I'm new here, so first of all, thanks to all who freely give of their time on this forum. I've already learned a lot!
I have a Dutchwest 2478, medium non-cat stove, bought in late 2006 when we built our house, which is about 2200 sq ft finished. This is my 6th winter heating with wood, but I did grow up in a house with a russian fireplace, and I can start a fire by rubbing two sticks together and spent a lot of time as a kid making campfires for fun, for what it's worth. So I have experience with making fire. We have the stove in the corner of our main floor. The first 6' of chimney is double wall, about 8" from the corner, then in the second floor, it goes to triple wall and bends slightly after going through the 8' main floor ceiling so that it tucks tighly, about 2" from, the corner in the second floor. This part of the chimney is enclosed in drywall. The second floor also has 8' ceiling. Then from there it goes though maybe 3-4' of attic, and the part sticking out of the roof is about 3'.
We burn a mix of wood, whatever I can get, but have mostly red oak, red and sugar maple, scotch pine and some black cherry. The large DW non-cat would be better suited for the size of my house, but oh well. When this stove is working well, it's great - the "everburn rumble" is cool, the lazy flames are awesome, and unless it's really cold out, the stove heats our house surprisingly well. Plus it looks nice. Heating-wise, aesthetically etc, the stove is great. However, if one cares about not putting too much smoke into the air, then the stove can be pretty frustrating when things aren't going well. Plus I've also had a hard time getting the long burn times.
These are the key points that I've learned:
- The door refractory has broken a couple times, but the last time the company replaced the brick with a metal panel, so that's helped.
- I once read online that to get good secondary burn, the wood can actually be too dry... something like too-dry wood burns at too low a temp such that the temp is not hot enough to burn the gasses being emitted. However, based on my experience and especially since reading posts here, I am discarding that notion. I really think that for this stove to work properly, the wood needs to be really, really dry. E.g., I've been burning some standing-dead recently cut black cherry that it has been almost impossible to keep the everburn going with, unless the stove is absolutely cranking hot. I've gone back to mixing in some dy scotch pine, and have found it's way easier to get the everburn working.
- Thanks to this forum, I've added an IR thermometer to my Christmas list, so hopefully I'll soon be able to be more objective about getting the everburn working.
- You really want to let the stove get really hot before closing the damper. I've gotten in the habit of opening the ash door early on to get to this point. It was encouraging to watch TraderGordo's videos and see that he does the same. It is really easy to forget it's open though, so it's good to implement some kind of reminder, like leave the lights on or something to indicate you need to close the ash door.
- If you don't mind making smoke, getting long burn times (say 6-8 hours) is not a problem, just load it up and shut it down. However if you want a long clean burn, it gets trickier. I'm still working on this one. I've had decent luck both with loading it chock full before going to bed, or with putting in a couple big rounds of dense wood. I almost always have plenty of coals, but I don't always get a clean burn, based on the amount of "black" inside the stove. There seems to be a fine line between having the stove so hot that the everburn goes crazy and burns too fast, and not being hot enough and burning inefficiently. I'd rather burn too fast...
In summary, the wood needs to be really really dry, and don't be afraid, within reason, to really let it heat up before closing the damper. My offering to this forum is that these simple concepts can't be overstressed for this stove.
Few questions:
- I get a fair bit of crusty, powdery creosote/soot or whatever on the chimney cap. I need to clean it once of twice per season. It's really easy to clean, but if I don't, I've seen it once of twice where I'm heating the stove up, and those chunks of soot have actually started to glow and flake off in the draft, and I'll see glowing stuff drifting down from the roof. That's pretty scary. Also when I cleaned this fall, there was a layer of powdery stuff lining the chimney, maybe 1/8 - 1/4" thick. Again, it cleaned really easily, you could brush it off with your hand. But how much of this is normal? I do realize that this stuff is probably due to not burning properly (hey, I only just recently got hip to this forum!) How worried should I be about this?
-What's the deal with the crunchy stuff in the fountain assembly? Is it really critical for the everburn? What does it add to the equation? I have a feeling mine is probably pretty worn out. When cleaning the chimney, I stuck a shop vac down the flue collar, and proceeded to suck up chunks of stuff at the top of the assembly, and there appear to be holes there now... When reaching up the "throat opening" from the inside of the stove, I can feel there is less of that material than there used to be. Are the $200-$400 prices I've seen here for the crunchy material, or for the brick and crunchy stuff that together make up the combustion chamber? I don't really want to spend the money, nor do I want to take the stove apart right now. I'm getting pretty decent everburn, but it is tricky sometimes. I don't want to fix it if it's not going to make a big difference. Has the (apparently new) company's handling of this issue improved? Has anybody noticed a definite improvement by just replacing the crunchy stuff? Does anyone have good pictures of the fountain assembly/crunchy stuff specifically for this line of stoves?
