Scary Night - 750-800* Stove top

Interesting post. Opening the door does work, trust me!

I think I may need to get a new stove top thermometer. It seems with my stove I am always running at 700-800 degrees. Yet it is never glowing red. NOt even close.

My thermometer could be 75-100 degrees off...I don't have an IR gun to confirm. However, I am looking for one. Anybody know of any good sites (Canada) off of which I can order one?

Andrew

pen said:

north of 60 said:

I totally disagree. Opening a stove door when its blazing from hell. :roll: Get to know your stove. Find where the secondary air is fed from. Usually where your main slider is at the mechanical stop is/fixed opening. Slap a piece of aluminium tape on it until she has settled down. Starve it!

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You are welcome to disagree but it does work. Counter intuitive maybe, but all the cool kids are doing it :smirk:

I think an advantage of opening the door is that it also gives you the chance to rearrange the wood in there into a formation that is less likely to go thermonuclear again.

If you don't believe me, just open the door up next time things are cruising along happily and see what happens. Fire goes from running like a turbo vette to a 58 farmall tractor.

Starving it will work, but what about an insert?

pen

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I have an insert that tends to run away from time to time and feel powerless to slow it down (the air comes from the back of the insert so I can't starve it). I will definitely test this to see how it works - sounds real promising.

zapny said:

indiana4spartans said:

I'm not sure - 350-400? Initial start up fire had gone to nice big coals with just some lazy flames. Might have not backed it down quick enough.

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We are burning Quaking Aspen for the shoulder season and still let the stove top temps get down just below 300 before reloading. It was running at 600 after a reload last night and holding.

Last nights fire was for drying clothes.

zap

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Been burning some very dry poplar here myself . . . wow-zers . . . takes off and really cranks to heat up the place. Have to remember not to load it up too much.

indiana4spartans said:

I'm not sure - 350-400? Initial start up fire had gone to nice big coals with just some lazy flames. Might have not backed it down quick enough.

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My stove can go inferno and have a hard time backing back down if I let her rip wide open for too long. I have to begin to dial down the primary air when my stovepipe temp and degree of charring of the wood are at a sweet spot (different for different setups I'm sure). Cheers!

north of 60 said:

pen said:

Pretty sweet huh!?! :coolsmirk:


Open the door right up for a while (with you right there of course).

That stove is designed to burn clean. by turning the air all the way down on a very hot load those secondaries will go nuts trying to do their job.

Opening the door allows a lot of air in, cooling things and turning off the specially designed super injected air jets at the top of the stove. With the door closed your stove is one effecient beast, w/ the door open, you remove it's ability to burn so well.


pen

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I totally disagree. Opening a stove door when its blazing from hell. :roll: Get to know your stove. Find where the secondary air is fed from. Usually where your main slider is at the mechanical stop is/fixed opening. Slap a piece of aluminium tape on it until she has settled down. Starve it!

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I know it is an old stove, pre-EPA but My old Buck Insert manual says "COOLING A HOT STOVE
In the event that your room becomes too warm for comfort, the quickest and best way to cool
your stove is to open the damper fully, open the doors, and install a firescreen."
I admit it doesn't seem like the thing to do but all that "cool" room air rushing in is the mechanism. If you can get to all your air inlets and effectively shut them off to starve the stove, that would certainly be preferable, but not all stoves allow you to do that.

I opened the door to my stove once when stove top temps got to just over 700. It worked and the stove cooled down and stopped the angry secondaries, I closed the door after the temps got below 600, and the secondaries took off again but did not go over 600. All this happened with the air control closed all the way. After this I installed a dampener in the flue just in case I got behind the curve again (like someone else said, like an emergency brake). I learned all this thanks to this great site! Thanks to all who make it happen.

BrotherBart said:

Somebody ought to find the fool that suggested opening that door wide to cool it down and hang him.

Do it. It works.

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Saved my butt one night, posting on here.


TY, BB .

Ok, humor me here. First new EPA stove, so I am worried about not being able to shut off the air completely to choke out a crazy fire. My experience with the old stove was to be able to turn it down to a certain level after it was going and head off to work with full confidence that even if it burned as hot as was possible it wouldn't get out of control because I turned the air down to under 25% open.

It scares me to hear people talk about a stove going out of control because its secondaries are firing away. When I'm at work, I'm not available to notice a 900 degree stove, and certainly not available to open the door as a solution.

Are these just the new stove jitters like when I got the last stove?

Danno, it's my experience the the inferno happens with in 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes of a reload. In my case, I had 1/2 a coal bed, and loaded 4 -5 " oak rounds on top of it, that had been stacked & cut for for 2 years.


