more heat?? wide open or chock down & run the secondary tubes ? non-cat insert..

[Stevebass4]

do you run wide open to get the place up to heat and then chock the air down to run the secondary tubes to maintain the temp

or

run wide open until the fire is established and then chock the air down to get more heat?

had a neighbor stop by tonight and tell me i should be chocking it down for more heat and less fuel mind you she has a QF cat stove and i have a QF non cat insert

Thxs

 

[DiscoInferno]

I think once up to temp you want to close the primary air as much as possible while keeping the temp where you want it. Where that is for you takes experimentation. On mine once things get going I can cut the primary all or near all the way down and the secondary keeps the heat up fine. I sometimes think I have too much secondary air, in fact. But other folks seem to always need to keep the primary part-way open; difference in draft I suppose.

 

[BrotherBart]

On a good coal bed I start backing the primary air down pretty soon after loading. Why blow all that heat from the gasification stage of the wood up the chimney. I reload around 300-400 degrees and after the temp starts to rise I start reducing secondary air because the rise means the initial moisture has burned off of the load. If makes for a flatter heating curve with my steel stove instead of hotter than hell for an hour and heading down from there.

Also since I have gone to top down startups and the reloads described above I have virtually eliminated crap in the chimneys. I started both after the Christmas week mid-season chimney cleaning, which was nasty, and checked yesterday and the damn things really don't even need cleaning again this year. I'll do it, but they don't need it. And I have burned nothing but pine for the last month.

I tell ya folks. John and Vanessa have something there with their paper bow ties. Heats the pipe before the crap has a chance to stick.

 

[R&D Guy]

The fundamentals of combustion say the following:

More oxygen per X amount of fuel = more rapid oxidation (higher temps)

Less oxygen per X amount of fuel = less rapid oxidation (lower temps).

I think your neighbor has efficiency confused with total heat transfer.

Look at it this way, when you shut your stove down so just the secondaries are burning then you are just burning the off-gassing of the wood. It's more efficient, but not as hot as when you have the stove wide open and the wood is burning as well as the secondaries. Wide open is less efficient since you are also sending more heat up the flue, but it will heat your home faster.

Sure when you first shut your stove, or fireplace down the temps go up, but they quickly peak and settle at a lower temp.

 

[savageactor7]

Steve with our QF4300 (non-cat) we think we get more heat burning a few logs wide open. Except for loading up for the night or away missions we never have more than a log and maybe a half burned log in the stove. the stove top temp is usually around 550/600 and it puts out plenty of heat....burns clean too absolutely no smoke coming from the chimney.