Fireview full throttle.

[jdonna]

Last night was cold. Around zero degrees. Good 15 mph wind going. Had a good load of elm and a few pieces of oak in it, sitting around making sure it was going to cruise, I snapped a few pics to kill the time, I was about an hour into the burn when they were taking on a 275 degree reload.

Yes, the one shot is the turn key damper shut all the way. I had a baro on it before, but took it off, too much creosote in the stove pipe for my liking. Air at .75

 

[HotCoals]

Nice..great looking fire!

 

[NH_Wood]

Are you running the stove with the key damper shut? Cheers!

 

[Todd]

Looks like some good heat pumping off that rock! Looks like you can get a pretty good box burn at .75, all my woodstock's give me a floating flame or cat burn that low. I'd have to burn a little over 1 to get a burn like that. How high up the stack is that key damper? Also looks like the pipe temp is a little high compared to what I usually see but everyones setup can be different.

 

[HotCoals]

I know on my stove if I use the damper the pipe right near it..even a little above it will read higher temps then if open.

The damper slows the heat going up and therefore I think the pipe heats up more near it.

 

[jdonna]

Yea, key damper is shut when conditions are like it was last night. I am considering actually adding a second key damper above it, but I left the t in for the baro for those -20 degree with wind nights. I found running the baro, house temps suffered from all the air being pulled in to the stove room to make it up. The damper is about 18 or so inches above the collar. Probably should be a little closer to the collar.

I should know I put the liners in my house. I want to say about 25 feet of 6 ss liner (insulated) and then 2 90's with a little over 4 feet of black stove pipe. Both my chimneys draft way too well in my home.

I have single wall stove pipe, is that what you have as well Todd? I could cut the air back further, but it seems like if you go too far you can get some woofing as the fire transfers to the back of the load. I have to agree with you on stack temps, it does seem a little bit high for a cat stove. I think woodstock recommends 250-300 degrees, which I am gathering is the temp on single wall pipe.

Regardless, I got great heat out of it and there was enough coals in the am to reload. ( 8 hours).

 

[jdonna]

I know on my stove if I use the damper the pipe right near it..even a little above it will read higher temps then if open.

The damper slows the heat going up and therefore I think the pipe heats up more near it.

I agree with you, as you measure up the pipe, temps do drop. There are days I wish I could just have 16 feet of class A, would be a lot less tinkering!

Unfortunately, I have to cut the draft down or burn times suffer as well as the poor fireview.

 

[Todd]

Yea, key damper is shut when conditions are like it was last night. I am considering actually adding a second key damper above it, but I left the t in for the baro for those -20 degree with wind nights. I found running the baro, house temps suffered from all the air being pulled in to the stove room to make it up. The damper is about 18 or so inches above the collar. Probably should be a little closer to the collar.

I should know I put the liners in my house. I want to say about 25 feet of 6 ss liner (insulated) and then 2 90's with a little over 4 feet of black stove pipe. Both my chimneys draft way too well in my home.

I have single wall stove pipe, is that what you have as well Todd? I could cut the air back further, but it seems like if you go too far you can get some woofing as the fire transfers to the back of the load. I have to agree with you on stack temps, it does seem a little bit high for a cat stove. I think woodstock recommends 250-300 degrees, which I am gathering is the temp on single wall pipe.

Regardless, I got great heat out of it and there was enough coals in the am to reload. ( 8 hours).

Yeah, I got about 4' single wall pipe and about 22' of 6" Supaflue on my main stove. .5 is about as low as I can go and everything turns black in the box except the cat. Usually I run right around 1 with this latest cold snap with stove top temps topping out around 600 and pipe temps at 250. Can you turn it down enough to snuff the flame?

 

[jdonna]

I can snuff it out if I pretty much slam the primary air shut. Only problem with that is if I get a blast of wind, the box will light up and backpuff. I did notice when experimenting with it snuffed out that the temps shoot way high on the verge of an overfire/cat melt down. I need to install a probe like you did Todd, well done by the way on that install.

All said and done, love the stove and still learning a lot about it. Best of all, my wife can run it! She was mortified by the Harman Oakwood. So the round oak is back on that chimney.

Thanks to all who post on here, great resource. Wish I would have discovered the forums years ago.

 

[Todd]

I'm still thinking something isn't right here. Your stove shouldn't run like that with a pipe damper closed off and the air set so low. Looking at your picture of the air controls I can see a line under the number plate, could that be a crack? I know you stated previously that the air slide was off track, are you sure it's back on properly? Just seems like your getting too much air somewhere. Have you talked with Woodstock?

 

[jaybird396]

I would check the accuracy of that Rutland thermometer on the stovepipe. I had one of those but stopped using it after a week because it was reading high by almost 100 degrees. I replaced it with a Condar Medallion like this http://www.amazon.com/Thermometer-3...PWVO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1326552053&sr=8-2

My flue pipe stays around 200 when the air is set at .5 which is where I get the longest burns.

 

[Todd]

I can't remember all the info from your other threads but did you also check the bypass damper and gasket?

 

[jdonna]

Yup, I did a full rebuild on it this summer. Got the bypass dialed in as well, had to call woodstock on the proper hinge adjustment. Air slide is fine as well. Not a crack below the plate, you might be seeing a line from where I got some over spray. The stove when I got it was rust/blue. Burned through two wire wheels cleaning it.

Only variable I can see in my setup left with the stove is the wrap gasket on the cat. For the record I do not run the stove 24/7 with the damper cranked, today I am running it with the key damper almost fully open.

Not complaining about the heat though, this old house can never have enough heat! I got 12 hours of burn last night with enough coals to restart today. Mix of red elm and white elm splits last night.

 

[Todd]

Well, I guess if you can get a good 12 hour burn and your happy with the way it heats your house, it's all good.

 

[jdonna]

Yea,

I am not disagreeing with you, I think there is some tweaks to get it running a little more efficient. I really do not trust the magnetic thermometer, I go off the ir gun. (18 inches up and then 3 feet up) checking stack temps. I am going to order a spare bypass to have on hand and an extra gasket set. Seems like the stronger the draft, anything that is not 100 perfect in the stove can give you problems. Odd enough though, with that SS scoop out of the stove, it runs way better for my setup. =)

 

[Todd]

So the IR is giving you different temps than the mag therm? How old is this stove? When you rebuilt it did you replace all the gaskets inside like the air duct? Wish I could find and old Woodstock, it would be fun to take apart and rebuild.

 

[jdonna]

On the stack thermometer it reads a lot slower, but is within 20 degrees. I get about a 50- 100 degree drop in temp before the t- snout so I do not mind that the temp readings are higher 18" above the collar. Right now my stack temp is reading 275 on the magnetic thermometer 5 hours into the burn and 500 degree stove top temp.

It was a 2001 FV 205. Probably was used a total of 4-5 years. The owners I bought it from had moved in and tried to run it but did not like it so I basically stole it.

I tore it down in my shop, did all the cement joints, gaskets ect. All said and done I had a like new Fire view for 800.00 including the parts. I will say that it was pretty labor intensive. Painting all the iron was the biggest time consumer.

I am not sure if I will go back to the ss scoop though, it has never ran better with it swapped out.

Woodstock actually has a full rebuild instruction guide that they had sent out to me, was pretty slick.

 

[Todd]

Sounds like a fun project to me if you have the time. I agree with the scoop, I switched both of my stoves back to the old scoop, I think they just breath a little better. Maybe they need to enlarge those s/s screen holes? When I asked about it they said it should have similar flow and they haven't had any issues or complaints yet.