Dutch West Small non cat stove brand new

Hello all,
This is my first post and I thought I would see if someone else has the small Dutchwest 2477 model non cat stove. I have seen many, many threads on the medium and large models, but didn't see anything yet on the 2477. The manual says you can hit 8 hour burn times with Everburn. Here's where I need your help.

Before getting this stove, I ran a Pacific Energy Summit (cat) that ran great, but only got me 3-4 hour burn times. I have burned wood for four winters and am able to completely heat my home with wood. My backup is electric baseboard heat, so you can imagine the savings is HUGE....like 700-800/month savings every month.

I just got the dutch west 2 days ago. I did my 4 "break-in" fires and most of the smell has dissipated. Last night, I was able to build up a little bit of coals (maybe an inch) by poking at the logs to get them to fall apart. I moved the coals to the back of the stove and tried to center them so I could engage the Everburn. The first time I tried to close the damper, I heard the rumble right away, but then it fell off. I figured I needed to get the stove to warm up some more.

After letting the air control stay open all the way, the fire heated up, I engaged the everburn and it stayed running for about 30 minutes and then stalled. I did start to choke down all the way on the primary air control (I'm not sure where to keep the lever once Everburn starts). I didn't see any of the black smoke from the chimney when the Everburn stalled because it was so dark last night. It could have been dark smoke though.

Anyways, I let that fire burn down to coals and put another, bigger fresh load of wood in. Waited 20 minutes with air control on high, and then engaged Everburn. It ran at least an hour before I headed to bed, but this time, I left the air control on high.

When I woke up this morning (6 hours later), there were no coals and the stove was just barely warm. The fire had been out for a while. I think that leaving Everburn on with Primary Air control on high (open all the way) basically kept the same burn rate as if I didn't engage Everburn. So....it seems like if you want the Everburn to work efficiently, you need to choke down on the primary air control after the everburn starts. Is this right? If so, do you need to lower the air control gradually, or can you just put it down to 1/4 primary air control.

I had a stove top temp guage and it seems that I needed to get temps up to around 450 for the Everburn to kick in. I'm guessing that the higher my temp is when I engage Everburn....the longer lasting the secondary burn would be?????

Thanks for any help.

so to clear up, I have a 25 foot straight shot, single wall chimney with no bends or t's.

I talked to the dealer today, and he said that "just because you don't hear the rumble doesn't mean the everburn isn't working--you may have already burned all the gasses that are present."

I haven't read that on here, and looking at tradergordo's information, it seems like he gets the rumble until the fire dies?? I may be misreading that though.

The dealer did say to get the stove up to around 550 to 600 and with a hot bed of coals, load "as much wood as you can fit" into the stove carefully to get an 8 hour burn time (what this stove is rated for).

I am just playing around with it tonight and loaded up a full load after I got the coal bed set up. I got about 350 stove top temp and just tried to engage the everburn to see what it would do. So far so good. It's been rumbling for over 30 minutes and stovetop temp hit 325.

I have the air control all the way open....but don't see much flame at all. It is definitely hot though.

by way of reference, it's 20 degrees out and I am just a few feet above sea level (beach home).

90 minutes of Everburn now with stove top temp of 410.....slowly closing primary air control (it's on halfway now).

I am pretty disappointed so far. I can't get anything remotely close to a 4 hour burn time. This stove requires constant adjustment, and the best burn time I've had is abotu 3.5 hours (and there were a handful of coals left after that). The stove is rated for 8 hours, and I don't see how that is even remotely possible.

I have well seasoned oak (I've personally had it sitting in racks for over a year). I'm getting a good bed of coals, pushing them to the back throat of the Everburn, then loading up with wood and keeping the gaps in between to get a roaring fire. I wait 10-20 minutes to get a char on the edges and engage Everburn and if I'm lucky, it'll last an hour and then no rumble. The dealer told me that it is "still engaged even if you don't hear the rumble," but the burn times don't lie. Not even close to HALF of what the rated burn time.

It is awfully hard to see what I am doing that is wrong. I have had two delivery guys, a professional installer, and an inspector out to put this stove in. They all saw what an ideal chimney setup I have and could see how I could heat my whole home with a stove.

I was able to heat the home with a Pacific cat stove before, and I had LONGER BURN TIMES with a 17 year old broken stove that had a warped baffle and no catalytic combuster left. It is pretty telling when just a week ago, I had 4 hour burn times with an old stove that was broken and I can't get anywhere close to that efficiency with a BRAND NEW stove.

I am very seriously considering putting the Pacific back in and asking the dealer to take back this Dutch West. Even if there is something I am overlooking, it is pretty hard to fathom how I would double the burn time.

