how to check firebox temps on a quad 4100I

[jimosufan]

i use a magnet that dangles a thermometer in front of the blower air...just wondering if you can figure out how hot the fire is. I get good secondaries and I know it dose vary on the speed of the blower. Or better yet what is safe hot air temp from the blower.I'm comfy if it says 300 but is that too hot? all advice is welcome thanks jim

 

[pgmr]

It's more common to use a magnetic stove thermometer on a single wall part of the stove (fire is on the other side, not an inner firebox) or a probe type thermometer into the flue pipe itself. The air temp from the vents is not really a useful measurement, since, as you said, it varies with the blower speed. Absolute accuracy is not your aim, rather it should be consistent usage methods and results. If you are warm and the stove isn't glowing red, you're probably doing it right.

 

[jimosufan]

thanks its an insert and no way to access the flue. Just curios as the magnetic ones would work on the insert. Or buy an ir sensor and take the glass temp.you know dont want to be headlines

 

[vvvv]

flame temp is 1200*f ithinx

 

[jimosufan]

ok, what should glass read ....i still get some dirty glass so that tells me...probally hot enough just the wood is not quite ready

 

[BrotherBart]

IR thermos don't work with glass. You could use it to shoot a temp on a flat spot above the door. But in testing I have done on an insert the temp on the front of the stove body runs around 150 degrees less than is indicated on the top of the stove. Some insert users place a magnetic stove thermometer at the corner of the door on the front of the stove to get some idea of how hot it is running.

 

[jimosufan]

ok but do the numbers put out there. alarm anyone?

 

[BrotherBart]

ok but do the numbers put out there. alarm anyone?

If you are talking about your numbers for the temp of the air from the blower, you are the first person I have seen in five years here that measures that.

 

[jimosufan]

sorry it was the only thang i could measure......I had it 450 air and that was the only time clean glass.....owners guide is a joke

 

[Todd]

Take the surround off and place a thermometer on the center top, you will also get much more heat from the insert. If you don't want to remove the surround maybe you could cut a small half circle out of the top surround where it rests on top of the insert and place the thermometer inside.

 

[fossil]

Dunno, would something like this work for you:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Catal...9?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1283900398&sr=8-9

 

[BrotherBart]

Insert operating temps are a problem for everyone. When I was burning in an insert mine was so big that half of it was out on the hearth. It could be cruising at a stove top temp of 650 and the minute I turned that blower on the air coming over the top of the thermo would drop it over a hundred degrees. With me knowing that stove top hadn't cooled down.

Measuring operating temps is a problem for all insert owners. It is one of the compromises you make with them. One reason I stuffed a free standing stove into my fireplace as the replacement. Of course now with it the blower is on the back of the firebox and I can't get to it to clean it. Another compromise.

 

[WES999]

If you want to go hi tek you can do something like what I did. I made 2 temp monitor/alarms, one for the stove top and one for the flue temp. Mine is on a stove but it should work just fine on an insert.
Not exactly cheap, but much more useful and accurate than any thermometer.

 

[jimosufan]

Ok just cleaned the glass on the stove, slightly tinted, and cleaned easy. Also ordered 2 magnetic thermometers. One to go under the deflector plate, the other on the front of glass, or maybe on top of the deflector plate. So with a quick lift of the defector plate i have a closer ideal of internal temps. hopefully this works.

 

[BrotherBart]

A fact of life is that people heated their homes with wood stoves for a couple of hundred years without stove thermometers. I am anal about stove temps probably more than most people but if the thermos didn't exist I could pretty well get along with looking at the burn, which for most of that couple of hundred years people could not, and how hot it feels near the stove.

We would all like these things to be as consistent and hands off as central heating units, but it ain't gonna happen. Wood burning is a seat of the pants kind of thing.

 

[jimosufan]

thanks Todd, guy a work thought of a good ideal.. Have a plasma cutter cut a design into the surround.. sounds good to me unless it cost an arm and a leg.