Which Flame Looks Better

Tiny pictures, but I vote that the one on the right looks "Better" as in burning properly, not prettier

One on the right. It looks more white. The one on the left looks orange and lazy. Is it corn or pellets? Makes a difference.

I like the one on the right.

Right !

novah said:

I am burning pellets. I have been playing with the adjustments and trying to understand the difference between orange and lazy versus white and too hot. The orange flame is not all that lazy. At least I can make it look real lazy with almost black tips.

Click to expand...

Orange/yellow tending towards yellow with blue just above the burning pellets.

Which is the point at which the burning pellets in the burn pot will tend to wiggle (the pellet dance).

If you get the flame like a blowtorch a lot of the heat will go up the flue.

Dark orange/red, large and loopy with any hint of black tips is not good {tm}.

The Right all the way

The flame on the right is healthier and receiving better airflow, no question about it. The only time my pellet burner flame looks anything like the one on the left is during a Pot change, airflow is temporarily disrupted during a pot change but it quickly changes back to a sharp yellow/white flame after the pot change is finished.

The one on the right, it's a lot more lively.

One on the right looks like a forge to me, mine usually looks more like the one on the left.

You dont want a BLOW TORCH effect, but you dont want a lazy wallowing sooty Orange fire either.

The fire should be active and a yellow color with a slight hint of blue at the base of the flames where the air is entering the burn pot.

Floating, bounceing pellets in the pot is good too.

Some stoves will do more of this active pellet thing than others.

The biggy is to have a nice yellow flame with good activity.

Lazy wallowing Orange fires are not good and indicate poor airflow through the stove.

This can be a clogged vent sytem, ash traps full to the point of clogging the airflow and or a plugged baffle system, bad exhaust fan etc.

The Piccy on the right is by far better.

Post some piccys that are about 800X536 Pixels

With this size Pix, we can see great detail.

You can have too much airflow and actually blow the fire nearly out under low feed settings.


Snowy

I agree w/ everyone above...the one on the right is what I would prefer, if there was no other choice.

That said, I think that the right one is a little too "blowtorch-y" for me. As Smokey said, too much air just sends a lot of the heat right up the exhaust. If you can dial the air back a little bit, I think you'd be right on the money.

imacman said:

I agree w/ everyone above...the one on the right is what I would prefer, if there was no other choice.

That said, I think that the right one is a little too "blowtorch-y" for me. As Smokey said, too much air just sends a lot of the heat right up the exhaust. If you can dial the air back a little bit, I think you'd be right on the money.

Click to expand...

If you are getting higher exhaust temperatures with the same feed rate, aren't you generating a hotter stove and theirfore getting better heat transfer?

Has anyone checked their exhaust temperature to see what's ideal?

I would venture to guess that at some point the incoming air mass (if greater than what is necessary for good combustion) begins to generate colder stove temps but has anyone taken flu readings to see if this sort of situation can even be generated in most stoves?

I like 'em both. My stove will produce the same flame from time to time.


As it gives a larger than normal dose of pellets for a short time it will burn like the picture on the left.

Most of the time, it feeds appropriately and burns like the picture on the right. I'd give a 85% right photo and 15% left photo on the burn with my stove.

GO SEAHAWKS

Here are a couple pix I just took of a NORMAL fire in our Whitfield Advantage II
This fire has been untouched since last night and has accumulated a fair amount of clinker at the edges of the fire pot.

I run this stove on the number one setting almost constantly.
The fire color is not quite as the eye sees it in the stove but close.

Yellowish/white flames that are very active with some hint of bue at the base where the air enters the fire pot.

This stove is burning Hazelnut shells and the fire leaves a light gray ash.

The slight "BLOW TORCH" effect is actually the result of not having the shutter speed on the camera set quite fast enough.

In the real world the fire does not look like this. The flame are dancing around but not a blow torch streak.

I suspect the previous pics are the result of the same effect.

Snowy

Checkthisout said:

imacman said:

I agree w/ everyone above...the one on the right is what I would prefer, if there was no other choice.

