Cold and snowing here...Fireview is scaring me a little...

[mfglickman]

House was cold and it started to snow around 10 AM. So about an hour ago I loaded up the (warm, coals) stove with 4 good sized splits and a biobrick to get things going. Well it took off pretty well so I engaged the cat and left the air open to get the heat out into the room. Noticed it looked like a "roaring" blaze a few minutes ago and the stovetop is a bit over 600 and climbing. I can hear the "metal adjustment" noises like a car after you turn it off. I cut the air back to half and it's still rolling along.

If I cut the air all the way, the top will get hotter, yeah? So how do I get it to slow down a bit?

My main worry is that it's early dismissal today, I have to go pick up at school in 20 minutes and don't want to leave the stove in an empty house like this. I thought loading at 11 ish would give me plenty of time before leaving at 12:40 or so.


Help?

Mary

 

[Todd]

If your worried about an overfire bypass the cat for a few minutes then reengage at a lower air setting.

 

[Waulie]

You could try opening the bypass to disengage the cat. It should let the smoke and more of the heat out the flue.

 

[Waulie]

What Todd said

 

[mfglickman]

Thanks all! House is still standing. I did open the cat when I left. Still sitting at 650 when I got home but the soapstone is slow to react sometimes...

Thanks again

Mary

 

[3fordasho]

Thanks all! House is still standing. I did open the cat when I left. Still sitting at 650 when I got home but the soapstone is slow to react sometimes...

Thanks again

Mary

Not to be an alarmist, but the last thing I would do is bypass the cat and then leave.. while that may lower stove top temps, the flames in the box now have a direct shot right up the flue... and if there is any creosote build up... up in flames it goes. Now if you had your air inlet closed down all the way you'd probley be OK. I've had a minor chimney fire in my connector pipes that occured in just such an instance. Cat bypassed, air open to far and a bit of inattention and the flu temp gauge was pegged way beyond 1000F. Next thing I know my connector pipe is smelling really hot, making ting-ting noises and starting to smoke inside the house!!

 

[mfglickman]

Thanks all! House is still standing. I did open the cat when I left. Still sitting at 650 when I got home but the soapstone is slow to react sometimes...

Thanks again

Mary

Not to be an alarmist, but the last thing I would do is bypass the cat and then leave.. while that may lower stove top temps, the flames in the box now have a direct shot right up the flue... and if there is any creosote build up... up in flames it goes. Now if you had your air inlet closed down all the way you'd probley be OK. I've had a minor chimney fire in my connector pipes that occured in just such an instance. Cat bypassed, air open to far and a bit of inattention and the flu temp gauge was pegged way beyond 1000F. Next thing I know my connector pipe is smelling really hot, making ting-ting noises and starting to smoke inside the house!!

I closed the air as well. Not much else I could do...but I did take the dogs with me. Next time I'll not reload within...2 hours? of leaving the house...

 

[3fordasho]

Thanks all! House is still standing. I did open the cat when I left. Still sitting at 650 when I got home but the soapstone is slow to react sometimes...

Thanks again

Mary

Not to be an alarmist, but the last thing I would do is bypass the cat and then leave.. while that may lower stove top temps, the flames in the box now have a direct shot right up the flue... and if there is any creosote build up... up in flames it goes. Now if you had your air inlet closed down all the way you'd probley be OK. I've had a minor chimney fire in my connector pipes that occured in just such an instance. Cat bypassed, air open to far and a bit of inattention and the flu temp gauge was pegged way beyond 1000F. Next thing I know my connector pipe is smelling really hot, making ting-ting noises and starting to smoke inside the house!!

I closed the air as well. Not much else I could do...but I did take the dogs with me. Next time I'll not reload within...2 hours? of leaving the house...

With the air closed it should have been fine and was probably the best course of action, I just would never leave with the bypass open unless there is just coals in the box. The fireview has very good air control and a closed air inlet will pretty much snuff all flame activity.
One thing that many don't realize is that opening the air inlet a bit can actually lower stove top temps.... how is this possible? More air allows more flame activity in the box and less smoke for the cat to burn and the result is lower or stabilized top temps but a hotter firebox (hotter sides, back and front).

 

[rideau]

With my fireview only time stove ever got too hot was when I loaded, had damper all way open and got distracted. It would onlt take about 15 minutes for a roaring fire to develop. I got a hot smell right away when the stove got above 650. I always closed my damper completely immediately I realized the situation. Fire started to die back a bit right away, but would continue to burn in a steadily decreasing amount for about 20 minutes before the stove would go black. Temperature would continue to rise during that time, by about 50 degree maximum, then would drop a bit as the stove got black. At that point I always engaged the cat and left the damper completely closed, then opened it after a few minutes to between 1/4 and 3/4 depending on the weather. I have a strong draft/internal chimney, and never had the damper open to 1 in cat mode. In summary, cat not engaged, roaring fire, close the damper and the fire is eventually snuffed after slight further rise in temp. Don't know if this is helpful, Mary. Was out getting lots of wood in to cover the next few weeks...we have a few weeks of yuck forecast.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

House was cold and it started to snow around 10 AM. So about an hour ago I loaded up the (warm, coals) stove with 4 good sized splits and a biobrick to get things going. Well it took off pretty well so I engaged the cat and left the air open to get the heat out into the room. Noticed it looked like a "roaring" blaze a few minutes ago and the stovetop is a bit over 600 and climbing. I can hear the "metal adjustment" noises like a car after you turn it off. I cut the air back to half and it's still rolling along.