Ooh la la, when that bark ignited I was up to 850F right quick. I had the dog crates ready to go >:-(


BB, BG, & Fossil talked me through it.


Funny how you remember this stuff

EJL923 said:

ive had my insert that high more than a few times, not on purpose. The jotul rockland seems to burn hot after speaking with a few other owners. i think inserts tend to burn hotter because of the air that has to be heated. If its high like that, i turn off all lights and look for glowing etc... I see no warping, cracked welds, or any other signs of overfiring. Im not saying its good, just keep an eye out.

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I dont know if you read some of my posts last year but I had my Rockland run away from me once... had it loaded up with mostly BL for an overnight burn. It was a little over 1,000F TDC with the IR. The baffle edge was glowing and I think the front burn tube was just barely glowing. No way to access the secondary air intake unfortunately so I opened the door up. I also soaked a bunch of paper towels and threw em in, not sure if that was a good idea or not, dont think they really did much anyhow. Those secondaries were amazing. Somewhere between cutting torch and space shuttle primary engines... afterward all seems well, though I dont say its safe to be in the 4 digit numbers.

Hello I posted earlier about my high fire of 850 deg. Reading here it seems it is not uncommon for people to do this at times. I also read of people concerned with the inability to control this. some have tlked of modifying parts to allow full closure. Is it the EPA that has created this somewhat dangerous condition? By not allowing manufacturer's to enable full closure? Clean air is better than coming home to a burned down house and possibly killing people?

I would agree that in some cases manufacturers dont allow enough adjustment to dial down the air intake. Because of the emission requirements, the manufacurers calculate the emissions with a very short chimney in milder climates. They have to ensure in all conditions the emissions are met. The problem becomes when you have very good draft, meaning, like me, have a long interior chimney and live in a colder climate. I have made a few simple mods to limit the intake air, and yes, i still burn very clean.

Something doesn't seem right. Can you imagine the number of woodburners out there that don't go on the inernet and burn there stoves as they wish all the time without regard?

I can just bet,my boss doesn't pay a bit of attention to what i tell him of burning.he says,burn that wet stuff it burns longer.I've filled him in on the creosote and the cooler fires but i'm not wasting my breath and have him tell me i don't know what i'm talking about.He doesn't even have a legal set up in his 10 yr old 2 story.Burn er down i say.Pay 20 more yrs on the trailer he'll be living in while he's paying his ash heap off.Hope they stay safe.

EJL923

I would agree that in some cases manufacturers dont allow enough adjustment to dial down the air intake. Because of the emission requirements, the manufacurers calculate the emissions with a very short chimney in milder climates. They have to ensure in all conditions the emissions are met. The problem becomes when you have very good draft, meaning, like me, have a long interior chimney and live in a colder climate. I have made a few simple mods to limit the intake air, and yes, i still burn very clean.

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Can you elaborate on the mods ?

There are three air entrances on mine. Primary, doghouse air (bottom front), secondaries. On the jotul, the primary air is a cast iron slider above the door. When you open it up, there is a stop which wont allow the slider to close completely. This was ground down to allow the slider more travel. Yours will prbably be different. On the doghouse (no control), there are two holes feeding the base of the fire. I plugged one with a screw. I have been thinking about the secondaries, adding a slider on the back, but it would not be easily accessible. Plus, the secondary tubes get torched pretty good, and i wouldnt want the thin walls to get too hot if i didnt have enough air going through. I think those are better left alone.

I think I ran up to 880º when I had the time lapse on my stove. Fairly typical when winter heating season is in full swing. Need to try and seal the ash pan door to moderate the temps a bit and make for longer burn times with more even heat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0muxLgno3I

Cozy, that is great video ... what kind of nifty thermometer do you have there ( make/model ) ? Does the retrofit allow you to control the 2ndary air intake ?

indiana4spartans said:

Third year burning. Have a bunch of basswood for the shoulder season and we've been burning small fires at night to take the edge off. Last night decided to go half load NS after the initial start up fire. Highest I've ever seen my stove top therm go - 750-800. ?

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500-700 is my normal operating range for my Regency F2100... keeps my chimney nice and whistle clean and throws good heat into the basement. I've seen it spike waaay past that though on a few (thankfully, rare) occasions. My stovetop thermometer tops out at 900 and the needle was buried. Saw the stovetop about 6" from the flue collar glow a dull red once.... now THAT was scary. I see the secondaries glowing quite often when I reload and open up the throttle, but they usually cool off when I dial the air back.

Never knew about the open the door trick... I will try that the next time it gets away from me.

I tried the open door trick a few nights ago when the fire got away from me, worked like a charm. Doesn't happen often, but when the cat thermo gets above 1800 I get a bit nervous.