Low Burn Temps in Pacific Energy 27 wood stove?

[Snipe0209]

I am new to wood burning for heat and have some questions. Hopefully you guys can help me out some.

I am not sure what I should expect for normal temps from the stove and how large of a bed of coals I should have in the stove.

I just got a new PE27 installed about 10 days ago. I was struggling to get the stove into the 300F range the first couple of fires, and suspected it may have been due to wet wood. So I purchased a moisture meter and went to a market where there was an abundant supply of firewood from which I could choose. I examined probably two dozen ricks before I settled on one. The oak and hickory splits that I selected were gray and measured anywhere from 5%-15% moisture content according to my moisture meter.

Based on what I had read, I was confident that this would be the ticket to a warmer fire, but I am sad to say it has not been all that impressive. I am able to peak out at around 350F, but I am struggling to keep the stove about 300F. So I tried splitting the wood into smaller pieces. This does seem to help the wood to burn faster, but I was surprised to find that the moisture content at the center of the wood is still around 15%-20%. I did find some white oak which got the stove up around 450F, but I don't know that I will be able to get any more of that.

I cleaned the stove out on Thanksgiving day for the first time and it did seem to burn a little hotter after that so I am wondering if maybe my coal bed is too large or something? I usually will start the day with about a 1-2 inch deep bed of ashes/coal, but by bed time the bed of coals will be 6-8" deep.


Please help, I really just want to be warm this winter. Last February I walked out into the "sun room" one morning to find one of the puddles from the leaky roof frozen on the concrete floor. While I have managed to replace the roof, insulate the room, and install a wood stove so far this year. I was very hopeful that the PE27 would be able to heat my 2000 SF house (I am actually only hoping to heat about 1500SF of it which is basically one open living space), in this temperate climate in southern TN. So far that has not proven to be possible. In fact it is about 36F outside right now and it is only 64F in the house. I would like to be able to get that around 70-72F.

Does my goal seem unreasonable?
What temp should I be reading on my single wall flue?
Am I just reloading too soon or something?
Should I wait until the coals are nearly gone before I try to add more wood to the fire?

Thanks for your input.

 

[Pagey]

Welcome to the forums. We have many dedicated, loyal PE users, and I am sure they will chime in soon enough with specific guidance for your stove. For general trouble shooting advice, tell us more about your chimney/flue setup. Are you venting into a prefab metal chimney, or are you venting into an existing masonry flue? Is this an interior or exterior chimney system? How tall is it?

When you take a moisture reading from a split, make sure you resplit it, and then take a reading from the freshly exposed center. Wood that won't even register at the ends or the exposed surface may still read over 20% in the center of a fresh piece.

Modern EPA stoves like to burn in cycles - that is, you load the amount of fuel you need for your given heating needs, then let that load or "charge" burn down to coals before reloading. This will keep your coal bed at a more reasonable depth. These new stoves just don't generally like adding a random split every few minutes/hours during the burn cycle. I reload when the stovetop is around 250F to 300F for easier restarts.

Tell us about how you adjust the primary combustion air on your stove. Are you leaving air fully open long enough for the wood to get a nice char on it before you start backing down/closing the air? Do you close the air down in stages or all at once? Many new burners make the honest mistake of closing the air down too fast or in one fell swoop. Almost all stoves respond far better to closing the air down in stages over a 10-20 minute period (depending on the size of the load, species, firebox temp, etc.).

We'll get you sorted, so hang on.