If I cut the air all the way, the top will get hotter, yeah? So how do I get it to slow down a bit?

My main worry is that it's early dismissal today, I have to go pick up at school in 20 minutes and don't want to leave the stove in an empty house like this. I thought loading at 11 ish would give me plenty of time before leaving at 12:40 or so.


Help?

Mary

Mary, we're happy this turned out okay for you.

Next time remember to close the draft at least to 2 when you engage the cat. But even that will give you a big fire. 600 stovetop if far from getting scary and we reach that temperature and well above most of the time. Our normal setting on the draft is about 3/4. Any lower and then the stove top can get a bit hot. The bit about opening the draft to cool the stove will work but we're not talking about opening the draft very far. For example. One time my wife was nursing the stove because it was at the 700 degree mark. I looked and found she had the draft fully closed. So I just turned the draft to 1 and she about flipped! She had just forgotten. I told her to stay by the stove and watch. In a very short time the stove top temperature dropped well below 700. We then went to our normal 3/4 setting and all was well.

What would I have done in your situation? I'd have simply turned the draft to 3/4 or to 1 and just watched it for a while and my bet is that the stove top temperature would not have gone much higher but if so, probably no more than 50 degree rise. In addition, do you know how accurate your temperature gauge is? I ask because someone was asking me about this just a couple days ago as he had a super hot flue. He did find out later that his thermometer was off by a couple hundred degrees so his flue was not as hot as he had though. All was well.

 

[mfglickman]

Thanks all! I appreciate hearing what you all would do/have done in this situation. It's a bit nerve wracking. Overall this stove feels very safe and easy to control and I think I maybe just got a little too comfortable, loaded it a bit too heavily with too short a window before needing to go out.

Question: My Fireview is a 201, so can someone please explain what you mean by setting the draft to 3/4 or 1? How high does it go? Mine is just a slider on the door, no numbers, it's 4 slots each about 3/4 of an inch wide and 3 inches (?) high. When I move the slider it moves a plate across all of the slots at once. There are no increments marked on it, though the adjustments are (theoretically) as infinite as you can get across 3/4 of an inch.

Dennis, I was OK with the stovetop going over 600, though I think WS wants us to keep under 700? At any rate, I was mostly worried because I had to go out right then to pick up at elementary school - and wasn't comfortable leaving a climbing stovetop and roaring fire. So, I grabbed what was most important (2 big dogs), closed the vent, opened the bypass and ran!

 

[Todd]

The numbers people are refering to are from the air slide lever on the new model 205. Your 201 model is the same as the Classic but has a window in front. How far can you shut your air off, does it slide all the way closed? Maybe you can paint some marks somewhere with some high temp stove paint to give you a better user guide on air control?

 

[mfglickman]

The numbers people are refering to are from the air slide lever on the new model 205. Your 201 model is the same as the Classic but has a window in front. How far can you shut your air off, does it slide all the way closed? Maybe you can paint some marks somewhere with some high temp stove paint to give you a better user guide on air control?

Hmmm, not sure about this. Someone on here just replaced their classic with a new FV and has been talking about having a cat for the first time. This FV has a cat, but no airwash.

If I were to paint numbers, there would be X? number of marks across a 3/4 inch space - and I guess this is getting at the crux of my question. When you set the draft to 1, is that 1 = more closed than open, and 4 = more open than closed? And how many numbers are there?

Can I shut off the air all the way - well yes and no. I can close the little slots all the way but they are not perfectly airtight. There are no gaskets or seals or anything. Does that make sense?


Mary

 

[Todd]

The numbers people are refering to are from the air slide lever on the new model 205. Your 201 model is the same as the Classic but has a window in front. How far can you shut your air off, does it slide all the way closed? Maybe you can paint some marks somewhere with some high temp stove paint to give you a better user guide on air control?

Hmmm, not sure about this. Someone on here just replaced their classic with a new FV and has been talking about having a cat for the first time. This FV has a cat, but no airwash.

If I were to paint numbers, there would be X? number of marks across a 3/4 inch space - and I guess this is getting at the crux of my question. When you set the draft to 1, is that 1 = more closed than open, and 4 = more open than closed? And how many numbers are there?

Can I shut off the air all the way - well yes and no. I can close the little slots all the way but they are not perfectly airtight. There are no gaskets or seals or anything. Does that make sense?


Mary

The old old Classic's were non cats but the current Classic is a cat and just like your 201 without the window. If you look up the parts they are the same.

Not sure how you air slide works, is there a knob that you turn? Maybe put some marks above the knob for a referance. You could try some pencil marks at first to test it out. It seems like it would be easier to line up certain marks than try to rely on how open the slots are.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

The numbers people are refering to are from the air slide lever on the new model 205. Your 201 model is the same as the Classic but has a window in front. How far can you shut your air off, does it slide all the way closed? Maybe you can paint some marks somewhere with some high temp stove paint to give you a better user guide on air control?

Hmmm, not sure about this. Someone on here just replaced their classic with a new FV and has been talking about having a cat for the first time. This FV has a cat, but no airwash.

If I were to paint numbers, there would be X? number of marks across a 3/4 inch space - and I guess this is getting at the crux of my question. When you set the draft to 1, is that 1 = more closed than open, and 4 = more open than closed? And how many numbers are there?

Can I shut off the air all the way - well yes and no. I can close the little slots all the way but they are not perfectly airtight. There are no gaskets or seals or anything. Does that make sense?


Mary

Mary, on the new Fireview, as shown in Todd's picture, you are mostly correct. 4 is full open. 1 is 25% open, etc.