Hearthstone Equinox

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I came to this forum somewhat like you in that I had a Nashua. I don't understand what it is about those stoves but they are heating monsters. At least you bought a stove most people really love here so you will be tolerated for any comments regarding the Nashua. You will learn to operate and love your new stove and its long burn times and it will be adequate and keep you warm. But here is the cold hard facts. It will never put off heat like that big ole beast did.
 
jonwright said:
Also, the heat comes from the COALS in the stove, not really the FIRE.

If this is true, why do folks try so hard to induce spectacular secondaries? What about pellet stoves, gas and oil furnaces, and gas-fired radiant stoves? All flame, no coals. Also, have you ever had 6" of coals in the stove but no real heat coming out? That's one of the biggest complaints here come sub-zero weather in January.

Any kind of combustion inside the stove produces heat, be it primary, secondary, catalytic or coaling. I can get my stove up to 750º in 15 minutes with just a hot kindling fire... no coals at all. Just saying.
 
So that's my outlook on it, and also rather my frame of mind when tending the fire in my little Tribute.

If I fire it up on the initial fire and within 15 minutes start to shut it down because I have nice flames, it doesn't get up to temp. But if I let it burn until the first sticks of wood are orange coals, reload, let the second load catch up THEN start to shut it down I actually get secondaries going.

So when I start to look for good strong coals and not the yellow flames from freshly started/loaded wood I get better heat out of my stove.

I USED to build an initial fire and as soon as I got yellow flames in the wood and it was caught up well I'd start to shut it down. Don't anymore.

I'm not saying flames or anything else don't product heat. Just a little thing that helps ME keep my stove hot.

For ME and MY set up - that's what works for me. Your mileage may very. Maybe that little tip will help him get his Equinox up to temp.

Just saying.
 
jonwright said:
So that's my outlook on it, and also rather my frame of mind when tending the fire in my little Tribute.

If I fire it up on the initial fire and within 15 minutes start to shut it down because I have nice flames, it doesn't get up to temp. But if I let it burn until the first sticks of wood are orange coals, reload, let the second load catch up THEN start to shut it down I actually get secondaries going.

So when I start to look for good strong coals and not the yellow flames from freshly started/loaded wood I get better heat out of my stove.

I USED to build an initial fire and as soon as I got yellow flames in the wood and it was caught up well I'd start to shut it down. Don't anymore.

I'm not saying flames or anything else don't product heat. Just a little thing that helps ME keep my stove hot.

For ME and MY set up - that's what works for me. Your mileage may very. Maybe that little tip will help him get his Equinox up to temp.

Just saying.

I think you make a good point.........I will not hesitate to put more wood in if there is room for it especially when it is cold. Keep it full and keep that peak operating temp going! All great if you don't leave or never sleep.
 
jonwright said:
So that's my outlook on it, and also rather my frame of mind when tending the fire in my little Tribute.

If I fire it up on the initial fire and within 15 minutes start to shut it down because I have nice flames, it doesn't get up to temp. But if I let it burn until the first sticks of wood are orange coals, reload, let the second load catch up THEN start to shut it down I actually get secondaries going.

So when I start to look for good strong coals and not the yellow flames from freshly started/loaded wood I get better heat out of my stove.

I USED to build an initial fire and as soon as I got yellow flames in the wood and it was caught up well I'd start to shut it down. Don't anymore.

I'm not saying flames or anything else don't product heat. Just a little thing that helps ME keep my stove hot.

For ME and MY set up - that's what works for me. Your mileage may very. Maybe that little tip will help him get his Equinox up to temp.

Just saying.

