Burned way too cool. Now what?
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pinewoodburner
Feeling the Heat
If you have room, stack several days of wood near the stove, but watch the clearance requirements. 2 days inside near the stove will help dry the wood. Good luck and know that next year, you will be much better off with seasoned wood.
mayhem
Minister of Fire
ikessky said:
You already know this, but thats no way to measure flue temps. Even if you cna touch it, the gases might be up to operating temperature in there. My stack is double wall and I cna touch the pipe when the stove is running full bore.
Your startup method is the problem I think. I would let it run with full air for a good 30 minutes or more after the bigger pieces ignite before considering shutting it down. Ideally I would wait until the first round of bigger peices of wood have been reduced to coals and you've added a second load to the fire.
I am ready for the flaming but here goes..
I am going to be burning GREEN wood this year all except for 1 1/2 cord that was cut down this spring but not split or cut in to rounds (yep that is my good wood this year).
Not looking for sympathy I had a very poorly placed lightning strike this summer with not much rain it set my 20+ cord stack of wood ablaze while i was at work no damage to anything else just a big black spot in my field and the loss of my wood. All we heat with is a wood stove, You can burn green wood even oak, but you need to burn it hotter than normal IE not try to damper down too much, and you will have a coal issue. keep an eye on you flue and clean as needed. you should be fine your stove will not produce as much heat as it would with seasoned wood, nor is it ideal, but it can be done.
Flame away
I am going to be burning GREEN wood this year all except for 1 1/2 cord that was cut down this spring but not split or cut in to rounds (yep that is my good wood this year).
Not looking for sympathy I had a very poorly placed lightning strike this summer with not much rain it set my 20+ cord stack of wood ablaze while i was at work no damage to anything else just a big black spot in my field and the loss of my wood. All we heat with is a wood stove, You can burn green wood even oak, but you need to burn it hotter than normal IE not try to damper down too much, and you will have a coal issue. keep an eye on you flue and clean as needed. you should be fine your stove will not produce as much heat as it would with seasoned wood, nor is it ideal, but it can be done.
Flame away
Adios Pantalones
Minister of Fire
Oh man Dan- that sux royally. Any other bad luck stuff? You got a karma problem or what?
Seriously- what a huge disappointment to lose that much wood. And we all know that it's worth a lot more because of the sweat equity involved.
Seriously- what a huge disappointment to lose that much wood. And we all know that it's worth a lot more because of the sweat equity involved.
If the gases in my flue need to be 300-600, I would think that the outside of standard black stove pipe will burn the crap out of me! Regardless, the temp gauge will help me out immensly. I think that I was being so cautious about not over-firing, that I actually under-fired!mayhem said:
Thanks again everyone for the great advice. It will be getting cold again this weekend, so I'll fire it up again and see what happens. Like most of you advised, I'll run it a little hotter than normal to burn off the existing creosote and then I'll keep watching the gauge until I get everything dialed in right.
Tinkling sound... that's bad? I was happy to hear the tinkling sound after a few smokey smoldering fires because it told me "Hey, I have a small chimney fire going on in my stack. That's good, because I was told, 'smolder, then roar. smolder, then roar.'" I thought we basically wanted many small chimney fires to avoid a large chimney fire (if you have to have chimney fires at all, that is). So... tinkling in your fire is bad?
*waits for off-color remarks*
*waits for off-color remarks*
firefighterjake
Minister of Fire
derecskey said:
I don't tinkle in my fire . . . too risky . . . and it would severely damper down the fire.
Instead, I tinkle outside and piss off my wife (pun intended).
On a serious note . . . I'm no expert, but from what I've read here, what you're describing is the "old timer's" way of running a woodstove. In the pre-EPA stove days folks would damper down the stove and let it smolder, resulting in a build up of creosote. To cut down on the amount of creosote and the risk of a bad chimney fire many folks would advocate getting a rip roaring fire going the next morning (or in the evening) after the fire has been dampered down for a long time -- the idea being that the hotter fire would burn off the creosote.
Today, it seems as though most folks say that running a stove to its normal operating temps, using good, dry wood and keeping an eye on the chimney and the creosote build up is all that is needed and that if these things are done generally there isn't a whole lot of creosote build up since the CC or secondary burn baffle has done its job and severely cut back the amount of bad stuff going into the chimney.
From my reading it also seems as though folks recommend not dampering down a stove so much that it just smolders . . . instead it seems as though the ideal "setting" is to keep the fire going with a slow, "lazy" flame.
Again, I could be wrong . . . I'm just a newbie when it comes to running these EPA stoves . . . and I slept in my own bed last night . . . didn't sleep in a Holiday Inn Express.
Wood furnaces such as mine are pre-EPA though (from my limited knowledge). I'll get a chance this weekend to play around with it again. I bought a magnetic temp gauge last night, so now it's just a matter of finding the sweet spot and running the furnace at that setting. I also bought a poly brush and some fiberglass poles so I can sweep after a month or so and see how everything is going.
Valhalla
Minister of Fire
You, like all of us, are learning everyday.
Common sense goes a long way.
Keep going and burn wisely.
Common sense goes a long way.
Keep going and burn wisely.
Truth be told, burning clean is more important to me than my wood consumption. I have a large supply of wood already and more available if I need it later this winter/spring. Getting super long burns means nothing if I'm putting my safety at risk due to a chimney fire.
I've been in the situation where I only had green wood to burn. And you know what?? It burns. It's not efficient, it's not clean, it's not the best use of wood or the stove, but it does heat. The biggest thing is checking your chimney often.....that means every two weeks, not twice a season. Seriously, you are going to get ridiculous amounts of creosote in your chimney. but I don't blame you, I'd burn it too if that's all I had. Let's see, $2500 to the gas company or inefficient wood burning??? Still a no-brainer to me.
What a difference the addition of the thermometer made! I can say in all certainty that I have not previously burned my stove as hot as it is right now. I'm using a simple magnetic Rutland temp gauge placed on the single wall stove pipe. I brought the fire up to the point where the thermometer read 400-450. Now, from what I've seen here, there is a difference from the outside temp to the inside temp (something like 100-200 degrees). Everything was coaling nicely and I started with only small splits tonight. What do you guys try to keep the magnetic gauges at? 300 or can I go lower because of the inside/outside temp difference?
There ya go. The temp will vary with the stove make and model. Can you add a signature line that includes your stove?
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