I keep Getting too hot

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pen said:
Can't remember how tall your chimney is Danno, but another thought might be to put an damper in the flue pipe if you have a strong draft driving this thing.

I don't use mine often, but I think the wife does. She's happy to keep the stove going if I'm not here, but sometimes loading techniques as you guys are discussing fall on deaf ears with her. I consider that thing her brake pedal.

pen
Good point, Pen.....that is overlooked all too often, no matter what kind of stove is being discussed.....when we started woodburning there was a 'confidence curve', esp. with the wife if say I was working overtime or hunting, she had to learn to control and trust the stove...I never had to put a damper in the pipe but had to really teach her about the different wood species, wind effect on the stack, draft control, etc......she's got it down pretty good now....Danno how tall is your flue?
 
Danno77 said:
Well, I would like to note, that in spite of this current load getting pretty hot it still went all night. Room with the stove is still toasty warm and I had enough coals to equal the size of a small 3" x18" split.

Ok, did anybody pay attention to the times? That was 12 hours from 200 to 200. Freaking unbelievable!

I don't expect that I'll always get that long of a burn, but even if I only do 8 hours, that's what my old stove did when it was was at it's best and cranked out ony a fraction of the heat! This thing seems to put off the same heat at 200 as the old one did at 350!

you'll learn to get consistent burn times like that, alot of it has to do also with wood species.......you get some good, dry elm, white oak, locust.......learn to put it in the stove in the right cycles, it will amaze you....I have the Napoleon 1900 and let me tell you I can consistenly heat my house in 9-10hr cycles easily.....we have 3000 sq. ft. and I keep the house around 70-72 even when it is in the single digits......but alot of that is due to the fact we insulated the entire house when we remodeled AND we got rid of all the drafts, you lose a pile of heat due to drafts alone......you'll get 'er figured out, I hear alot of good things about that stove.....
 
Chimney is about 17 feet from stove top to cap.
 
Danno77 said:
Chimney is about 17 feet from stove top to cap.
That is more-or-less the height of ours (we're around 20ft), we rarely have too much draft EXCEPT when these Atlantic Clippers and the occasional Nor'Easter comes through, it does create a stronger updraft.....I believe BB has the best solution here, stack that wood all the same way, tightly....and don't leave that side door open as long....and save yer good wood (oaks, locusts, elms etc..) for overnighters or extended periods where you will be away from the house.......you'll get consistency......it's not only brand of stove, it is the different geography for each of our locations, too.....that plays a big part on how these stoves act.....
 
Darnit, reloaded e/w, left primary open for too long, cruising at 650 now. Better than last night, but it's not 5 F out, so the room is a little warm, lol. Here's the problem with the learning curve on a big stove: you get to retry once every 12 hours. Old stove learning curve was steep, I got to retry every 4 hours!
 
Danno77 said:
Well, I would like to note, that in spite of this current load getting pretty hot it still went all night. Room with the stove is still toasty warm and I had enough coals to equal the size of a small 3" x18" split.

Ok, did anybody pay attention to the times? That was 12 hours from 200 to 200. Freaking unbelievable!

I don't expect that I'll always get that long of a burn, but even if I only do 8 hours, that's what my old stove did when it was was at it's best and cranked out ony a fraction of the heat! This thing seems to put off the same heat at 200 as the old one did at 350!

I always have at least that many coals in the morning. Not the same 200º temp, though. I have no firebrick in my stove. There's lot of heat retention in all that firebrick inside the 30. Imagine what it would do if they lined it with soapstone? ;-P

Still, I just went down to start the fire 10 hours after I last filled it and it was too hot to keep my hand on it, and enough hot coals buried in there to get three nice size chunks of dense black birch roaring inside a few minutes. Not bad for a plain old cast stove.

I think you will get used to all that heat and come to accept those high temps as a bonus for having a first-class stove design. Come January, I doubt you'll be worrying about the stove getting you too warm. This is a tough time of year for critiquing a stove. They're designed for the toughest part of the heating season, not this wimpy shoulder season stuff. Heck, in this weather I'm lucky to get one full load a day burned, and mine is installed in the basement. It's all them degree days (or lack of them) that's the cause.
 
Great thread, alot of good information covered here. Alot of this comes from experience but it sure would be nice to have a link to hearth.com forums in every manual of new stoves sold on the market :)

The cigar burn works well for me, Stove is easier to control and no crazy "inferno" from the secondaries. I dont really see a big difference if I load N/S or E/W with the cigar burn.......just nice long steady burn.
 
BrotherBart said:
Get it to where all of those gases that "engulfed" are released a a fairly steady rate and you not only get more heat and longer burn times, but you won't get to the end of the driveway and come back three times to check it. ;-)

BTDT



About durn time you get out of that helicopter thing and put your work clothes on and go to work.

