30nc questions

[mainemaul]

ok,have read tons of useful info on this great stove. its my second season with this beast and love it,however am still figuring out the size of proper load of wood. if i load to top of firebrick and pull air intake to even with front lip [ thats seems what the experts say] the stove gets HOT,like 800+ and stack temp over 500.makes me nervous.stove is in cellar so have about 25 of 6in. stainless flue.very good draft. if the air intake gets less air glass gets black, however longer burn time. my wood is really seasoned good,no signs of wet wood! with 4-5 good splits she runs super but only a feww hours [4-5]im in maine, so all good hardwood.i read here if your glass is dirty so is the flue. are these temps normal??? thanks guys

 

[moosetrek]

We had the same stove, and the same experience. I would guess possibly two things - 1) the wood may still be slightly less than dry (but not at all unburnable), and 2) too much draft - if you don't have one put in a damper. We switched to the Pacifc Energy stove in sig, and burning the same wood our glass stays clean. I think the Englander is just designed so that the glass is not quite as "air washed" as some other brands. For the price and performance, I could have cared less about some dark glass - a razor blade a 30 secs when cleaning ashes kept it clean. I did not find a strong correlation between glass and chimney condition, though we did have some slight buildup but no sticky stuff so the wood was not significantly green. Awesome stove - and for the heat output maybe try the side shields and a blower to dissipate some of the radiant heat into convective? GL-