I am not a novice at wood stoves. This is my 5th winter heating with wood, and to add some more perspective, I am a former nuclear reactor operator and I have also operated gas turbines, diesel generators and a lot in between. I am very experienced with the principles of heat transfer and combustion. If there is something that I am missing, it should have been put in the owner's manual (which is woefully inadequate) so that someone like me could master the stove.

I understand "it may take a few weeks to learn how your stove operates," but I don't think it should take long to figure out how to run the stove to ONE HALF of its potential.

I hope you have good news to report outpost.

outpost, what is your 5 inch round made out of? I guess this is something like using foil to cover the secondary intake? If I read this correctly, you're basically manually controlling the secondary intake????
If that's the case, do you leave it in place all the time or move it when you start up to get more flow?

I visited the dealer today. I told him my concerns with a 3 hour burn time and he assured me that I should be getting 6-8 hours at least. I started to ask him some specifics about the stove, and he asked, "have you read the manual?" I get that a lot of people might come in the store complaining when they don't know how to run a stove, but I am not one of those customers. I started hitting him with all the specifics that I was doing, and his only response was, "have you opened up the ash door to get the fire going?" I had to chuckle when I told him that the manual specifically says NOT to do this. He grew tired of my questions and said, "you might want to contact the tech support listed on your manual. They can help you get to eight hours burn time."

Guess what the tech support website is? www.cfmcorp.com, which is not a web address anymore.

And the tech support number listed, 800-668-5323 says, "You have reached a non-working number."

I'm starting to feel like I got a lemon here and I am wondering what my rights are to return this stove for a full refund. By the looks of tonight's fire, I'll be lucky to get a 3 hour burn time with a full load of great oak. It is 28 degrees outside, I have a good draft going, and I can't even break 3 hours with a full load of wood.

I want to take this stove out and reinstall my old stove just to get the worry-free 4 hour burn time back.

How does one go about returning a stove to dealer?

Outpost,
I'm working on your advice right now. I just loaded up like you suggested, opened up the primary air control and closed the damper. I had a pretty strong rumble right away. Temps were a little low with the stove top just under 300 at 9:40 when I loaded her up. Those temps have been climbing and I left the air almost all the way open to get them to climb back up to the 450 you suggest.

Thank you very much. I am hoping this will get me a longer burn! I'll keep you posted.

Ok, thanks.
I got the temps up to 450 with the damper shut.....still going on Everburn rumble. So far so good, and this is about 1 hr 20 minutes of Everburn so far.

Does your rumble get progressively quieter....or do your temps on the stove top fall off quickly?

Well, I still got just over 3 hours of burn time. I'm going to try tonight to establish a coal bed, load up the stove, open the primary air, wait until stove top temps hit 500, and THEN close the damper. We'll see how that goes.

Idiot question here....is it possible there is something internal to this stove (which is brand new) that is out of alignment or broken? I.E. are there some pieces that could be broken internally that would cause this, and how would I know if that were the case?

Hi TSC, and thanks for the advice. I noticed that I can get a coal bed started faster if there is a little bit of ash left in the stove. If it is too clean, it seems to take longer to light off the fire. I started to wonder if I would be better off to get the stove top temps up higher, since the Everburn seems to naturally pull them back down. If secondary combustion occurs with 1100F gas flue temp, then using the 2.5 rule of thumb, the stove top gauge should be above 400 to keep secondary combustion going.

So, I guess the hotter that fire is before the damper is closed, the longer the secondary combustion will be?

I think your point about "burn time" being loosely defined is right on too. If you clock burn time from the lighting of a match until the very last coal completely goes black, that would be a different number than what I am thinking.

Sounds like you have coals to light though after 10 or 12 hours. And that is where I am fighting this thing. I can't keep coals after 3 1/2 hours.....I really appreciate all the tips though. We'll see how it goes tonight.

Ok, it's 6:30, I have a good coal bed, 600 degrees on the stovetop, and the primary air is shut with the damper closed. We'll see how this goes.....

So I engaged the Everburn at 6:30 with a stove top temp of 600+F. Within 20 minutes, the fire died out and the stove top temp plummeted to well below 400F. There was no rumble whatsoever. I am guessing this was a stall???

I opened the stove, stoked the fire, put on another log at the top (since the fuel "settled" after being stoked), and then I shut the door, cranked the primary control to 1/2 way open, let her warm up to 400. Once it got to 400, I shut the damper again, but left the primary air at 1/2 way open. I'm hoping to get the temp up a little higher and then close down on the primary air. It's 7:00 now.

I have a good rumble going now and I've been gradually shutting the primary air control.