That said, I think that the right one is a little too "blowtorch-y" for me. As Smokey said, too much air just sends a lot of the heat right up the exhaust. If you can dial the air back a little bit, I think you'd be right on the money.

Click to expand...

If you are getting higher exhaust temperatures with the same feed rate, aren't you generating a hotter stove and theirfore getting better heat transfer?

Has anyone checked their exhaust temperature to see what's ideal?

I would venture to guess that at some point the incoming air mass (if greater than what is necessary for good combustion) begins to generate colder stove temps but has anyone taken flu readings to see if this sort of situation can even be generated in most stoves?

Click to expand...

Actually a higher exhaust temperature at the same feed means the heat is going up the flue and not being transfered to the room air via the convection system.

You want the exhaust temperature to be just as close to the condensation temperature of the byproducts of combustion as you can get it and still have the byproducts exit the flue. If your system can actually deal with the condensing byproducts you want the flue temperature so low everything condenses. Burning wood that means the tars, and other really nasty things.

I used to be able to hold my hand on the vent with my old whitfield and not get burned, with the new XXV the vent is a lot hotter and you can't touch it. I know i'm losing more heat up the vent with the new stove than the Whitfield, how do you " fix " this ? or is it a case that the heat exchanger on the whitfield was better ?

SmokeyTheBear said:

Checkthisout said:

imacman said:

I agree w/ everyone above...the one on the right is what I would prefer, if there was no other choice.

That said, I think that the right one is a little too "blowtorch-y" for me. As Smokey said, too much air just sends a lot of the heat right up the exhaust. If you can dial the air back a little bit, I think you'd be right on the money.

Click to expand...

If you are getting higher exhaust temperatures with the same feed rate, aren't you generating a hotter stove and theirfore getting better heat transfer?

Has anyone checked their exhaust temperature to see what's ideal?

I would venture to guess that at some point the incoming air mass (if greater than what is necessary for good combustion) begins to generate colder stove temps but has anyone taken flu readings to see if this sort of situation can even be generated in most stoves?

Click to expand...

Actually a higher exhaust temperature at the same feed means the heat is going up the flue and not being transfered to the room air via the convection system.

You want the exhaust temperature to be just as close to the condensation temperature of the byproducts of combustion as you can get it and still have the byproducts exit the flue. If your system can actually deal with the condensing byproducts you want the flue temperature so low everything condenses. Burning wood that means the tars, and other really nasty things.

Click to expand...

Question, what are the temperatures of the exhaust gases, not external stove pipe temperature, exiting the chimney flue/pipe outside on your stoves? I checked mine the other day and it was around 330 degrees F on the medium low burn setting. I didn't check it on the higher settings. I am not sure if this is the normal exhaust temperature on these pellet stoves or if the length of the stoves exhaust piping has any effect on this temperature. Mine is straight up, no 45s or 90s, the existing masonry chimney flue using a flexible AL29-4C stainless steel 3 inch pipe around 14 feet long. The stove was run about a week since the last cleaning when this temperature was taken. I could hold my hand over the pipes exit for a second or 2 but that was about it.

FordMastertech said:

SmokeyTheBear said:

Checkthisout said:

imacman said:

I agree w/ everyone above...the one on the right is what I would prefer, if there was no other choice.

That said, I think that the right one is a little too "blowtorch-y" for me. As Smokey said, too much air just sends a lot of the heat right up the exhaust. If you can dial the air back a little bit, I think you'd be right on the money.

Click to expand...

If you are getting higher exhaust temperatures with the same feed rate, aren't you generating a hotter stove and theirfore getting better heat transfer?

Has anyone checked their exhaust temperature to see what's ideal?

I would venture to guess that at some point the incoming air mass (if greater than what is necessary for good combustion) begins to generate colder stove temps but has anyone taken flu readings to see if this sort of situation can even be generated in most stoves?

Click to expand...

Actually a higher exhaust temperature at the same feed means the heat is going up the flue and not being transfered to the room air via the convection system.

You want the exhaust temperature to be just as close to the condensation temperature of the byproducts of combustion as you can get it and still have the byproducts exit the flue. If your system can actually deal with the condensing byproducts you want the flue temperature so low everything condenses. Burning wood that means the tars, and other really nasty things.