Nice helpful post here
 
BrotherBart said:
Burn it down to enough coals to make a six to ten inch row all the way across the front. Drag'em into that row and place the N/S splits in with the front of the splits on top of the row of coals. Then cigar burn the load. From front to back. If you place a new load of splits on top of hot coals all of the outgassing happens at once and not only wastes heat but is a pain in the butt to try and control.

If you want to burn E/W, do the same coal dragging drill but drag the ash and coals all forward and stack two big splits on top of each other in the back. Then lay a medium to big split according to how thick and hot the coal bed in the front is on the coal bed and give it ten minutes to fifteen minutes to rock and roll and then ease the primary air back in three steps to a steady burn. What you want to do is get the back splits hot and just starting to release gases but just be burning the front one.

With the E/W you are looking for blue flames burning on top of the splits at a steady rate. Not a bunch of fire blasting out of the front of the burn tubes.

I just set up the E/W for the night and it looks like a natural gas log in the thing. And it is gonna sit there and burn at five fifty for a really long time.

Can I get a clarification on this, it sounds like with either E/W or N/S method you start with the same coal bed at the front...and that's probably not what I should be taking away from this.

Say you have a firebox that's wide and not all that deep, what would the best method be for laying out a long burn fire? I understand the 'cigar burn' idea but it's not clear where the cigars fit in with the rest of the wood placement.

Thanks

Steve
 
The coal bed is across the front for either E/W or N/S. Because that is where the air comes in in an EPA stove. Cigar burn just means that only the front part of the load of splits is laying on the coals so the splits burn from front to back.
 
Thanks BB I load my stove like that now, and it works great, I load small loads or fill it up works real good for great secondary burns.
 
Been doing something slightly different because I found that if I pull all the coals forward I have to reach over them to place the splits in the stove. Decided that I would try sliding all coals to the right hand side, instead, and then load in a N/S fashion. I am finding that this works VERY well for long even burns at low temps. To get higher temps all I have to do is load a split on top of the coals, too. And leave the door open a crack to let that split get engulfed, and then run as normal.
 
Yes every stove is a little different I think the main thing, I am doing different is that I had allways made a level bed of coals, so anything that promotes the gasing and what was called cigar burn, works great.
 
BrotherBart said:
The sooner you forget that those tubes are up there and just concentrate on building a nice controllable fire the happier you will be. People here seem to wanna try to make a cat stove out of a non-cat. They ought to buy a cat stove.

Baaa hahaha. :lol:

I thought I was the only one with that thought process. Glad to see that I am in good company. :cheese:
 
BrotherBart said:
The sooner you forget that those tubes are up there and just concentrate on building a nice controllable fire the happier you will be. People here seem to wanna try to make a cat stove out of a non-cat. They ought to buy a cat stove.

I'm still in the learning mode, but I don't see how you can forget about the tubes (unless you are speaking of the fire pits of hell we read about a lot out of the secondaries) because with my stove (and I'm still learning) if there ain't no secondaries going to some degree, I got smoke out the chimney.

I've got a gut feeling I've got a leak going somewhere that is compromising my draft on this stove. Everything I got stove/hardware wise is good stuff. 23 ft of class A ought to be pulling the heck out of the secondaries and damper shut closed or nearly closed shouldn't be a problem. On the other hand - to the OP's "I keep Getting too hot" part of this thread, when I am burning clean and got a 500+ stove top temp, the sweat glands think summer is still here ;)

Bill
 
leeave96 said:
I've got a gut feeling I've got a leak going somewhere that is compromising my draft on this stove. Everything I got stove/hardware wise is good stuff. 23 ft of class A ought to be pulling the heck out of the secondaries and damper shut closed or nearly closed shouldn't be a problem. On the other hand - to the OP's "I keep Getting too hot" part of this thread, when I am burning clean and got a 500+ stove top temp, the sweat glands think summer is still here ;)

Bill

With the high pressure fronts we have had here and warm weather draft isn't gonna be optimum for a while. One of these nights things are going to come into alignment all at the same time and by the time that stove stops blasting away you will have been about as entertained by secondary burn as you care to be. And on your second set of underwear for the evening. :lol:
 
leeave96 said:
if there ain't no secondaries going to some degree, I got smoke out the chimney.

