Englander 30 burn time

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PapaDave

Minister of Fire
Feb 23, 2008
5,739
Northern MI - in the mitten
You guys are probably going to string me up for this, but my eyes have started to bleed from all the reading I've been doing.
I would like to know how long you can keep your 30 burning at, say 500 deg., and can you control the fire well enough with a full load to do that?
Since my old stove has been burning better, I find that that temp., and sometimes a little higher is just about optimal in the dead of winter.
However, I can't always keep the darn thing from hitting 700, even with the air closed. Mind you, this is not overfiring the stove, but it can get uncomfortably warm in the house.
I also remember reading that Brother Bart had done some "adjustment" to the secondary air to gain more control over the burn.
 
Yep, mine will see 700 on a full load w/ hot coals underneath in the dead of winter. The only thing I can tell you is to leave more ashes (a couple inches) in the stove and put less wood in. W/ a good layer of insulating ash, I can go on 2 loads a day 10-14 hours between loading, starting w/ just the coals, no kindling or paper. To do this, I don't need to have the stove loaded to the gills either.

Another option (which is hard since you are stuck w/ the wood you have now) is to split your wood into bigger pieces. larger chunks have less surface area which means your burn will not happen as quickly.

You can also try blocking the air that comes in from the dog house looking thing in the front of the stove. Many refer to it as zipper air. Try putting a piece of magnet over it , blocking it w/ a piece of a brick, a dab of jb weld on a bolt, etc.

If that thing is still running away from you, then you have a phenomenal draft and I'd consider a stove pipe damper

pen
 
I don't know how long it burns at five hundred. I load it up at nine pm every night and go to bed a couple of hours later with it cruising around 550 and get up around eight or nine and it is at 250-300.

I didn't modify secondary intake. I just blocked off the unrestricted primary air. Which means I have to leave the primary air intake open the proper amount for the burn.
 
BrotherBart said:
I just blocked off the unrestricted primary air.

Those are the two small holes on the bottom side of the front two corners?
 
BB, I guess I "misremembered". When you say you blocked primary, what do you mean? Don't you control the primary with an air control lever? I'm confused.
Does the primary control not control the air well enough?
Pen, when you say you can do 2 loads/day, how heavy is that load, or how many splits? I know it varies with split size, etc., I'm just looking for an indication of how much wood I'll save if I get this stove. I also have a variety of wood sizes in this years supply, and the next 2 years worth were split larger in anticipation for this exact reason.
Thanks for the responses.
 
I'll tell you the savings I had. I used an old fisher stove before that worked great and I'd heat my home one 5 to 5.5 cords per winter. With the englander last winter, I barely burned 4 full cords.

pen
 
Thanks Pen.
I've used 4 2/3 cord pretty consistently for the past 4 years. I'll be using the old stove this year in the hope that I'll use less simply due to a rebuild and all new gaskets.
I may be asking too much of the stove though in that regard.
I'd like to get the 30 and be able to use less per load to get longer burns than what I'm getting now.
I've done much research on Regency 2400, Quad 4300, Summit, T5, and others in that size range. The 30 is a full cu. ft.+ bigger than those and my existing stove, and I don't think I need all that unless I can dial it down as needed.
The 30 will work with my clearances, and the price is right. Man, too many choices.
 
The 30 has two sources of primary air. Only one is controlled by the air control. Behind each front leg is a round hole that feeds that thing sticking up in the front that burns the wood like a blow torch. Those two holes are what I shut down. When you do that you have to get over the idea of closing the air control all the way down. If you do that you have reinvented the "smoke dragon".

Additionally I took the thing in the front completely out and filled the gap in the air distribution plate with a piece of stainless to even out the primary distribution coming down over the glass and back into the firebox.

I really hate when I have to post this because I get a gazillion emails saying "how did you do it?". How I did it is all in the above.
 
BrotherBart said:
The 30 has two sources of primary air. Only one is controlled by the air control. Behind each front leg is a round hole that feeds that thing sticking up in the front that burns the wood like a blow torch. Those two holes are what I shut down. When you do that you have to get over the idea of closing the air control all the way down. If you do that you have reinvented the "smoke dragon".

Additionally I took the thing in the front completely out and filled the gap in the air distribution plate with a piece of stainless to even out the primary distribution coming down over the glass and back into the firebox.

I really hate when I have to post this because I get a gazillion emails saying "how did you do it?". How I did it is all in the above.
"how did you do it?" :lol:
 
Hiram Maxim said:
BrotherBart said:
The 30 has two sources of primary air. Only one is controlled by the air control. Behind each front leg is a round hole that feeds that thing sticking up in the front that burns the wood like a blow torch. Those two holes are what I shut down. When you do that you have to get over the idea of closing the air control all the way down. If you do that you have reinvented the "smoke dragon".

Additionally I took the thing in the front completely out and filled the gap in the air distribution plate with a piece of stainless to even out the primary distribution coming down over the glass and back into the firebox.

I really hate when I have to post this because I get a gazillion emails saying "how did you do it?". How I did it is all in the above.
"how did you do it?" :lol:

Wouldn't work with a Blaze King anyway. :lol:
 
It only works well if you always burn N/S where there are air channels between the splits. E/W you need that blow torch to get air to the back of that big firebox to burn the wood back there late in the burn. It drills its way through the coal bed that builds in the front half of the stove.

But since it forces all primary air to come down via the airwash I wipe the glass with a water soaked paper towel around once a cord. No junk on it at all.
 
actually you blocked teh tertiery air inlet to the firebox, the primary is teh airwash air, secondary is the tubes , they get air from teh back as well, the inlets for the "zipper" are the 2 holes under the hull but they are seperate from the primary , there are 2 seperate air channels in the base of the doorframe, the outer is primary or airwash controlled by the draft rod, the inner is the open tertiery (zipper) air which due to air balance increases as the primary draft control is closed (along with the secondary) due to the decrease in primary air and as the flue still pulling whatever its pulling , when you decrease primary , it actually increases second and third stage air velocity
 
Thanks for making that clear. MIke, can the zipper air "get out" w/ a few inches of ash in there? Will it move through the ash or just get blocked? What is the intent with this air? I've often wondered what those channels were. I just assumed they were part of the frame for some reason. Never figured they were actually meant to allow air to enter.

Thanks

pen
 
And a leaking door gasket is quaternary air. Add a leaking glass gasket and you have quinary air. :lol:
 
I purposely went in and raked the ash away from these areas this morning but didn't see any air movement as I'd expect by seeing hotter coals in that area.

hmm

pen
 
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