I have a Lopi Answer insert. Just installed for the new year. I've only been using it for about a week and I had a question
After the first 52 hours of continual burning, I stopped feeding it and let it die out overnight. I'm not sure if I kept the air flow open over night. Next morning, wonderful. Only ashes, slightly warm cleaned it all out, washed the window and started it up again. Perfect.
36 hours later, I try to repeat the process. I leave the air supply open overnight, because it looks like there is still a lot of coals in there and I want to burn them down. The next morning (18 hours after stopping feeding it), it's still loaded with coals. The are hot, but not actively red and burning. I shovel them out into a metal pail. I put the pail out in the snow and check it 6 hours later. Still hot and melted through the snow pile. I'm guessing it took it about 8-10 hours in total to cool down. Add that to the 18 hours in the stove and that's a really long time.
Clearly something went wrong, but I don't know what. I'm using the same mix of wood as in the first batch of time. My wood is fairly well seasoned (though not the 2-3 years I've seen recommended by some). Large pieces of Maple, about 2.5 years old. Some tiny chunks of Mulberry about a year old (I know it takes longer to season, but this is split into very small chunks, so I'm assuming it dried quicker) the pieces are about 6-8" long, 6-8" wide and about 1-1.5" thick. Smaller pieces of beech, 1.5 years old (it was from some large branches that got pruned off our trees, they are also split).
I have a long run for my flue, about 35', very straight except for the bottom where it does a small jog just as it reaches the fireplace. Strong draft, even when dead cold and no fire.
I'm getting a good secondary burn going during the day (hard to tell at night since I'm asleep). I'm not sure if somehow the airflow has gotten impeded by ash or unburnt coals.
I like to keep the stove temp around 400 and the pipe temp under 200 when I can. Obviously I don't always get that, and the stove temp goes up to 650 when the fuel is really going strong and falls as low as 200 when the coals are dying and it is in desperate need of more fuel.
Any thoughts?
Brokk...
After the first 52 hours of continual burning, I stopped feeding it and let it die out overnight. I'm not sure if I kept the air flow open over night. Next morning, wonderful. Only ashes, slightly warm cleaned it all out, washed the window and started it up again. Perfect.
36 hours later, I try to repeat the process. I leave the air supply open overnight, because it looks like there is still a lot of coals in there and I want to burn them down. The next morning (18 hours after stopping feeding it), it's still loaded with coals. The are hot, but not actively red and burning. I shovel them out into a metal pail. I put the pail out in the snow and check it 6 hours later. Still hot and melted through the snow pile. I'm guessing it took it about 8-10 hours in total to cool down. Add that to the 18 hours in the stove and that's a really long time.
Clearly something went wrong, but I don't know what. I'm using the same mix of wood as in the first batch of time. My wood is fairly well seasoned (though not the 2-3 years I've seen recommended by some). Large pieces of Maple, about 2.5 years old. Some tiny chunks of Mulberry about a year old (I know it takes longer to season, but this is split into very small chunks, so I'm assuming it dried quicker) the pieces are about 6-8" long, 6-8" wide and about 1-1.5" thick. Smaller pieces of beech, 1.5 years old (it was from some large branches that got pruned off our trees, they are also split).
I have a long run for my flue, about 35', very straight except for the bottom where it does a small jog just as it reaches the fireplace. Strong draft, even when dead cold and no fire.
I'm getting a good secondary burn going during the day (hard to tell at night since I'm asleep). I'm not sure if somehow the airflow has gotten impeded by ash or unburnt coals.
I like to keep the stove temp around 400 and the pipe temp under 200 when I can. Obviously I don't always get that, and the stove temp goes up to 650 when the fuel is really going strong and falls as low as 200 when the coals are dying and it is in desperate need of more fuel.
Any thoughts?
Brokk...