Got it... and I agree with what you are saying now that you've clarified it better for me. :)
 
After 2 or 3 seasons with my equinox ,I find it rises to the occasion.
The colder it gets the more heat it pumps out.
Dry wood is defiantly a factor.
I try to keep one year ahead on my wood pile.
At 550 stove top its throwing tons of heat.
If your at 350 stove top your gonna freeze.
As the outside temps fall your gonna need a pipe dampener to keep the heat from escaping out the chimney.
Once coals established load it up let it char at mid air intake them slowly bank it down.
If very cold out close the pipe dampener also.
Its a 24 / 7 type of stove .
Plenty of coals for a quick start up after 12 hours .
My guess is its your wood, not seasoned enough.
These new clean burn stoves require dryer wood.
doug
 
jonwright said:
So that's my outlook on it, and also rather my frame of mind when tending the fire in my little Tribute.

If I fire it up on the initial fire and within 15 minutes start to shut it down because I have nice flames, it doesn't get up to temp. But if I let it burn until the first sticks of wood are orange coals, reload, let the second load catch up THEN start to shut it down I actually get secondaries going.

So when I start to look for good strong coals and not the yellow flames from freshly started/loaded wood I get better heat out of my stove.

I USED to build an initial fire and as soon as I got yellow flames in the wood and it was caught up well I'd start to shut it down. Don't anymore.

I'm not saying flames or anything else don't product heat. Just a little thing that helps ME keep my stove hot.

For ME and MY set up - that's what works for me. Your mileage may very. Maybe that little tip will help him get his Equinox up to temp.

Just saying.

That is my experience. You need to get the whole stove hot or the cold stone will suck the life out of the fire if you dial it down too soon.

doug60 said:
Once coals established load it up let it char at mid air intake them slowly bank it down.
doug

This is my experience. Like doug says, this is a good 24/7 stove. Your first load is devoted to getting the rock hot... even if it means loosing some up the chimney. Once the rock is hot you now have a good internal temps that will sustain a hotter follow-on load at closed or almost closed air settings... but if you don't get it hot initially, it will take a bit longer to get it hot.

I think the OP has a fuel issue and needs to learn the curve of the rock.
 
Another content Hearthstone owner chiming in w/my .02's worth.

I heated a 2000sf house in the middle of Alaska last winter with a Heritage (didn't plan it this way, but that's the way the boiler crumbled). Lots of windows, well-insulated.

A couple of things I learned along the way that help with MY stove, MY heating situation, plus a few generalizations I've picked up from hanging out here:

dry wood heats like a dream with this stove, but sometimes you have to use what you have at hand. You can get heat out of substandard wood with this thing, but you need to get a good initial fire going first. Sometimes that means smaller splits, sometimes bringing in hotter wood from elsewhere (cut up pallets are popular for that on this forum). One suggestion that I haven't seen mentioned on this thread, so I'll put it out there--get something to burn that you know eliminates the `is it my wood?' question: biobricks, cut-up pallets, bundles of wood from the grocery store sold at exorbitant prices. Get enough of whatever to take that puppy out for a spin around the block, and see what it can do with good fuel. Once you have a hot fire established and are getting some serious heat out of it, you could try adding the wood you have on hand in small splits, and see if it will start popping out some BTU's. I was fortunate enough to have really good wood when I started learning my stove. If I'd started out with sub-standard, I'd have probably thought I had an inferior stove. As it was, I just burned up a lot of prime firewood going through the learning curve--ouch.

Just for a day or so, you could also see if you can isolate the room that the stove is burning in and then evaluate the heating capacity of that stove. Even if you have open doors, just hang blankets in there with a spring-loaded curtain rod. That way, you're eliminating the `is it my house?' factor. If that turns out to be the case, there are a lot of low-budget, high-ingenuity fixes for a poorly-insulated house. Hit the DIY forum for specific suggestions on this.

Someone used this analogy to describe different kinds of wood, and I'm just gonna kinda *borrow* it here to describe the air controls on a stove as well. Think of the built-in damper on the stove as a way of running the stove through gears: wide open is first gear, which allows you to get the fuel combusting, and build up a little forward momentum; mid-point is your middle gears where you're getting more efficiency out of the wood you're burning, more power building, and shut down all the way is cruising in 5th gear. It's counter-intuitive, but wide open is NOT more heat--that's where you hang out to get the combustion process underway.

