me.

Now the interesting part for me is the temperatures. My old 'max burn' attempts would have the firebox and stovetop running hot - lots of flames in the box so the sides would warm up to 400's and the top would register 500's - but the downside is the flue surface would register right about 300 +/-10. Now with the the way I described above it changes things - during the first hour or two of the burn the sides run 300's and top will run up to 600-650, then during the last phase (coal burn-down) the top will drop to 350-400ish, but the sides will climb up to high 400's or low 500's and really put out the heat as the coals glow bright with the pretty blue 'gas flames' on top. I almost feel like I get more heat from the last bit than the first. Flue temps with this cycle patter will remain at or below 200 throughout (once reload is done of course). When cycling fast (4-5 hrs between loads) the sides never really cool down from the coaling stage of the prior burn and I get a pretty steady top/bottom heat pattern that just seems to pump out the heat. Overall I like this better as I don't have glowing innards and the flue temp stays lower which implies to me that I'm keeping more heat in the house - my rough way of evaluating overall effective efficiency.

As to glass darkening - I have seen this. More when I engage the cat earlier after a reload or if I have bark facing the glass. I have minimized it by making sure I wait the 10 minutes before engaging the cat (I turn air down if necessary to keep flue temp from getting too high) and not having a piece with bark facing the glass. I suspect the oils in the bark shoot out those jets and when they hit the glass the soot it up more - or perhaps the bark just holds more moisture naturally. I still get it once in a while anyway, I expect when I have a split in there that just isn't as dry. It always burns off - during the coaling stage if not before.
Click to expand...

Interesting technique, I've never tried burning this way but it makes sense, I agree keeping the flue temps down means keeping the heat in the stove.
 
Terry, I recall when we first bought this stove that we were also worried about over firing it. If the stove got to 600 degrees we'd start getting nervous. That soon disappeared when we found if we just let it go the temperature would max out between 650-700. Not until this year did we actually hit 700 degrees.

What I'm trying to say is that you might or might-not have to worry about over firing. You'll do fine once you have a little time with the stove. If you ever do get to 700 and it is still going up, then open the bypass for a few minutes. In our case it takes 5 minutes or less. When I did this, the temperature started falling and finally settled between 600-650 and cooked nicely.
 
Slow, that was a great post.

That is an interesting theory on the wood bark blacking the glass. I've never given thought to that but perhaps I shall try experimenting. I do know that last night I put 2 fair sized rounds right in front. This morning though, there is less of the gray ash film on the glass! We have experience the black glass only when the stove was new and we were doing the break-in fires. We may have gotten it once or twice more that first year but I don't recall it being so. I do know that last year and this year we have not experienced any blacking of the glass.
 
I've not had black or even brown glass after the burn cycle is completed since the break-in fires. However, I have observed a short-term blackening now and then as described. In fact I had it last night pretty bad. I think must have had a bad split in there or something, or perhaps just the way I loaded blocked the airwash. I had a very rectangular split sitting right in front on the bottom that made a wall of wood covering the bottom 2/3 of the glass area pretty much all the way across. I can't imagine this allowed for proper airflow. When it was smoking out good and heavy about an hour into the burn the glass turned dark down there - top was clear and there was a fire line between where it was clear and dark. This morning you would never know it had happened - I have no idea how long it stayed dark as I went to bed.
 
Todd said:
fire_man said:
During the really cold days and nights I have to burn on a high initial setting (.75 to 1.0) and also increase to 2.0 to 4.0 as it burns down. The windows in this house are awful (builder's specials!) and the FV has trouble keeping up - especially when its so windy. The plan is to replace a bunch of windows this year and hopefully the FV will coast a little better at a lower setting. At the very least I want to take advantage of the Energy tax rebate for some windows!
Click to expand...

I put new windows in a couple years ago and it made a big difference. Have you tried the 3m plastic?
Click to expand...

I tried that stuff on a few windows. It did help cut down the drafts, but boy what a pain that stuff is. I'm afraid to see what the sticky stuff looks like when I peel it off this spring and with my window setup its impossible to stretch tight across so the view is compromised. It's definitely a bandaid job for now. I really hope replacing windows is not a waste - they aint cheap and the wife won't go for replacement windows (she wants new construction). The FV is just not enough with all the drafts in really cold weather.
 
The only time I seem to get dirty glass is during reload when the door is open and I'm going back and forth to the firewood pile. If that front bottom split takes off right away with the door open it will dirty the glass but once I close the door it burns off from the air wash. I do get a light white film over about a month but I can still see the fire just fine. I haven't had to clean my glass in over a month. When I do clean the glass all it takes is a damp paper towel to clean that white film off.
 
Getting back to Slow1's burning technique, I was thinking that is similar to how a thermostat would work on a stove like the Blaze King. You set the desired heat output and the thermostat opens or closes the air some to maintain that temp as fuel is consumed and burned down. I think it would be a great option for all wood stoves. Wonder how hard it would be to make one for the Fireview?
 
Todd said:
Getting back to Slow1's burning technique, I was thinking that is similar to how a thermostat would work on a stove like the Blaze King. You set the desired heat output and the thermostat opens or closes the air some to maintain that temp as fuel is consumed and burned down. I think it would be a great option for all wood stoves. Wonder how hard it would be to make one for the Fireview?
Click to expand...

Funny you should mention that.. I've been debating the same thing. What I've been trying to figure out is just what exactly I would want to key off from on the stove to open/close the air. Watching the temps on the two places I keep the thermometers and then the few other areas I hit with the IR gun (all external) I am not sure I have anywhere near an optimal algorithm in mind yet. Then of course once logic is worked out there is the mechanical side, but that shouldn't be all that hard to engineer - except for putting in failsafe backup to insure the system can only fail in such a way as to shut the system down, not shoot into overfire.

Overall the KISS principle should be maintained, thus perhaps just monitor the CAT temp and have the system open the damper more as temps require...
 
I'll bet that just a timer based control scheme would work pretty well. A certain time to engage the cat (real slow to damp thermal shock) and turn down the air, then maybe a slow increasing ramp on the air. Only 2 or 3 parameters to worry about there, and no sensors to keep healthy. Could use cheap digital linear actuators, and ( over the top now) power the whole thing with Peltier modules! Lessee; two rounds of custom circuit boards from ExpressPCB - maybe $100, actuators - another $100, and a couple of weeks for a dufus like me to make it work. Hmm.. Ya know, it works pretty well the way it is.
One thing that really interests me is the prospect of reclaiming some flue heat at high air settings. You wouldn't want it for a low cruise, but I suspect that a lot of heat goes up the pipe with the air turned up.
 
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