large load question...

[APersonalMatter]

hello all-
being a teacher, i'm on vacation now and am going to start really playing with the napoleon 1402... as of now i have just been burning after i get home until bed- roughly 6pm on.. now that im home for a couple weeks, im looking to do some longer burning...

i suppose my main question is about overfiring.. im a bit of a worrier i suppose until im familiar with things, so i have been hesitant to reALLY let it go...

i have been burning kiln-dried wood (long story, but its what i have, so...) and while it burns great, i think the most i hace put in may have been 3 or 4 splits of medium size and i get a good satisfactory burn, with the secondaries and what-have you.. but it seems ti burn pretty quick and hot (according to the IR gun around 550-600, though on 2 instances around 700 (briefly!).

so basically, im worried that if i throw more wood in the fire, even if i damper down at an appropriate temp, will the dry wood still grow to over-firing levels? i read about you folks packing the stove and loading it for a long burn and stuff- but truthfully i havnt had it remotely close to 'full'. it seems to me (being new and over-analytical) that if it gets too much wood it'll over-fire, if i damper down earlier it will smolder and burn inefficiently...

is the problem (if there is one besides my own reservations) in using only kiln-dried wood?

many thanks again!

 

[begreen]

Phew, when I saw the post by a personal matter asking about a large load question, I thought it might be on the wrong website.

The trick to reloading and not having it take off on you is to wait until the coal bed dies down a bit. Don't try loading the stove when it is at 500F and with a large bed of red-hot coals or the wood will all ignite very quickly. Instead, burn down the coal be a bit by opening up the air supply and moving the coals to the front of the stove. Then, when the stove cools down to say 350, spread out the coal in the center of the stove and put a few splits in, using larger splits. Then place a second row on top, inverting the V of the split so that if fills the V gap created by the bottom row. Leave the air open until this new load of wood is burning well, but stove temp is below 400-450F. As soon as the new load is fully involved in flame or the stovetop reaches ~400F, reduce the air supply by at least half, or until the flames get lazy. Let the fire build up again in intensity, then reduce the air control to as far as it can without snuffing the fire. The stove top may reach 700F briefly, this is a willing heater. It can take it. Turning on the blower will lower the top temp by about 100F it need be.

 

[APersonalMatter]

Phew, when I saw the post by a personal matter asking about a large load question, I thought it might be on the wrong website.

woo!


thanks for the input- with the blizzard(ish?) conditions outside, i think its a god time to give it a shot!

 

[Hanko]

Phew, when I saw the post by a personal matter asking about a large load question, I thought it might be on the wrong website.

The trick to reloading and not having it take off on you is to wait until the coal bed dies down a bit. Don't try loading the stove when it is at 500F and with a large bed of red-hot coals or the wood will all ignite very quickly. Instead, burn down the coal be a bit by opening up the air supply and moving the coals to the front of the stove. Then, when the stove cools down to say 350, spread out the coal in the center of the stove and put a few splits in, using larger splits. Then place a second row on top, inverting the V of the split so that if fills the V gap created by the bottom row. Leave the air open until this new load of wood is burning well, but stove temp is below 400-450F. As soon as the new load is fully involved in flame or the stovetop reaches ~400F, reduce the air supply by at least half, or until the flames get lazy. Let the fire build up again in intensity, then reduce the air control to as far as it can without snuffing the fire. The stove top may reach 700F briefly, this is a willing heater. It can take it. Turning on the blower will lower the top temp by about 100F it need be.

Im keeping my mouth shut on this one. My wife was wondering also

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Phew, when I saw the post by a personal matter asking about a large load question, I thought it might be on the wrong website.

woo!


thanks for the input- with the blizzard(ish?) conditions outside, i think its a god time to give it a shot!

Maybe a good time for a shot too?!


Like BeGreen stated, dial the draft down in increments. How low to go on the draft is a common question and everyone has to learn their particular stove. The sweet spot for your draft might be at 25% or it might be at 10% or somewhere in between. It may also be completely closed. You have to experiment but go as low as you can and still keep flames going.

Now you also need to keep that shovel handy.

 

[APersonalMatter]

ok! so i'm currently doing a smaller-scale trial run (yes, i do things like that) with 5 splits (3 on the bottom 2 on the top) its going perfectly, currently... many thanks for the advice and input- so far, so good!

so here's the next question: how full is "full" for an overnight burn? are we talking about cramming the bejeezus out of it, leaving a certain amount of clearance? if so, how much? oye!

-by the way, because of the title of this thread and the other one (oddly named napoleon blower!) i hope im not getting a bad name! inadvertent, i promise! more seriously though, this current burn is my best yet, so thanks!

 

[pen]

if you are using kiln dried wood I'm assuming dimensional stuff? If so, be careful not to fill it like you are stacking bricks. That would cause burn difficulties and act like one huge block of wood and give you other problems.

Otherwise, you have a temp gun, you are obviously cognizant, the best advice I can give you is that the bottom won't fall out of the stove shy of you putting uranium into it. Use your smarts, load it up big for the first time during the morning of a day where you can hang out by the stove and grade papers and baby sit it. Once you know the extremes, you know what you can do safely and comfortably.

