Fire to hot....add more air???

[ckarotka]

I couldn't think of a better title sorry. tonight I loaded the stove up pretty good, 1 large pine, 1 medium cottonwood, and a few small rounds. Everything was going fine, stove hit around 500 and I reduced the air again. Well I reduced it to much and the secondaries really took of, Bowels of Hell, I believe is the reference term. So I accidentally induced an crazy secondary burn. From past experience I knew this was going to overheat the stove if not managed correctly.

I've read past post with CAT stoves saying to increase the air when the CAT goes crazy, why not the same for non-cat stoves.
So I increased the primary air to steal from the secondaries and bingo, secondaries quit going crazy and I then reduced the air after a 30sec or so but a lesser amount this time. I've found my stove is very touchy, little movements make a big difference.

The problem was fixed and I didn't have to "snuff" it out or wait and pull my hair out with 91 dialed on the phone. I'm not sure if this is a 100% gonna work thing, but it worked this time and I'll try it again when I make a mistake again.

Anyone else try this in a non-cat stove with success?

 

[Skier76]

I find when my stove starts climbing in temp, shutting the air down will cool the temp down. If I keep the air open, the temp keeps rising.

 

[ckarotka]

I did this just to get the secondaries from firing. All the fire was at the top of the fire box. I've had this happen last year and it would climb to 750+ real quick. I wanted the lazy flames not a big blow torch at the secondaries. If I left it open yes it would have went higher but I then turned the air down in smaller incriments after I gain control again.

 

[Highbeam]

The classic runaway. In theory, the best you can do is shut the air control. My experience is that adding more air to the fuel load will only increase the temps. I shut the air off and let the fire do as it may, if that means overfire then that's what it means. Cripes, without this confidence then you could never load the stove up and go to bed.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

With a cat stove, yes, indeed many times you can actually cool the stove by increasing the draft. What this does is send the smoke and gasses through the cat faster so it has less time to burn there. On our stove, we had a couple times last winter where we had a problem and simply bypassed the cat for a couple of minutes then turned it on again and all was well.

 

[BrotherBart]

I have done it before. It shifts the intake air balance from the baffle to the base of the fire long enough for the stove to settle down. More smoke is going out the pipe but the decrease in heart rate is worth it. Since the pipe is already up to temp it isn't depositing anything. Well, maybe on your neighbor's car.

You just start over with the incremental decreases and by the time you get to your normal overnight setting the initial outgassing from the load is over.

 

[oldspark]

Has any one modified the primary air to shut down more and is this a good idea? I have seen a picture of how it is done on the Summit and is a very easy thing to do Seems like it might not help with stove top temp being too hot, not sure why they suggest it.

 

[ckarotka]

I have done it before. It shifts the intake air balance from the baffle to the base of the fire long enough for the stove to settle down. More smoke is going out the pipe but the decrease in heart rate is worth it. Since the pipe is already up to temp it isn't depositing anything. Well, maybe on your neighbor's car.

You just start over with the incremental decreases and by the time you get to your normal overnight setting the initial outgassing from the load is over.

Thats it exactly! I disrupted the balance between primary and secondary air by closing it to fast. By letting the primary take back over I gained controlled and could run the stove again as usual.

If you take a few splits and let them rip then slam the air closed this will happen and the air staying closed doesn't fix it, it just keeps ripping along.

Mind you all this took place in under a minute and the stove top was at 500-550 and never went higher than 600 after I was done adjusting and let it cruise.