Extremely Low Burn Times
- Thread starter Grimlock13
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Charles1981
Minister of Fire
Bah I burn tons of cotton wood because its right outside my door. But around this time during the shoulder season. It does ok...load the stove every 4-5 hours instead of every 7-8 hours...poor coals, ect but it burns plenty hot. Perfect for starting a fire at 4-5 pm from cold, loading again just before bed at 9-10 and takes enough of the cold edge off of the house to make it worthwhile...for a few weeks at least. Maybe longer this year if the winter continues to stay mild.
Squisher
Minister of Fire
Yah I may have overstated. It does burn. I live in an area blessed with plenty of decent firewood so it's not often you would choose to burn cottonwood here. Pine or spruce is pretty much for the shoulder seasons here and fir, larch, or birch abound for the cold months.
Seanm
Minister of Fire
Hopefully Grimlock will be able to update us soon on whether or not he has increased his burn time.
I reloaded the T6 with dry cottonwood at 11pm last night. Reloaded again at 9:30am this morning. There were enough coals for an unassisted restart. Stove top temp was 150F, house temp was 70F, outside temp 37F. Stove top temp was 650F 30 minutes later.
Where are you taking this temp from? 450 on a PE isn't anywhere near where it should be maxing out at. Also I would do the dollar bill test, my summit failed as a brand new unit. I had to bend the tab back farther as it had a quarter inch of play.
RIght now I'm maxing out at about 450 - 500. I increased the burn time substantially but easing up on the air intake. I did the dollar bill test all seems well.
Once the fire is going strong close down the air as far as you can without stopping the fire completely. See if you can get it to a lazy flame stage where most of the flame is billowing down from the baffle.
Thanks for all the replies. I think my main issue has to do with how I was managing the air flow. I am still getting dirty class on the lft hand side, gasket seems ok and there doesn't seem anyway to adjust the handle.
I have a NEO 2.5 (the insert) and I got 12-13 hour of heat this weekend (Blower blowing) and got lots of hot coals to restart a fire. I am burning Ash. When I first got the NEO last year, I was not getting long burn time either, not 2 hours but maybe 6. It turns out I was closing the air too soon and the secondary burn was slowing and eventually stalling. Which require the air to be open up again to get going. Just this shortens my burn time a lot. Now I close the air more slowly and I try to let the temp above the door get to around 525 F (IR meter). Draft in my case is not an issue even in shoulder season as my flue is 27 feet long. But even with a good draft, with the outside temp right now, I can’t close the air more than 20-25% open at the moment.
As for the dirty glass on the left side, I am getting this as well if I am closing the door too soon on startup. I am using a fire starter similar to super cedar. I must leave the door cracked open for 5-6 min before the fire is really well established. I will start hearing the EBT flap flapping because of the strong draft. I will then close the door with the air fully open and proceed from there. My glass is never dirty now.
As for the dirty glass on the left side, I am getting this as well if I am closing the door too soon on startup. I am using a fire starter similar to super cedar. I must leave the door cracked open for 5-6 min before the fire is really well established. I will start hearing the EBT flap flapping because of the strong draft. I will then close the door with the air fully open and proceed from there. My glass is never dirty now.
Thank you so much for all the replies. Dodge that is extremely helpful and encouraging information as I'm learning. I'm finding out that I was shutting down too son as well causing the short burn times. This weekend after some sound advice my burn time increased , I burned on Saturday as temps were in the 40's with only two loads the first being small.
I will also take your advice with closing the door too soon. Thanks again when you get it burning good it's a wonderful feeling , although the road there is extremely frustrating.
I will also take your advice with closing the door too soon. Thanks again when you get it burning good it's a wonderful feeling , although the road there is extremely frustrating.
What to you mean by there doesn't seem to be a way to adjust the handle? I also to had dirty glass on the front left lower corner of my glass when I first started with this unit. Have you ever tried a top-down method fire? My summit seems to love it, after getting it all set up and making "pretzel" newspaper wads I light it and 20-30 minutes later I have a blazing fire. At this point I turn it down until as begreen says lazy, let it sit for another 15 minutes and then turn it down all the way.
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