Best of luck and I too am enjoying Christmas vacation! Aren't we lucky? (that is, other than the huge stack of papers that are looming over my head)

pen

 

[shawneyboy]

ok! so i'm currently doing a smaller-scale trial run (yes, i do things like that) with 5 splits (3 on the bottom 2 on the top) its going perfectly, currently... many thanks for the advice and input- so far, so good!

so here's the next question: how full is "full" for an overnight burn? are we talking about cramming the bejeezus out of it, leaving a certain amount of clearance? if so, how much? oye!

-by the way, because of the title of this thread and the other one (oddly named napoleon blower!) i hope im not getting a bad name! inadvertent, i promise! more seriously though, this current burn is my best yet, so thanks!

I have a different stove than you but.... I fill her up, I mean to the gills, and tightly with cord wood. But thats me. I have a 3.2 cubic firebox as well.

 

[partybob99]

I have a 1402 as well.

I've frequently had the stove above 750 degrees using an IR gun. I take the reading in the center of the top metal plate. No matter how much wood I've put in the stove, I dont think I've ever hit 800. At the 700+ temps, it only holds that high a few minutes before it starts to cool.

Definitely crank the fan on HI if you're concerned about the temps. It will cool the stove off fast.

Also my magentic thermometer is fairly accurate in the 300 to 500 range, but after that it goes crazy. It will sometimes show temps in excess of 950 but the IR gun shows 700.

As far as dialing down the damper. If you have good wood, I can get the damper all the way in and the flames look good. But most of the time I run it at setting 2 or 3. When I add wood, I dont even mess with the damper at all, the new wood just takes off and secondaries start up again almost immediately.

I like to load when the stove gets between 250 and 300.

I've yet to master the overnite burn (I use ash). I assume you'd have to fill the firebox to the max, tightly packed and run the damper at a low setting so you can squeeze out a longer burn time. My stove only heats the family room with some heat going into the kitchen so I'm not as concerned about the fire burning out as others who use their stove to heat their entire house.

 

[APersonalMatter]

i think tomorrow morning i'll fill the thing up and see what happens!

tonight's long(er for me!) burn went well, it seemed that i could damper it down all the way in not too much time- i did play with the blower a bit once it got around 700 to keep it south of that marker... loving the secondary burn action!
im using kiln dried cord wood, so i dont know if that makes a difference in regards to burn times.
thanks for all the input!

pen- enjoy the vacation! it'll be nice spending a snowy-monday morning tinkering with the fire as opposed to starting homeroom! the fire seems to follow my directions a bit more!

 

[burleymike]

One thing I have learned is as others have stated never load it up on a huge bed of coals. I could not fall asleep on Christmas Eve so I went back out into the living room at 3 am. The fire was in the coaling stage. I decided to bust up the coals and toss in two large splits. The minute I shut the door they burst into flames. I closed the damper all the way just to see if it would keep going not only did it but the secondaries lit up instantly.

 

[firefighterjake]

To answer some of your questions . . . I typically load the stove up . . . although I try to leave an inch or two of space between the baffle/burn tubes in my Oslo and the wood . . . I believe Brother Bart has done so with his Englander and feels as though he gets the same result . . . my own reason for trying to leave a bit of space is simply to avoid bashing the tubes and baffle.

As others have said . . . the real key is to know when to load 'er up . . . for me that is when the coals are down to the size of baseballs or softballs . . . DO NOT do what I did a few weeks back (even though I knew better) and put more wood in the stove while it is in middle of the burn cycle . . . unless you want to have a cheap thrill . . . rather load up on coals . . . keep the air open all the way until the wood chars and then start closing the air . . . for me I tend to start closing down the air incrementally when my probe thermometer hits 400-500 . . . if I wait longer than that to start closing the air down it seems as though the temps in the stove and flue will go higher and stay higher even when I close down the air.

 

[wkpoor]

I don't know why people associate amount of wood with temps. Does your car go faster just becuase you have a full tank of gas? Of course not, you still control it with the throttle. Same thing with a wood stove, control it with air regardles of wood load. My FIL used to tell my I was going to overfire my stove when I would fill for the night. I don't think I ever convinced him about a thing called controlled burn rate.

 

[APersonalMatter]

all good points. i think i knew these things, by doing endless reading of potentially every thread here- just needed some reassurance before i burned down my new house! . this has all been quite helpful!

 

[pen]

I don't know why people associate amount of wood with temps. Does your car go faster just becuase you have a full tank of gas? Of course not, you still control it with the throttle. Same thing with a wood stove, control it with air regardles of wood load. My FIL used to tell my I was going to overfire my stove when I would fill for the night. I don't think I ever convinced him about a thing called controlled burn rate.

I see what you are saying but your analogy doesn't work.

It would be more appropriate to consider a full load versus a small load much like a large carburetor versus a small or large high flow injectors versus smaller. Either can be tamed back, but the full load (larger carb) can give you a hotter higher temp.

On a small load with only 3 or 4 splits med in size, my stove top might hit 550 to 600 for a brief while then cruise much lower. W/ a full load, the stove will easily cruise at 600- 700. The small load simply can't get me there. As such, more wood can mean more heat (or speed if you wish to follow the analogy)


pen