Is this an assumption or an observation? I ask in sincerity. If my stove is rolling at 600F, I don't always have the rolling secondary burns going. But I will assure you that no smoke is coming from my stack. BroB's post kinda hit on that (at least for me). Basically run the thing like it was meant to be run and it will do the work for ya. Quit staring at the secondaries as THE test for doing it right.
 
ozzy73 said:
Great thread, alot of good information covered here. Alot of this comes from experience but it sure would be nice to have a link to hearth.com forums in every manual of new stoves sold on the market :)

+1 This is one of the most practical and applicable threads I have read on this forum--THANKS everyone! I am going to try the cigar burn now... :)
 
Jags said:
leeave96 said:
if there ain't no secondaries going to some degree, I got smoke out the chimney.

Is this an assumption or an observation? I ask in sincerity. If my stove is rolling at 600F, I don't always have the rolling secondary burns going. But I will assure you that no smoke is coming from my stack. BroB's post kinda hit on that (at least for me). Basically run the thing like it was meant to be run and it will do the work for ya. Quit staring at the secondaries as THE test for doing it right.

Observation. Let me put it this way - I don't have smoke out the chimney when secondaries are present, be it off the splits or in the stove top - and I'm not looking for the fire pits of hell either. Of course once I get to charcoal, no smoke or secondaries - no problem. But to get to a minimum 500 degree stove top such that that I have secondaries and a clean burn, I feel there are way to many flames coming off the splits and I am burning through wood faster than what I believe others are doing with similar stoves. I would assume that under ideal conditions, the secondaries alone would be enough to maintain firebox temps and of course keep the smoke burn going. I know that from my cat stove, if you want to max your reload times, burn smoke vs directly flaming the splits. My Dad had (and we still have it in storage) a smoke dragon Englander from back in the day. It bugs me that this 30, when the secondaries flame out, smokes (albeit less) like my Dad's old stove.

Sorry to take this post off topic.

Thanks for everyone's advice.

Bill
 
leeave96 said:
Observation.

This is very simple. Assuming all the pieces of the puzzle are in place (dry wood, good draft, etc). If you are smoking, your not running the stove hot enough. Period. If you want to run this stove at low temps like a cat stove, you bought the wrong stove. You need a cat stove to do that. 500F is a temp I would expect to see as the wood load drifted into coal stage. Not the out gas stage. Don't feel bad, my stove won't do it either. That is cat territory.
 
Jags said:
leeave96 said:
Observation.

This is very simple. Assuming all the pieces of the puzzle are in place (dry wood, good draft, etc). If you are smoking, your not running the stove hot enough. Period. If you want to run this stove at low temps like a cat stove, you bought the wrong stove. You need a cat stove to do that. 500F is a temp I would expect to see as the wood load drifted into coal stage. Not the out gas stage. Don't feel bad, my stove won't do it either. That is cat territory.

I've got a cat stove so I know that deal. I don't expect this stove to be dialed down like a cat stove. I'm just looking for that majic setting that maximizes the wood burn and gives me a clean burn too. I'll get there.

Thanks,
Bill
 
Never had heard of Cigar Burning before now. I had always spread coals evenly, loaded full, open primary completely, wait 15 min, close 50% during the day or 75% at night. I always thought that was the best my insert could do. After 3 days and nights of cigar burning I nominate this post as post of the year. Probably going to save 25% of the wood I would have burned. Secondaries are burning for much longer (oak and sometimes pecan), less smoke exhausted from the chimney, less loads, less time spent checking.

Thanks to everyone !
 
leeave96 said:
if there ain't no secondaries going to some degree, I got smoke out the chimney.

This makes sense to me. For example, I usually get my older stove to burn as free from visible smoke as well as anybody here does with their EPA stoves, but I don't kid myself that the stove is actually burning as cleanly as theirs does. It's pretty hard to see 20 grams/hr vs. maybe 4 grams/hr like the stove might test in ideal lab conditions. Even the faintest haze of smoke contains lots of particulate matter. The only way to be sure how clean you are burning is to have a fancy test flue to catch all of the PM being emitted. I think if you are in the outgassing stage of the fire and you aren't seeing active secondaries of some sort, you probably aren't burning as cleanly as you think you are, in spite of the stove temp, or what it looks like from the ground looking up at the top of the stack.
 
Something that would be useful I think for the community would be for someone (at 5 years of burning expirance I don't want to be the guy) to put together a few pictures of "how to load a stove". Its talked about all the time for hot reloads and initial starts. It would be a good resource to have for when it frequently gets asked. There are videos on youtube, but they definitely let the fire get way faster than I let mine get, I assume is for show.

I have a stove with a somewhat constrained firebox. Pictures of other stoves going always have the logs somewhat haphazardly placed, I always have mine pretty neatly spaced, otherwise I cant get much in there and the burn is pretty terrible. But that probably boils down to differences between stoves.
 
This thread sounds like when I heard folks recommending average drivers go out and get a Charger with a 440 hemi in it. It takes a delicate touch to run either beast unless you are on a straight road or it's pushing zero outside.
 
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