Add wood with air closed, and no smoke

[zmoson]

Secondary burner stove(PE Super Insert), found out this recently, have tested for a couple weeks:

When the secondary fire still running, and face (above door) temperature is running 500+, and the air is closed almost all the way down(with only a slice open). If I add only one or two splits, then close the door without open air, then secondary fire will pick up in a few seconds. From outside, it seems the air comes out of chimney is very clean, only heat wave, no smoke at all.

Wonder if the secondary fire just took care of all the VOCs, so it's OK to not open air, or do I miss something?

Thanks for any comments.

 

[xman23]

If it works for you, do it. It does sound like a green and clean reload. Nothing wrong with that. I believe the recommended reload procedure, is open the air fully. for some time. This gets everything burning. Helps with the popiing splits when you open the door.
I do none of this. I load from the side door, so the rare poping flare hits the side wall.

 

[jatoxico]

I do it too. If the splits are not too big, the fire is hot and temp doesn't drop much any volatiles coming off the new splits gets burned by the 2nds.

 

[begreen]

Secondary burner stove(PE Super Insert), found out this recently, have tested for a couple weeks:

When the secondary fire still running, and face (above door) temperature is running 500+, and the air is closed almost all the way down(with only a slice open). If I add only one or two splits, then close the door without open air, then secondary fire will pick up in a few seconds. From outside, it seems the air comes out of chimney is very clean, only heat wave, no smoke at all.

Wonder if the secondary fire just took care of all the VOCs, so it's OK to not open air, or do I miss something?

Thanks for any comments.

That's fine as long as the firebox is hot enough and the wood is dry. I do this occasionally to fill in the gap when the kindling in a top-down started fire has burned down.

 

[Caw]

That's fine as long as the firebox is hot enough and the wood is dry. I do this occasionally to fill in the gap when the kindling in a top-down started fire has burned down.

I also do the same. If I'm doing a fresh top down for overnight I'll usually tetris in the wood as best I can and leave a 1 split sized gap for the kindling. I hit that with my torch and let the load get going then toss a split onto the gap. I'm not as concerned about maximizing space I'm around during the day but my firebox is only 1.85 cu ft so I need to maximize the mass I can get in there for overnight loads.

 

[thunderhead]

My PE T5 does this too. Small loads tossed into a hot stove with STT at or above 500F will go straight to secondaries pretty much instantly with no smoke. With a STT in the 450 range there is usually a little bit of smoke. Thats an aggressive cycle though, and i generally can't keep that up or the house gets too warm.