Best sign of clean burn

[rkzoo]

I have an EPA stove (cheap Vogelzang Defender from Tractor Supply). It's in the basement with an exterior class A chimney -25-30ft- that is enclosed and insulated.

Had a nice lazy burn going today but was cooler than where I normally like to see it. Maybe in the 300-350 F area (single wall pipe temp about 18" above stove). At this temp I did not see the secondary tubes lighting. I went outside to check the chimney and could see heat but no smoke.

My question is what is the best indicator of a good clean burn? Looking for smoke (or lack there of) at chimney, pipe temp, secondaries, something else I should be looking for?

I typically shoot for 400-475 with secondaries going and believe those are all burning pretty clean (albeit hot on a warm day like today).

Thanks for any input you may have.

 

[ThunderMedic]

I've got a Vogelzang Colonial insert and the best indicators I've found are clean glass and lack of smoke from the top of the chimney. I burn any 3-4cords of wood a year and at the end of the last two burning seasons I get less than a coffee mug full of powdery soot upon clean out. Dry wood is essential though to achieving nice clean burn. I've found that my VZ doesn't like anything above 20% moisture content at all.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[Doc C]

I have always struggled with this as well. My single wall pipe never gets as hot as most people say it should. When a have a raging fire going and my air shut down all the way with secondaries burning my pipe is just nowhere near where it should be. The only way I can get my pipe temp up is to have my damper open on my sgove part way.

This year I have been paying more attention to the smoke from my stove. I cleaned my chimney after the first 30 days of burning and got hardly anything compared to last time.

There are other details in my setup im working on and changes I've made but the smoke from the chimney is how I'm monitoring things now.

 

[Jags]

No smoke and clean glass. That is two pretty good indicators of a proper burn. You can go by temps and formulas and celestial signs or whatever. But those two are pretty good indicators that things are working as advertised.

 

[Poindexter]

I think the crud you brush out of your chimney after a cord or two is the best indicator of how clean your average burn is.

Learning to tell smoke from steam in your stack plume is a good skill. If your plume is detached from your stack look real careful at the air between the top of your stack and the base of your plume. That detached area is all smoke, where the visible plume starts is where your exhaust has cooled enough for the steam to condense and be visible.

I havent run single wall pipe or a non cat stove in a long time, so no comments on those.

When looking at your sweepings, any of the variois colors of powdery ash are fine, grey, brown, whatever, powdery is good.

There will be some hard black shiny specks in the powder, 'a few' or 'some' of those is unavoidable and perfectly fine.

If you find black papery sheets, like dead leaf sized, you got trouble. Thats where double wall pipe is an improvement over single wall. It takes a certain amount of heat to pump water vapor out of your stove box to the top of your chimney. It takes a certain amount of heat to keep your chimney hot enough for the water vapor in the exhaust stream to not condense on the inside wall of your pipe.

With double wall pipe i am burning less wood to keep the water in the exhaust as a vapor to the top of the pipe. Even with double wall i would not be suprised to learn something like 8-10-12% of the wood i burn is just to keep the stack hot so less creosote forms. Dunno really, but i bet it is a lot.

What i am getting at is a clean burn is a good thing but i think we as woodburners should include chimney hygiene in our defintion.

 

[Jags]

“Chimney hygiene”
I think that needs to be a phrase that is trade marked.

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

I have had The Defender a couple years now and each year i like it less and less. The box is just so tiny its hard to get it up in the temp range and keep it there for long and the heat output is poor. I think best indication of clean burning is what your chimney looks like when you clean it.

 

[Woody5506]

When I get cruising up to temp where it's throwing good heat, i'll say 500-700 on the stove top, I rarely see smoke coming out of the chimney. This, I assume, is a clean burn.

 

[Shmudda]

Clean burn......it's easy, look for blue flame, that's as good as it gets. Anything else is smokey and dirty.

 

[yooper08]

In my mind, the best on demand indicator is smoke/no smoke out of the chimney. You can have secondaries or coals going and still have a smokey fire if there’s not enough air or heat.

 

[venator260]

As others have said, I look at the smoke or lack thereof from the chimney if I'm curious. Ive had decent secondaries from my 30nc and still had smoke from the chimney. There are times I can't figure out why though, as I have pipe temps around 450-500, stove tops at 600-650 and still rolling some smoke.

 

[firefighterjake]

In my case . . . relatively clean glass, secondary flames, no visible smoke from the chimney and little creosote in the chimney. Pick one . . . or all three. I would guess the best sign though is not seeing visible smoke in the chimney.

 

[Allagash350]

My wife came home this morning and was complaining there wasn’t any smoke coming out of the chimney because it looks more “homey”.
I explained it was a good thing and that we are burning less wood, cleaner, than our neighbors.