Putting full load in and going to bed

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RSNovi

RSNovi

Feeling the Heat
May 12, 2010
421
Michigan
I am still trying to learn how to run my Oslo for an overnight burn. Often times I will get the stove going in the evening and then hope to run it all night and the next day on the weekend. Yesterday I got the stove running with the first load of wood at about 600 degrees. I let the stove burn down and put a full load in. Since I was going straight to bed, I cut the air all the way down to 25%. I woke up because I could smell smoke and the fire was just smoldering with the glass all black. Came down and gave it more air and the stove took off and then I cut it back for a decent 7 hour burn.

How do you guys load for the night and timing for adjusting your air? Especially if you are loading and heading straight to bed.

Chris
 
I don't think you can fill up the stove and go directly to bed. You'll need to load the stove, allow the wood to catch well, and begin to dial down the air intake until you've achieved a good fire with good secondaries at the lower air setting (for the overnight burn). I think you just didn't give the load of wood enough air early in the cycle, and therefore the fire began so smolder until you opened the air back up. Cheers!
 
RSNovi said:
Especially if you are loading and heading straight to bed.

Chris
Click to expand...

Not a good idea to 'load & go' with any stove.

Each fire is unique and therefore burns differently depending on species of wood, moisture content of each piece, load direction, air space between splits, etc.

Load, the fire, turn it down in steps over time until you are down to around 1/4 and then go to bed.

Shari
 
Admittedly I used to do that with my old smoke dragon but I think the only stoves you can do that with now are the CAT stoves. CAT owners correct me if I am wrong. I try to do what NH_Wood suggested above.
 
I found that loading my last load about 30 minutes before I head upstairs works best, then start dialing back the air after about 20 minutes, I don't usually dial it back all at once, but in two, sometimes three moves, 5 minutes or so apart. If I dial it back all at once, or to soon, I wake to dirty glass... but of course that first reload in the morning takes care of that.. ;-)
 
RSNovi said:
I am still trying to learn how to run my Oslo for an overnight burn. Often times I will get the stove going in the evening and then hope to run it all night and the next day on the weekend. Yesterday I got the stove running with the first load of wood at about 600 degrees. I let the stove burn down and put a full load in. Since I was going straight to bed, I cut the air all the way down to 25%. I woke up because I could smell smoke and the fire was just smoldering with the glass all black. Came down and gave it more air and the stove took off and then I cut it back for a decent 7 hour burn.

How do you guys load for the night and timing for adjusting your air? Especially if you are loading and heading straight to bed.

Chris
Click to expand...

Chris, my first thought is, why are you filling the stove at this time of the year? If it takes a full load to heat your home now then when winter hits you will be needing a big backup heat because that stove won't do it.

We have a cat stove, but there is very little difference in how you set with cat stove or one like yours. Pretty much the only difference is that we can get away with lower draft setting (the cat burns smoke) and the fact that we have to move that little lever to turn the cat on or off.

Presently, we will put in 2 or 3 small splits. Usually within 10 minutes we turn the cat on and dial down to 1 (on a 1-4 draft setting). After about 10 more minutes we then dial down to anywhere from .25 to .75 (depends upon wood and weather). Then we go to bed and forget it until morning when we start the cycle again.

During the winter we follow pretty much the same routine except now we have a full load of wood in the stove.
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys! It just looks like a little more patience and planning when I go to bed will make things much better.
 
I load 1/2 hour before going to bed. That gives me enough time to get the new load fully engulfed in flames and have had the chance to turn it down 2-3 times so that it's at it's lowest setting / burning well / not smoldering.

pen
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Chris, my first thought is, why are you filling the stove at this time of the year? If it takes a full load to heat your home now then when winter hits you will be needing a big backup heat because that stove won't do it.
Click to expand...

Savage, you bring up a great point. My stove is in my basement which I just finished at around 500 square feet and talking with the installer, they thought I should be able to supply a good deal of heat to the rest of the house which is a two story home with 2300 square feet above the basement. They even installed a cold air return close to the stove and three heat registers down in the finished basement. I also leave the basement door open hoping to spill some heat up the stairs.

I can easily heat the basement above 95 degrees if I really push the stove, but the first floor I have been able to get to around mid 70's as you said this time of the year. Last night it was mid 30's and when I woke up this morning it was high 60's to low 70's on the first floors and the bedrooms on the second floor were comfortable for sleeping.

I tried a fan blowing air down into the basement and I didn't notice very much difference so I removed that. I wouldn't mind trying it again with a less noisy fan. My stairs go up half way and make a turn before going to the first floor.

In the end I am also wondering if I will be able to make a dent in the heat on the first and second floor when it is 0 degrees outside. Especially without just heating the heck out of the basement and making that unusable. I am definitely open to any suggestions. I have read numerous posts on here about distributing heat and I realize that the basement is not the best place for the stove, but it was the only place that seemed to make sense to install the stove and I wanted a heat source for the basement when finished. Going with the larger size and trying to heat more was a bonus benefit and the dealer thought we could make it work.
 
I try to load her up and get it to 550 to 600 degrees and then let it level off for a bit. Even then, I usually give it a bit more time before shutting the light off and heading to bed.
 
If the basement is insulated, I'd suggest pushing as much cooler air as possible down to the basement. If the basement isn't insulated, most of your heat is being absorbed by Mother Earth.
 
