Lopi Endeavor: Normal to see 650-725 stovetop temps?

[dhumohr]

My wood right now is mostly maple with a little bit of white birch and some red oak mixed in. When I'm home and burning a little hotter than normal I get 3-4 hours of hot active burn into the coal stage. I then rake all my coals flat and open the air up for about 45 minutes and then I reload. If I load full for overnight, I generally have about 200 degree stovetop temps after 8 hours. I rake the coal around and crack the door for a few minutes and then reload before heading to work. The stove is currently in the basement heating a 1500 SQ cape. On the weekends when I feed it regularly we keep the first floor around 65-66. This is comfortable for us, I prefer the house a little cooler. The furnace usually kicks on once or twice through the night. Next year I'll be insulating the basement walls and see if that puts a bit more heat upstairs. This is the first winter in our new house so it was a bit of a learning curve. We've burned around 300-350 gallons of oil since last August - furnace supplies hot water as well.

It sounds like we're not far off what you're doing and getting. We're getting about 3 hours from a burn when we're home and we can go overnight and wind up in the morning with some nice hot coals. Our furnace doesn't come on during the night unless it's close to 0 or below, but we keep the thermostat at 45. If I get up and turn the furnace on, it usually kicks in about 55 or 60.

So maybe this is just what we can expect, and that's fine. It doesn't sound like we're doing things badly, and that's good. Thanks so much for your input--it's really useful.

 

[dhumohr]

Your short burn times are no surprise. You have the air fully open which means the fire will burn really well but a lot of the heat will go up your flue.



That is what you should do every time. Once the fire is established and you closed the bypass (top lever) you start closing down the air control in the bottom in stages. Push it in until the flames become "lazy" (slow moving), wait approx. 5 min until they are strong again, push the air in again some and continue so stepwise until the air control is maybe 3/4 to fully closed. At some point you should see a lot of flames in the top of the firebox; those are your secondaries, which will give you more heat and longer burn times than keeping a roaring fire. If the fire goes out when you do that and you just have coals I suspect your wood is not dry. When has it been split and stacked (at best single rows with lots of sun and wind exposure): fall 2012 or fall 2013? Do you have a moisture meter to test how well it is seasoned?



I am pretty sure your stove could do better than what you describe. It should be able to heat 1000 sqft. even when the insulation is not that great. The Progress is an option for longer burn times and more heat but will not help with the heat distribution. That is dependent of how well the warm air moves around your house.

Thanks, Grisu. I can try what you're talking about. We've tried all sorts of things but using steps the way you describe isn't one of them. I know about the secondaries, but haven't seen them a lot. We don't have a lot of roaring fires but in order to keep the temp of the room and other rooms comfortable, we've burned it more open than we wanted to. The fire doesn't go out totally when we close up, it just slows down and the room temp lowers. This ash we're burning now was split and stacked in Nov 2013.

In terms of heat distribution, I understand what you're saying, and it seems interesting that in the next rooms with doorways open, the temps would be a good 10 degrees cooler. The warm air doesn't need to make a turn to get into them, it's a straight and short shot. I can understand the air flow being restricted to the back room, where it needs to make a 180 degree turn back on itself, but not in those two rooms.

 

[Grisu]

The fire doesn't go out totally when we close up, it just slows down and the room temp lowers. This ash we're burning now was split and stacked in Nov 2013.

For a modern EPA-stove like the Lopi you need seasoned wood with a moisture content of less than 20%. Ash has one of the lowest moisture contents out there when green but yours will still be totally unseasoned at 35 to 40%. That is way too wet for a good secondary burn. I suggest cutting and splitting the wood for the next two winters ASAP. Ash and softwood will be seasoned for the coming winter. Since 2 years is usually good enough for almost all wood species (maybe with the exception of oak) you will have no problems anymore the winter after. Just keep on a 2-year rotation by refilling your stacks every winter/early spring. Stack the wood in single rows in a sunny and windy spot, raised from the ground by pallets or lumber, don't stack the splits too tight. I also like to top-cover the stacks. Since winter is almost over I suggest you keep burning the way you did. Once you have dry wood, try it the way I described earlier.

In terms of heat distribution, I understand what you're saying, and it seems interesting that in the next rooms with doorways open, the temps would be a good 10 degrees cooler. The warm air doesn't need to make a turn to get into them, it's a straight and short shot. I can understand the air flow being restricted to the back room, where it needs to make a 180 degree turn back on itself, but not in those two rooms.

For better heat distribution try this trick: Take a small desktop fan set on medium or even low. Put it on the ground in the room you want the heat go into and blow cold air towards the stove. Warm air from the stove room will flow along the ceiling to make up for the air the fan is blowing out.

 

[isipwater]

When I wake up in the morning, the stove area is about 62-66F depending on how cold it was outside. The back bedrooms are about 56-59. Then, once the stove is reloaded and throwing out heat, I am back up to 69-70 in about 1.5-2 hrs.

Here is how I start a fire:

- Use a firestarter such as fatwood or a super cedar.
-have bypass damper and primary air controls both bully open.
-Once lit, close bypass (side air control) after 3 minutes or when my double pipe is warm to the touch. Keeping it open makes you lose major precious heat.
-Keep glass door cracked half inch for total of 5 mins.
-Close glass door and keep primary air open until stove temp (with proper thermo placement) is 400-450F. Begin closing air in stages until secondaries are going strong.

