When I put fresh wood on a good bed of coals I open her up for roughly 15 minutes and then close her down to 3/4 wait another 10 minutes and close it down to 1/2 and any more than that the flames go away. At about 1/2 or more, the stove will get close to 600 which its too high for me to go to bed w/o worrying. Id like to turn it down below half and let it smolder, but since there is full logs in there and I'm afraid of access creosote build up. Any suggestions with what to do. I am definitely learning the stove, but advice for tonight would be appreciated.thx
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Spend some time on the weekend when you're around and awake and load it up like you would for bedtime (getting a full load in for and overnight burn). Then adjust your air control and watch what the fire does. As you get comfortable with the stove, it's air control and how it behaves you will likely feel less apprehensive about running and overnight load. May take a while or part of the burn season, but a stove, the way it is set up and acts is kinda like getting to know your new date-
The stove is designed to not smolder, but you should be able to close down the air further. Try taking it down to the point where the flames get very lazy, almost ghost-like. As the wood outgases it will pick up steam again. I wouldn't worry too much about the 600F temp. I regularly went to be with the stove pushing 650F. And when it was cold outside 700F temps were not extraordinary.
Blue Vomit
Minister of Fire
with temps at 600, full logs in the firebox, and air set to 1/4, i would think you should have some nice secondaries in there. Not sure why your flames are going away.
Well like be green said...i got it to the point where I saw qhostlike flames. I tested all late afternoon and up to 1100 pm. First cycle very short, a couple hours, second cycle let go til 730, loaded it up a couple inches below the secondaries and at six am, house was cold, and a barely had glowing coals. No problem. I don't know why my stove top thermometer said 100 this morning. So I basically got around a7 hr burn cycle.
I did a full load last night at 530 and it ran strong until about 10:30. I threw 3-4 more splits on a healthy bed of coals and at 8 this morning had enough coals to start things up again. I've found that I can get really long burn times If I work to increase the depth of the coal bed.
If you can't shut the primary air down past 1/2 without risking smoldering I gotta think your wood might not be perfect yet. I've struggled with this too....In fact, I had the very same issue when I installed my castine. I had issues getting it to the 550-650 range without leaving the air at 3/4+ for the full burn cycle. My wood supply is a bit better this year but there certainly is still room for improvement. Just for kicks, you might want to experiment with some pallet wood....I think you'll be impressed with the secondaries you can achieve with little to no primary air.
If you can't shut the primary air down past 1/2 without risking smoldering I gotta think your wood might not be perfect yet. I've struggled with this too....In fact, I had the very same issue when I installed my castine. I had issues getting it to the 550-650 range without leaving the air at 3/4+ for the full burn cycle. My wood supply is a bit better this year but there certainly is still room for improvement. Just for kicks, you might want to experiment with some pallet wood....I think you'll be impressed with the secondaries you can achieve with little to no primary air.
LLigetfa
Minister of Fire
Amount of draft and the balance of pressure in the house are also factors and classic symptoms of what's described.southbalto said:
Since I loaded this morning at 6 ive gone through 2 cycles, the second one has been burning for about 45 minutes. I got the stove to 650 huge secondaries, and closed the primary all the way down over that period of time. I have a real good bed of coals and only the secondaries are going.....really cool. Its this normal/ok w/o an actual fire coming from the wood itself. I'm loving this stove and wood heat. No oil burning....
remkel
Minister of Fire
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