Chris, your house setup sounds really familiar to what I have. Stove is in a finished basement with a few more levels you would like to heat. I use two fans, one at the bottom of the basement stairs, the other is at the top of the stairs on the bedroom level. Both fans are set to push the air down. As soon as the basement starts to feel "warm", both fans go on. It does make a difference, by both cooling off the basement and warming up the other levels, with a drop of about 7 to 9 degrees per level. In other words, if I'm 82 in the basement, I'm about 75 on the first floor and maybe 65-68 in the bedrooms. And I'll reiterate - load up the stove, let it take off and get up to temp before dialing it down for the night. Wait for a colder day and try the same process in the morning. Although during those waking hours we love to "mess" with our stoves, the goal is to load it, set it, and forget it (Did he ~~really~~ just quote Ron Popeil?) until it's time for the next load.
 
agartner said:
(Did he ~~really~~ just quote Ron Popeil?)
Click to expand...

And if you start a fire in the next five minutes we will include, absolutely free, this combination poker/ash rake/apple corer for no extra charge.
 
BrotherBart said:
agartner said:
(Did he ~~really~~ just quote Ron Popeil?)
Click to expand...

And if you start a fire in the next five minutes we will include, absolutely free, this combination poker/ash rake/apple corer for no extra charge.
Click to expand...


And if you are one of the 1st 100 to start it, we will include a 2nd poker/ashrake/apple corer. You just pay the shipping and handling..............................
 
Chris, it sounds like you are doing some good thinking. Do play around with the fans and see if they indeed will help. One other suggestion is to have fans at the lower level blowing down and another fan or two higher up blowing in the opposite direction. It might move just enough more heat to solve the whole problem. Good luck on this.
 
I don't want to hi-jack the thread but I have a simialr question along these same lines. I have just started burning in a PE Summit and have noticed that when I turn it down, I am still going to have an inferno going in box. Is it typical for people to turn the air down and have serous secondary flames going in the box and head to bed? In the old stove I would turn it down to barely a flame and head to bed. It seems scary to have the secondary inferno burning and then just head to bed. I have only had 4 fires and the largest one had about 3 splits in it and the flames were raging even when I turned it down, granted the stack temps did come down.
 
Lillyrat, it is common to go to bed with the raging inferno inside the stove. When the secondaries are burning that just means your stove is operating right. Yes, it can be a bit scary at first but you'll get used to it and really learn to love it. Consider our senario: we've heated with wood for a few years not (see my signature line) and had never had a stove like this Fireview. The first time we had a good fire in the stove, suddenly the flames lifted right off the wood and started rolling at the top of the viewing window. Looked great but scary. We did get pretty nervous too when watching the temperature gauge as it climbed really fast. We were about ready to take some drastic measures because we did not want to go over 700 degrees. Fortunately the temperature stopped climbing just before it hit 700. Man that thing blew some heat! Yet, that fire lasted all night (not at that level the whole night) and the place was really toasty warm the next morning. Then I could hardly wait to see the next big fire. It's a beauty!
 
Thanks for the assurance. I have only had the temp ut to about 475 so I can't imagine what will be going on with a full load and secondaries ablazin.
 
You may not want a much bigger fire before December. Enjoy it and good luck.
 
That's true, house was 67 this morning so I burned a few times to get the house a little warmer. I put in 3 splits this morning a7and was planning on heading to church but told my wife I was going to come later due to all the secondary burning going on, I just wasn't comfortabe leaving it yet, needless to say, everything went fine and fire burned down and secondaries eventually slowed down. Came home and just had to do it again because it was so cool. I would like to burn now but the house is 74 degrees at 1920 hrs, outside temps were in the 50's all day.
 
I think 3 splits is as big of a fire as we've had so far this fall. We'll probably go with 4 before too long. Hope you made it to church on time.
 
I remember that video and it is one of the best to show that flame.
 
RSNovi said:
I am still trying to learn how to run my Oslo for an overnight burn. Often times I will get the stove going in the evening and then hope to run it all night and the next day on the weekend. Yesterday I got the stove running with the first load of wood at about 600 degrees. I let the stove burn down and put a full load in. Since I was going straight to bed, I cut the air all the way down to 25%. I woke up because I could smell smoke and the fire was just smoldering with the glass all black. Came down and gave it more air and the stove took off and then I cut it back for a decent 7 hour burn.

How do you guys load for the night and timing for adjusting your air? Especially if you are loading and heading straight to bed.

Chris
Click to expand...

Chris because ours is a basement install we build up the heat in the basement (78 degrees) which makes upstairs 70-72 after burning for awhile. So last night it still was 78 downstairs so I only put in 3 splits then went to bed, woke up and the upstairs was 70 and the downstairs 72.



zap
 
zapny said:
RSNovi said:
I am still trying to learn how to run my Oslo for an overnight burn. Often times I will get the stove going in the evening and then hope to run it all night and the next day on the weekend. Yesterday I got the stove running with the first load of wood at about 600 degrees. I let the stove burn down and put a full load in. Since I was going straight to bed, I cut the air all the way down to 25%. I woke up because I could smell smoke and the fire was just smoldering with the glass all black. Came down and gave it more air and the stove took off and then I cut it back for a decent 7 hour burn.

How do you guys load for the night and timing for adjusting your air? Especially if you are loading and heading straight to bed.

Chris
Click to expand...

Chris because ours is a basement install we build up the heat in the basement (78 degrees) which makes upstairs 70-72 after burning for awhile. So last night it still was 78 downstairs so I only put in 3 splits then went to bed, woke up and the upstairs was 70 and the downstairs 72.



zap
Click to expand...

That sounds great. One thing I do think is going against me is that I haven't been burning non-stop. Recently the stove has been going out because we haven't been home and I am not comfortable leaving the stove burning while away since I haven't mastered the air control settings yet. When I get home I want to get things heated up so I am probably building bigger fires to get everything up to temp. I am hoping eventually and when I become more comfortable with the stove that I can start burning more often so the basement and everything is up to temp all the time.

Chris
 
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