Click to expand...

Question, what are the temperatures of the exhaust gases, not external stove pipe temperature, exiting the chimney flue/pipe outside on your stoves? I checked mine the other day and it was around 330 degrees F on the medium low burn setting. I didn't check it on the higher settings. I am not sure if this is the normal exhaust temperature on these pellet stoves or if the length of the stoves exhaust piping has any effect on this temperature. Mine is straight up, no 45s or 90s, the existing masonry chimney flue using a flexible AL29-4C stainless steel 3 inch pipe around 14 feet long. The stove was run about a week since the last cleaning when this temperature was taken. I could hold my hand over the pipes exit for a second or 2 but that was about it.

Click to expand...

I've never been interested in measuring mine so I haven't purchased something that could measure them.

At the exit the temperature will vary depending upon vent volume (length times cross sectional area), firing rate (be careful here as firing rate is a very funny thing when dealing with pellet stoves), and flow rate through the vent system.

They can be as high as 475 degrees F, this is when the thermals on most combustion blowers will shut them down leading to a loss of vacuum shutdown, at 500 degrees F most of the vent sealants that are used are likely to no longer function.

My Whitfield Advantage II has a 2 foot Horizontal run then a 45 then 2 more feet that runs through the wall and to the terminus.

The temperature of the pipe at the 45 is right at 150F I can place my hand on it, but its definately right at the limits of touching.

The stove is running on the lowest setting.

I have no real way to test flue gas temps at the exhaust outlet.

It would be easy enough to tap into the cast outlet and install a pyrometer with a direct reading gauge. (same as used on diesel pickups. (Just need one that reads from 150F to 1000F)

Mount the gauge where it can be seen and you can monitor your fire constantly.

These gauges do not require any outside power source to operate.

Our Quadrafire 1000 (running on pellets) will see a similar outlet temperature right where the pipe enters the thimble.


I dont like seeing temps higher than 200F at the wall thimble.

I am sure that the pipe manufactures have tested this suff with temps way higher though.


A remote heat exchanger in the outlet pipe would sure be nice to extract more of the left over heat.

Its a shame to be shoving all that heat energy out the pipe.

I just wonder what the thermal efficiency of our pellet stoves is.

Some stoves use a very effective heat extraction system and others have a very simple tube setup that I am suspect, lets a lot of the $$$$$ spent on fuel go right out the stack.



Snowy

I think the tubes on my whitfield did a much better job of extracting heat than the cast iron accordian style of the XXV.

The cast iron parts are easier and cheaper to manufacture and can be done in large number rather quickly.

A "Thin wall" tube will conduct heat quick but are also subject to errosion and eventual burn through depending on the amount of usuage and the corrosive factors if any in the fuel.

The early Quadrafires have 2 fabircated aluminum heat exchangers.
These units are finned and transmit heat very fast.

The cost for replacement though is very high.

All these factors are figured in when the manufacture designs a new stove.

If they can eliminate a process that is labor intense then they are $$$$$$$ ahead.

The cast Iron heat exchanger will likely last a lot longer too.

Iron is a very forgiving material.

Like comparing the cast iron exhaust manifolds on your cars engine to a set of tube headers.

The tube headers burn out within a few years and cast manifolds can last the life of the vehicle and still be useable.

The initial cost of manufacturing a cast Iron heat exchanger may be slightly more but once the tooling is all set up, its cheap.

The time required for the Iron to heat up and start tranfering heat is probably a little longer than the steel tubing type units too.

Once up to temperature the two are probably close.

The cast units usually have fins that allow tha air flowing though to contact far more hot surface though as compared to the round tube.

Just some thoughts.

Snowy

I believe the transfer tubes on my 14 year old whitfield advantage plus were stainless steel, and were as solid as they day I bought the stove, I also feel the thinner wall tubing did a much better job of transferring the heat to the room rather than out the vent like the cast iron accordian style on the XXV. I remember being able to hold my hand on the vent to the whitfield, if I did that with the XXV i'd get a pretty bad burn, my assumption is i' losing much more heat out of the vent.

right side for me