Also, I don't use a blower, did not get one. Usually I don't use any fans but sometimes I turn on the ceiling fan if I really want the heat to move around faster.

 

[dhumohr]

For a modern EPA-stove like the Lopi you need seasoned wood with a moisture content of less than 20%. Ash has one of the lowest moisture contents out there when green but yours will still be totally unseasoned at 35 to 40%. That is way too wet for a good secondary burn. I suggest cutting and splitting the wood for the next two winters ASAP. Ash and softwood will be seasoned for the coming winter. Since 2 years is usually good enough for almost all wood species (maybe with the exception of oak) you will have no problems anymore the winter after. Just keep on a 2-year rotation by refilling your stacks every winter/early spring. Stack the wood in single rows in a sunny and windy spot, raised from the ground by pallets or lumber, don't stack the splits too tight. I also like to top-cover the stacks. Since winter is almost over I suggest you keep burning the way you did. Once you have dry wood, try it the way I described earlier.



For better heat distribution try this trick: Take a small desktop fan set on medium or even low. Put it on the ground in the room you want the heat go into and blow cold air towards the stove. Warm air from the stove room will flow along the ceiling to make up for the air the fan is blowing out.

Thanks, Grisu. I know that the Ash we got isn't seasoned, but no one here has any seasoned wood for sale, and we like so many others, were caught unawares this past winter. So we have what we have. We just got a line on some wood seasoned for two years that people had for their wood furnace, which they're no longer burning. There's about 7 cord, so we'll get and use that for next winter, adding ash that we'll get this spring, and then in the summer we'll be buying wood for the following year. I think we're still going for the Progress Hybrid, though, since I visited someone who heats with soapstone, and I really liked it, soft, even heat and as you said, looonnng burn times. And a plus is that the seasoned wood we're getting is cut to 18-19", so it'll work for that stove. Unlike so many of you who cut your own, we need to buy our wood now, and we've also found a really reputable man who sells firewood for a living.

Thanks so much for all the advice--very valuable! And I will try the fan trick--thanks!

 

[dhumohr]

When I wake up in the morning, the stove area is about 62-66F depending on how cold it was outside. The back bedrooms are about 56-59. Then, once the stove is reloaded and throwing out heat, I am back up to 69-70 in about 1.5-2 hrs.

Here is how I start a fire:

- Use a firestarter such as fatwood or a super cedar.
-have bypass damper and primary air controls both bully open.
-Once lit, close bypass (side air control) after 3 minutes or when my double pipe is warm to the touch. Keeping it open makes you lose major precious heat.
-Keep glass door cracked half inch for total of 5 mins.
-Close glass door and keep primary air open until stove temp (with proper thermo placement) is 400-450F. Begin closing air in stages until secondaries are going strong.

Also, I don't use a blower, did not get one. Usually I don't use any fans but sometimes I turn on the ceiling fan if I really want the heat to move around faster.

Thanks, isipwater. We always have enough coals to start the fire without any additional assistance. And I used to crack the door, but now I just pull open the front and side and close the door all the way and in 5 minutes I have fire. Another half hour and the temp is nice and hot and the room is starting to heat back up--you're right, takes about 1.5 hrs..

Thanks, too for letting me know about the temp in the morning--we're usually 60 or a little below in the stove area and probably between 50 and 55 in the adjoining room, so not much different (except bedroom in curtained off part of house about 45), but I'd like it to be a bit warmer and be able to heat up the whole first floor (about 1000 sq ft), which we haven't been able to do, except for tonight, but it's pretty warm outside now. So still planning on the Progress Hybrid.

I did try to close the air in stages tonight, and got some nice secondaries going--hooray!

 

[Christopix]

Great, Christopix, that was one of the things I was referring to , and it answers that perfectly! For the rest of the day, how often do you reload in order to keep the temp of the house warm?

My answer to this is going to be different from others even with the same stove as everyone's set up and floor plan and level of insulation is different. I have the good fortune of having a passive solar house which heats up nicely when ever the sun is shining - even in bitter cold days. My house is insulated rather well too. Our stove is located in the insulated wall & floored basement but un-insulated basement ceiling . So on a sunny day, I can do a hot burn in the morning and then revisit the stove again close to 5pm where I get a hot fire going again from the few remaining coals in the back of the firebox. That 5pm fire will let me coast until 9pm where I begin the process of setting the stage for a good overnight burn. If the sun isn't shining, I'll get another cycle in close to lunch time (I work from home).

 

[begreen]

Thanks, Grisu. I know that the Ash we got isn't seasoned, but no one here has any seasoned wood for sale, and we like so many others, were caught unawares this past winter. So we have what we have. We just got a line on some wood seasoned for two years that people had for their wood furnace, which they're no longer burning. There's about 7 cord, so we'll get and use that for next winter, adding ash that we'll get this spring, and then in the summer we'll be buying wood for the following year.

Nice score. If you can give the split ash a good drying season in a good location it should be ok to burn by fall.