THe manufacturer recommends in the manual a daily `run-up' fire; starting it out with a nice hot fire to `clear its throat' and get the draft running and ensure a clean chimney. I do this daily, and then dial it back. My run-up stove temps are usually about 450F max--when my stove gets up towards the high 500's, I'm generally keeping a close eye on it and am not adding more wood or air at that point. Most of the time my operating temps run around 350-450, even at -30. This is for the Heritage, mind you, so I'd go with whatever the Equinox owners say about stovetop temps. Just trying to say that even at 350, my (smaller) stove is heating my (smaller) house (alone, in a colder climate). The Heritage manual is available online, so I imagine that the Equinox is as well.

I get a lot of heat through the glass as the stove is warming up. Although the stone takes awhile to come up to temps when it's cold, if I burn a bottom-up fire, I get heat out of the glass almost immediately. If I try starting a top-down fire, most of that initial heat goes up the chimney, so I would only use that approach when I am either starting with a warm house, or simply have no time to fuss with a fire. After 20 minutes, that glass is throwing off so much heat I have to back away from the stove.

I use my stovepipe damper a lot to regulate temps and hold heat in the house. However, I have a lot of good factors on my side with the stovepipe--internal chimney, no offsets or horizontal runs or even angled runs--straight shot through two stories, exits about 3' off the ridge on the downwind side of the house, and I live in a cold, dry climate. This means that on an average day I have a good draft, and in a windstorm, that chimney screams like a banshee; I *need* that damper on those days. The rest of the time, it helps keep heat in the house, but only after I have a hot fire established and my front damper is dialed down and cruising in 5th gear. However, I'd learn the basics of getting this stove running before I had a damper installed.

Do us a favor and stick around and let us know how this works out for you. If you're lucky, wkpoor might even post pix of his Elm--that alone would be worth hanging around for. We like knowing how the story ends, and we love "happily ever after".
 
trettig said:
thanks for the advise. I appreciate all your thoughts.
Well well well, I feel your pain, the new stove is one hell of a stove but I heated my house for 30 years with a Nashua and they are a heat factory, you will get it figured out but the Nashua is tough to beat in a foot race.
 
oldspark said:
trettig said:
thanks for the advise. I appreciate all your thoughts.
Well well well, I feel your pain, the new stove is one hell of a stove but I heated my house for 30 years with a Nashua and they are a heat factory, you will get it figured out but the Nashua is tough to beat in a foot race.

Reading through this thread I immediately thought of you, oldspark.
 
So I conclude from the above comment - My wood is not dry enough. Maybe I will bring in wood into the basement to dry before burning. Also It seams like I may need a stove pipe damper to bottle in the heat. Does this seem correct.
Again Thanks for all the great feedback
Tom
 
trettig said:
So I conclude from the above comment - My wood is not dry enough. Maybe I will bring in wood into the basement to dry before burning. Also It seams like I may need a stove pipe damper to bottle in the heat. Does this seem correct.
Again Thanks for all the great feedback
Tom
Give us the details on your wood, type when split and stacked and do you have a moisture meter? You should not need a damper with the stove unless you have too much draft.
 
trettig said:
So I conclude from the above comment - My wood is not dry enough. Maybe I will bring in wood into the basement to dry before burning. Also It seams like I may need a stove pipe damper to bottle in the heat. Does this seem correct.
Again Thanks for all the great feedback
Tom


We have no idea at this point since you never described how the fire was burning, how much wood you were adding, what type of fire you had (roaring or lazy) and the peak temperatures you were getting. If 350 was your peak temperature, then I would focus on getting a good fire going first and sorting out the wood issue before working on a damper.
 
trettig said:
Anyways is there a stove that is better for my purposes? (my house is 2800sq feet, big windows, brick, insulation in the roof) I think the soapstone just can't keep up with the heat loss of my house.
P.S. No choke points, 8 inch SS liner up to the top)
Nashua! :cheese: I could not help myself.
 
