We have some cool nights so I was eager to burn the Clydesdale to take the chill off and learn the stove. I know many have recommended for people to purchase the largest insert that fits and just build smaller fires if you don't want high heat.
I played around with fire size and start up temperature ramp up. What I have found so far... and help me out if I'm doing something wrong.. is you cannot start out with a small fire. You need to get the stove up to 500 deg before the afterburner kicks in. If I don't read 500 at the top, I pump smoke out the chimney. I think this is pretty standard with all stoves. You don't get secondary without that heat.
So what I have found with this particular stove is it has to run at 500F stovetop to maintain a proper burn. To me that pretty much precludes the small fire capability. In other words, the bigger the stove, the bigger the fire to get it hot. Now once it's hot you can back off but you still need to keep the temp stable to maintain afterburner. So you still have 500+ stove top, producing heat. A bigger stove will be difficult to burn low IMHO.
I did notice that this insert is very stable. It looks like it wood be difficult to overfire it. I had it blasting with the damper full on and it looks like it does a good job of holding low 500's. Manual says 600F is the upper limit at the top. I'm measuring temp with a gun pointed at the exposed cast iron just under the shroud.
My wood is very well seasoned oak and beech.
I had it packed last night and up to temp. The damper was just a smidgen open. It burned beautifully with small flames under and dancing off the surface of the splits and the underside of the baffle doing the light show. At one point I had only a center area with blue flames dancing off the wood and flattening out under the baffle. That was mesmerizing.
The heat coming out of the thing is much more than I expected. What a difference from the open fireplace. Hearthstone did an excellent job designing the insert heat shroud and the blower system. Heat blows off the top of the insert, out of the 1" or so gap, and it comes straight out, even slightly downward. The blower is strong enough to push the hot air 3 or 4 feet out into the room.
So, so far so good. Thanks everyone for all of your help so far. I got just about all of my knowledge from this site. It's great to read a bunch of peoples opinions and experiences instead of one persons "way".
Mike
I played around with fire size and start up temperature ramp up. What I have found so far... and help me out if I'm doing something wrong.. is you cannot start out with a small fire. You need to get the stove up to 500 deg before the afterburner kicks in. If I don't read 500 at the top, I pump smoke out the chimney. I think this is pretty standard with all stoves. You don't get secondary without that heat.
So what I have found with this particular stove is it has to run at 500F stovetop to maintain a proper burn. To me that pretty much precludes the small fire capability. In other words, the bigger the stove, the bigger the fire to get it hot. Now once it's hot you can back off but you still need to keep the temp stable to maintain afterburner. So you still have 500+ stove top, producing heat. A bigger stove will be difficult to burn low IMHO.
I did notice that this insert is very stable. It looks like it wood be difficult to overfire it. I had it blasting with the damper full on and it looks like it does a good job of holding low 500's. Manual says 600F is the upper limit at the top. I'm measuring temp with a gun pointed at the exposed cast iron just under the shroud.
My wood is very well seasoned oak and beech.
I had it packed last night and up to temp. The damper was just a smidgen open. It burned beautifully with small flames under and dancing off the surface of the splits and the underside of the baffle doing the light show. At one point I had only a center area with blue flames dancing off the wood and flattening out under the baffle. That was mesmerizing.
The heat coming out of the thing is much more than I expected. What a difference from the open fireplace. Hearthstone did an excellent job designing the insert heat shroud and the blower system. Heat blows off the top of the insert, out of the 1" or so gap, and it comes straight out, even slightly downward. The blower is strong enough to push the hot air 3 or 4 feet out into the room.
So, so far so good. Thanks everyone for all of your help so far. I got just about all of my knowledge from this site. It's great to read a bunch of peoples opinions and experiences instead of one persons "way".
Mike
