Hearthstone Heritage Draft and Temp Expertise needed!

First, how are you measuring flue temp? Surface or probe? If probe, is the probe on top or on the side? 700 probe temp is cold in my experience, I don't get clean burning until the 800 range and I have no qualms about exceeding 1000 every day during the warm up cycle.

Your draft should be very strong, probably too strong and max air setting plus your strong draft mean that you are sucking the heat out of the stove. Don't expect max stove temps unless you can sustain a clean burn and hot flue with the intake air setting mostly closed.

3-4 splits to fill the stove means your splits are too big. Knock them in half and use 7-8 splits to fill the firebox to the roof.

I don't expect anything more than a few small coals after a normal 9 hour overnight cycle. That's all your supposed to get with this stove.

So try this, 7 splits on bed of coals to fill the firebox, only max draft for 10 minutes and then shut down to a pencil width from zero intake air in three stages of about 5 minutes each.

I agree with Highbeam. Try smaller splits and I think you need to get your flue temp higher. That will help get the stone hotter. I can usually get my Heritage up to 450* to cruise for a bit before it starts to cool down. And others here have the same stove and can get it much hotter than that. I use bigger splits once I have a really good bed of coals but as I re-lit in the morning I go for smaller ones. Good luck

JonR said:

I have read almost every post and need some expertise.. Sometimes I have minor coaling issues when temps are in the teens. It is almost futile to get the stone temperature above 425. My flue is out of the back for 20" and then up 27 feet flex stainless AND lined with Thermix. I have never had smoke come into the house when I open either door. I can only measure flue temp 6-8" off the back of the stove and max is 700 if I load at 350+. So, I am torn between not enough draft due to max of 700 and too much due to coaling. I reload every 2 -2.5 hours. Moisture 9-12%- Locust, Cherry, Osage Orange, Hackberry. There are coals in the morning to start a fire, but they are small, quarter to half dollar in size, and a bit too much ash.

I load 3-4 splits 18-20" long and 4-6" wide to fill up every time. Full open on draft 20-30 minutes and can't seem to get over 400. Burns when I reduce down to 1/4 open, just not long enough.

Thanks..

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I'm burning some crappy wood right now and I max out at 500°. With good wood I can get it over 600° without too much effort.

Highbeam said:

First, how are you measuring flue temp? Surface or probe? If probe, is the probe on top or on the side? 700 probe temp is cold in my experience, I don't get clean burning until the 800 range and I have no qualms about exceeding 1000 every day during the warm up cycle.

Your draft should be very strong, probably too strong and max air setting plus your strong draft mean that you are sucking the heat out of the stove. Don't expect max stove temps unless you can sustain a clean burn and hot flue with the intake air setting mostly closed.

3-4 splits to fill the stove means your splits are too big. Knock them in half and use 7-8 splits to fill the firebox to the roof.

I don't expect anything more than a few small coals after a normal 9 hour overnight cycle. That's all your supposed to get with this stove.

So try this, 7 splits on bed of coals to fill the firebox, only max draft for 10 minutes and then shut down to a pencil width from zero intake air in three stages of about 5 minutes each.

Click to expand...

Smaller splits is definitely the way to go.

Highest temp I've achieved since the stove was installed on December 13th was 640°.

Hi Jon, welcome to the forum, and welcome to the world of soapstone. It can be a bit of a fraught path to get the hang of this stove, but I can assure you that when you work it out, this is a fine heater, and I think you'll be very happy with it.

I don't claim expertise, as this is my kindergarten year with this stove, but I will offer you my experience, and suggest that you weight the words of the been-at-it-awhile's more heavily than mine.

I will preface them by saying I live in interior Alaska, and not only has it been my primary source of heat this winter, but since my boiler went down about three weeks ago, it's been my only source of heat--and it's been cold. `The Rock', as some folks call these stoves, has not just kept the plumbing thawed, but we've been ridiculously comfortable for folks in the throes of an `emergency'. I have a two-story, 2000 s.f. house, and kids, a dog, and a full-time job, and have been able to juggle this heat without major trauma-drama. I tell you this to offer you encouragement--that's the kind of performance that you should be able to get out of this stove, and hopefully will once you get the hang of it.

