Break-in fire for steel stoves, specifically the 30

What's the deal, apart from the smell? Build up of a few smaller fires or does it not matter for steel stoves.

Manual says "allow the stove to cure before burning for long periods of time at high temperatures."

Anyone care to offer some more specifics apart from opening several windows?

It would be my guess (which is usually followed by an engineer showing up and telling how dumb I am) that starting with small fires, letting them cool and gradually getting bigger somehow tempers the steel and aviods it from getting brittle. I don't think it would ever get so brittle or hard as to crack but tempering may allow the steel to keep expanding and contracting properly.

I ran three smaller fires to get over the paint "cure" after that, it was full speed ahead and we haven't looked back. All seems just fine. Hopefully the Stove Guy sees this and wades in. since he builds em', he should know.

I'm not an engineer, but I did drive a train thru a holiday inn xpress last night.
I guess its about the paint.

Sorry! Was attempting humor, and posted from a slightly older page - did not see ur post till refreshed.

Thanks everyone.

I had the same question, and maybe this is a stupid idea but...can you burn in the stove outside without it being connected to a flue? I have never had a brand new stove.

Yes . . . some folks do this for the first burn to avoid the smell and "smoke" from the oils burning off. Most add a section or two of stove pipe to establish a draft though.

Planned to do the outside first fire thing with a section of stove pipe for draft but getting the delivery people to bring the 30 into my house for $50 was to good to pass up so I just ran with it. I have had a few smaller fires and a couple bigger/longer fires so far and the smell is pretty much gone. I will say that if your smoke/fire detectors are as sensative as mine you will want to disconect them for the first couple fires because my whole house was beeping. Same thing happend last year with the new stove pipe burn in so I was not nearly as paranoid when they started going off. I did the fans in the windows thing and the smell was not to bad.

Bob Urban

I did my break-in burns outside - before I set the stove inside. Now I just load it up and let it rip! That's one thing very nice about a steel plate stove, you can get it up to a very high temperature output in short order - without worrying about cracking anything. The stove can stand a lot of abuse IMHO.

I'm anxious to hear your reports on how this stove compares to others you have presently and in the past.

This Sunday is going to be right chilly and I'll likely fire my 30NCH for the first time this weekend.

Good luck,
Bill

Well, the stove is inside, and I ain't moving it back out. I have reached my stove moving limit for the decade.

The 30 should be ready for it's break-in fire Saturday.

I'll be replacing a few gaskets on the Encore this weekend to fix a few errors I made last year. And the Defiant, god willing, will be ready to burn on Monday.

All I know is that something is going to be on fire this weekend, whether it is one of my stoves or one of the buildings of the local stove dealers, I am not yet sure at this point.

But, something will definitely be on fire, damnit.

Way too freakin' funny BBAR. Burn baby, burn.
Can't wait to see the pics of the 30 in action.
You're gonna' do that.....right?

Yeah, I need to post a better photo of the 30, anyhow. The first photo I posted was barely better than a CCTV image.

When I got my new Blaze King there were instructions from the paint manufacture on how to cure the paint on your first fires. I must of thrown them out, can't find them but from what I remember it said to build a small to medium fire to bring stove top up to 400 for about 45 minutes then bring stove up to 600. I had smoke rolling off my stove top and you could see the paint turn from more glossy to flat.