Thanks! Rob
I have a Dutchwest 2478, medium non-cat stove, bought in late 2006 when we built our house, which is about 2200 sq ft finished. This is my 6th winter heating with wood, but I did grow up in a house with a russian fireplace, and I can start a fire by rubbing two sticks together and spent a lot of time as a kid making campfires for fun, for what it's worth. So I have experience with making fire. We have the stove in the corner of our main floor. The first 6' of chimney is double wall, about 8" from the corner, then in the second floor, it goes to triple wall and bends slightly after going through the 8' main floor ceiling so that it tucks tighly, about 2" from, the corner in the second floor. This part of the chimney is enclosed in drywall. The second floor also has 8' ceiling. Then from there it goes though maybe 3-4' of attic, and the part sticking out of the roof is about 3'.
We burn a mix of wood, whatever I can get, but have mostly red oak, red and sugar maple, scotch pine and some black cherry. The large DW non-cat would be better suited for the size of my house, but oh well. When this stove is working well, it's great - the "everburn rumble" is cool, the lazy flames are awesome, and unless it's really cold out, the stove heats our house surprisingly well. Plus it looks nice. Heating-wise, aesthetically etc, the stove is great. However, if one cares about not putting too much smoke into the air, then the stove can be pretty frustrating when things aren't going well. Plus I've also had a hard time getting the long burn times.
These are the key points that I've learned:
- The door refractory has broken a couple times, but the last time the company replaced the brick with a metal panel, so that's helped.
- I once read online that to get good secondary burn, the wood can actually be too dry... something like too-dry wood burns at too low a temp such that the temp is not hot enough to burn the gasses being emitted. However, based on my experience and especially since reading posts here, I am discarding that notion. I really think that for this stove to work properly, the wood needs to be really, really dry. E.g., I've been burning some standing-dead recently cut black cherry that it has been almost impossible to keep the everburn going with, unless the stove is absolutely cranking hot. I've gone back to mixing in some dy scotch pine, and have found it's way easier to get the everburn working.
- Thanks to this forum, I've added an IR thermometer to my Christmas list, so hopefully I'll soon be able to be more objective about getting the everburn working.
- You really want to let the stove get really hot before closing the damper. I've gotten in the habit of opening the ash door early on to get to this point. It was encouraging to watch TraderGordo's videos and see that he does the same. It is really easy to forget it's open though, so it's good to implement some kind of reminder, like leave the lights on or something to indicate you need to close the ash door.
- If you don't mind making smoke, getting long burn times (say 6-8 hours) is not a problem, just load it up and shut it down. However if you want a long clean burn, it gets trickier. I'm still working on this one. I've had decent luck both with loading it chock full before going to bed, or with putting in a couple big rounds of dense wood. I almost always have plenty of coals, but I don't always get a clean burn, based on the amount of "black" inside the stove. There seems to be a fine line between having the stove so hot that the everburn goes crazy and burns too fast, and not being hot enough and burning inefficiently. I'd rather burn too fast...
In summary, the wood needs to be really really dry, and don't be afraid, within reason, to really let it heat up before closing the damper. My offering to this forum is that these simple concepts can't be overstressed for this stove.
Few questions:
- I get a fair bit of crusty, powdery creosote/soot or whatever on the chimney cap. I need to clean it once of twice per season. It's really easy to clean, but if I don't, I've seen it once of twice where I'm heating the stove up, and those chunks of soot have actually started to glow and flake off in the draft, and I'll see glowing stuff drifting down from the roof. That's pretty scary. Also when I cleaned this fall, there was a layer of powdery stuff lining the chimney, maybe 1/8 - 1/4" thick. Again, it cleaned really easily, you could brush it off with your hand. But how much of this is normal? I do realize that this stuff is probably due to not burning properly (hey, I only just recently got hip to this forum!) How worried should I be about this?
-What's the deal with the crunchy stuff in the fountain assembly? Is it really critical for the everburn? What does it add to the equation? I have a feeling mine is probably pretty worn out. When cleaning the chimney, I stuck a shop vac down the flue collar, and proceeded to suck up chunks of stuff at the top of the assembly, and there appear to be holes there now... When reaching up the "throat opening" from the inside of the stove, I can feel there is less of that material than there used to be. Are the $200-$400 prices I've seen here for the crunchy material, or for the brick and crunchy stuff that together make up the combustion chamber? I don't really want to spend the money, nor do I want to take the stove apart right now. I'm getting pretty decent everburn, but it is tricky sometimes. I don't want to fix it if it's not going to make a big difference. Has the (apparently new) company's handling of this issue improved? Has anybody noticed a definite improvement by just replacing the crunchy stuff? Does anyone have good pictures of the fountain assembly/crunchy stuff specifically for this line of stoves?
Thanks! Rob