I hope someone chimes in here but maybe a more radiant type of stove would be better but you are not getting that stove any where near hot enough.
 
As has been posted several times.. we need more info.. but.. a pipe damper is very rarely needed on a modern stove..

As BB points out, how much wood are you putting in? is the stove FULL? Even with not seasoned wood, you*should* be able to get above 350 degrees with work.. what is your chimney instal like ( I may have missed it if you already told us...)

Go to Home Depot and get one of these: http://www.generaltools.com/MM1E--PIN-TYPE-LED-BAR-GRAPH-MOISTURE-METER_p_635.html

Take a piece of firewood off your stack, SPLIT it open, read the moisture level. Let us know what you find..

Honestly about 80% of the time, we see the final answer to "stove won't heat", no matter how sure the user is of his wood.. it's the wood. So that is almost always the first suspect, escpesially when we have no other info to work from..

BTW, I mentioned your problem to my dealer when I ran into them a couple days ago, they pointed out they would not have even sold you an Equinox at 2800sqft, they said they won't sell to anyone under 3000sqft, because it's just asking to have the stove run poorly to keep the heat from roasting the owners out.. ( oh, and they asked... "how is their wood?")
 
oldspark said:
I hope someone chimes in here but maybe a more radiant type of stove would be better but you are not getting that stove any where near hot enough.


How can a "better stove" be recommended if the current stove isn't being used properly?
 
BrowningBAR said:
oldspark said:
I hope someone chimes in here but maybe a more radiant type of stove would be better but you are not getting that stove any where near hot enough.


How can a "better stove" be recommended if the current stove isn't being used properly?
My bad, I went through this last winter and was thinking even when he gets his stove working correctly he may like a more radiant stove, pretty sure I would like that type better. He needs to get this one working like it is supposed to first.
 
BrowningBAR said:
oldspark said:
I hope someone chimes in here but maybe a more radiant type of stove would be better but you are not getting that stove any where near hot enough.


How can a "better stove" be recommended if the current stove isn't being used properly?
I did say he was not getting his stove hot enough. :lol:
 
oldspark said:
BrowningBAR said:
oldspark said:
I hope someone chimes in here but maybe a more radiant type of stove would be better but you are not getting that stove any where near hot enough.


How can a "better stove" be recommended if the current stove isn't being used properly?
I did say he was not getting his stove hot enough. :lol:

:p
 
I tried dry pine boards and the stove got up to 400 degrees. I tried with the pine for about 3 hours. Seems like it should have been enough time. I am tracking down a manometer to measure draft in my chimney. Also I will purchase a moisture content reader to test my wood. I will report back later. - As always thanks for your suggestions.
 
trettig said:
I tried dry pine boards and the stove got up to 400 degrees. I tried with the pine for about 3 hours. Seems like it should have been enough time. I am tracking down a manometer to measure draft in my chimney. Also I will purchase a moisture content reader to test my wood. I will report back later. - As always thanks for your suggestions.
My summit would get to about 550 or so and stall out, I also tried the pine boards and had the same temps so your chimney may be part of the problem. Have you had a chance to check the stack temps, mine were higher with my old chimney.
 
trettig said:
I tried dry pine boards and the stove got up to 400 degrees. I tried with the pine for about 3 hours. Seems like it should have been enough time. I am tracking down a manometer to measure draft in my chimney. Also I will purchase a moisture content reader to test my wood. I will report back later. - As always thanks for your suggestions.


Still missing a lot of information.

How much wood did you use?
Did you fill the firebox?
What type of fire did you have?
Was it roaring? Was it lazy?
What were your air controls set at?
How did you adjust your air controls?

This stove does not work like a Pre-EPA stove (your Nashua). You need to work the air controls differently. With dry would you should have had that firebox engulfed with flames with a lot of secondaries.

You tend to not answer questions and post every few days with vague information which leads you to getting nowhere. Even with a strong draft you should be able to get that stove to a hotter temp than you experienced.
 
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