Your statement that the flue is out the back for 20" caught my eye first off. I would want to turn to the pros on this one, but I seem to recall hearing that this stove is not really designed for a vertical run. Don't know if that would be making the difference, but it's a factor to look into while you are going down the list. I'm guessing from all you've said that you're running it out a masonry chimney, so your choices may be limited.

Regarding overnight fires:
I get ash, too, and usually empty it once a day. Takes about five minutes, max, if I have a bed of coals I'm trying to preserve--about two minutes otherwise. I smile and pay up.

My current technique for overnight fires is to rake the coals to the front of the stove, and cap that with a split. I try not to have more coals than I can actually cover with the cap split. Sometimes, if the coals are plentiful and lively, I'll let them burn down until they're ashed over a bit, and this slows the burn rate down enough for this to work. After the cap split, I put a large spit in the back of the stove behind this piece, adjacent to, not on the first, and not touching any coals. I then put another smaller split on top of the cap piece. If there's room, I slip in another piece. These three or four splits are packed in pretty tight, like books on a shelf. I do *not* get this blazing at this point, because if I did, my fire would be burned out by morning; instead, I turn the front air intake down as far as it will go, and turn the stack damper ajar. (Mine is an in-stack assemby that is designed to be used as a unit in the stovepipe assembly, an optional add-on. The damper is directly above the stove, as I felt that this would be the location least likely to sustain creosote buildup.)

Because the splits are dense and large, the coals have to burn through the first before the rest ignite. In the morning, I usually have enough left of the big split to throw some small hot splits on and get my burn-out-the-creosote fire. When this has burned down to coals, I repeat the night-fire protocol, and shut the air supply down as above and go off to work. Usually come home to enough coals to start the evening fire. At this point, I again fire it up and let any residue in the stack burn off (I hope!) If I don't burn it this way, I usually only have a few coals left in the morning or when I get home--but the stove is usually still throwing off heat, and therefore comes up to temp more readily. With this protocol, I can burn 24-7. I set coals aside or two the front and scoop the ashes from around them when I need to empty them.

I have had so much draft in that stove at times that when the door was open, it huffed like a locomotive.

I have been burning almost nothing but seasoned poplar in there--aspen and cottonwood. If I burn small splits like the others describe, my fire gets very hot and burns out quickly. To dependably get an overnight fire, I include a split that's about 1/2-1/3 of a 10-12" round; same with my gone-all-day fire.

I have an interior stack, straight up, no offsets through a two story house (8'ceilings, 10" spacing for floor joists between stories, and through a cold attic that is comes to a total of about 24', I believe. It's double-wall pipe from the first ceiling up.

Stove keeps the house consistently around 70F day and night, unless I get off that schedule, when it can drop to about 60 at the coldest (except the night the gasket came out--a story for another day). My stovetop temps run between 250 and 450 usually (according to the cheap-o mag thermometer I have on the stovetop). I got it up to about 550 once, and that's the highest I've seen. Made me nervous, that. No indication yet of any chimney blockage or buildup. Cleaning the window, if needed, cleaning out the ashes, and getting a fire going usually only takes about ten minutes of concentrated effort and another ten of intermittent tending (while feeding dog and starting dinner).

If you could describe (or include a picture) of what you mean by coaling and ash, we might be of more use. I know that I sometimes have some small coals that go out in the ash pan, but since I scoop my ashes rather than take them out through the ash drawer, it's no big deal.

Hope this is helpful, even if it's contradictory to some of your other advice.

What the heck is a surface probe? You either have a surface meter or a probe meter. A flue damper can, and should, be as close to the stove as possible.

Your issue, as I read it, is that you want higher stovetop surface temps? To get there, you need to get internal flue temps up near 1000 and keep them there with a mostly closed intake air setting. If you can't do this with smaller wood then your wood is wet. Also, be sure you are loading the wood in a way that allows air between the splits. Don't pack them tight when your goal is max heat.

Don't futz with a damper until you can hold 1000 with near zero intake air.

Thanks for following up with what works--makes it easier on the next person looking for a solution to the same problem.

What draft measurement tool did you get, and where did you find it?

Thank you--I had tried googling a variety of searches, and got some odd links. Usually Google gets me "do you mean . . . ."---but for once, didn't have any idea what I was talking about.