Rockland 550 glowing red!

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

bfgibson

Member
Nov 2, 2008
24
Alabama
oh dear! I hope I'm not in trouble. I loaded the stove down for the night and let it burn for a bit before turning the air down. I turned the air supply back and left it to finish taxes. I just walked over to check it out and this is what I saw: center of the top plate is glowing a dull red, the temp sensor placed near the center is pegged at 900. (so i know i'm that hot and probably hotter). This is most definitely an overfiring situation? I wonder what damage, if any I might be looking at. I am typing this post about 20 minutes after the initial oh crap moment and the red glow appears to be fading, but she's still pegged at 900. I'm not sure what to do except sit tight. I'm afraid I might do more harm than good by trying to pull all the wood out. I have some big boy rounds in there.

Has anyone experienced this situation before? With my old insert I had the sensor mounted on the front and so i never saw the 'extreme' temps. of course i don't ever remember a glowing stove top either.

On the plus side she's belting out heat and i can't get my wife to go our bedroom to sleep because 'it's so warm in here' haha.. I'm still not used to this firebox. I wonder what I've done wrong here. I would think i should be able to load her down at night. I dont think Hackberry is a super BTU wood. It seems that it's on down the BTU list. The wood is bone dry, which is someting i'm not used to. Maybe i let it burn too long with the air open before choking it down for the night?

I would appreciate your wisdom

thanks
Brian
 
Cut the air back sooner, and use larger splits of wood.
 
A quick way to get the temperature down is to open the doors and let a bunch of air in to kill the secondaries. Then sit tight and figure out what not to do again.

I recently had a similar experience with my Quadrafire 7100. I had it loaded it, and it just didn't seem to want to get burning like normal. I decided to leave the air open while I went upstairs for a bit. Well I got distracted and didn't get back down to check the stove soon enough. When I did, I could see the top of the unit glowing through the air vent. After a quick "Aw Crap!" moment, I remembered reading on Hearth.com somewhere that you had to open the doors and kill the secondaries to cool things down.

First I turned the blower all the way up and damped the air all the way down. Then I got my gloves on and carefully cracked open the doors until the secondaries died. Then I retreated to a cooler distance and watched. Within a minute, the glow faded. After a few more minutes, I closed the doors. Then I sat and watched for about 30 minutes. The crisis was averted and I was able to go to bed.

I have resolved that when I am lighting the stove, I am lighting the stove. Multi-tasking is not an option as it is too easy to get distracted with all the chaos around here. I do not walk away until the fire is burning, air is damped down, and the blower is set.

Thank goodness for all the great people and information on this site. Even though this is my first season burning I feel like I have been given a leg up by all the information I have learned here. It reminds me of looking for a job. Lots of times I see "Bachelors degree plus 3 years experience or 10 years experience required to qualify." I feel like I am getting a BS in wood burning.
 
Setting some kind of alarm really helps. I set the kitchen oven timer every time I load, if I don't I'll forget.
 
Yep, I think that i let it get too hot before choking back the air initially. I had two big rounds in thre that took up most of the room, but then filled in with smaller stuff. I wonder if the smaller rounds are what caused the problem? I'm fully convinced now of those who always harp on wood quality. This is hackberry, which has less BTU content, than oak. The difference is that it's extremely dry and WOW what a difference that makes. I am burning through the night with fist sized coals in the morning and stove temps still at somewhere between 300-400.

Brian
 
If you go in the rockland tips thread, you'll find its a very hot burning stove. I have gottem mine up to 900 (according to the thermo) a few times, but have never seen red. Its a very leaky stove, which keeps down the emissions.
 
Hackberry is also less dense than Oak so will burn very hot for a shorter period of time.
 
Same thing happened to me with my liberty, put 5 splits in, let it get hot, shut in down in stages, and it was cruising at 650, came back 30 minutes later and for some reason it had taken off again and the stovetop temp was 900 degree plus, nothing glowing except the air tubes with is normal, so I turned on the blower and it quickly cooled to 700. Didn't phase it at all, but I never want to to happen again!
 
Fires can sometimes build up again as the mass of wood is heated. When the stove was shut down in stages, was the last stage with the air control all the way closed?
 
BeGreen said:
Fires can sometimes build up again as the mass of wood is heated. When the stove was shut down in stages, was the last stage with the air control all the way closed?

BeGreen another good point.. i noticed that the air supply wasn't completely closed. It was close to being fully closed, but not quite and i think that makes a difference.. When i noticed that i completely closed it off and within maybe 10 min the glow was fading.. It wasn't a bright glow. It was sort of a dull red and very close to the area where the vent is. I hope this didn't damage the stove. Hopefully they are resilient.

I'll have to keep in mind that these are hot burning stoves from now on, especially with 'good' wood.

Brian
 
Hogwildz said:
Setting some kind of alarm really helps. I set the kitchen oven timer every time I load, if I don't I'll forget.
This is a good tip. If I leave after a reload Ill set ours and leave the wife with instructions unless Im confident she can handle what Ive got going and thats seldom.
 
BeGreen said:
Fires can sometimes build up again as the mass of wood is heated. When the stove was shut down in stages, was the last stage with the air control all the way closed?

My favorite is when a nice N/S load had rocked and rolled and finally settled down in thirty or forty-five minutes and then about the time you head up for bed the back end of one of the big splits finally gets hot and all hell breaks loose for a while.
 
BrotherBart said:
BeGreen said:
Fires can sometimes build up again as the mass of wood is heated. When the stove was shut down in stages, was the last stage with the air control all the way closed?

My favorite is when a nice N/S load had rocked and rolled and finally settled down in thirty or forty-five minutes and then about the time you head up for bed the back end of one of the big splits finally gets hot and all hell breaks loose for a while.

That's what happens to me all the time!!!
 
At the last stage of air intake closure, how far closed is your air? All the way or could it be closed down a little more? Also, how tall is the flue on the Liberty?
 
I find you really have to let the coals burn down before a reload, I will open up the air when coals are burning and it is cooling down. This generates more heat and burns the coals more, wait to at least 400 before reloading and I doubt you will have a problem again. Mine has reached high temps before and never saw any glowing, that must have been real hot. I think you could cover the air control with tape or something because I think that is where it gets the supply.
 
BeGreen said:
At the last stage of air intake closure, how far closed is your air? All the way or could it be closed down a little more? Also, how tall is the flue on the Liberty?

At the last stage, the air control is just barley open. If close it all the way the fire starts to smolder. When I leave it just barley open thats when I get the best burn but have to be careful or it will go nuclear. What makes me mad is after 30 to 40 minutes after I think the fire is settled in, I turn my back for a second and it goes nuclear, not all the time, but more times than I would like. Flue is 19 feet straight up.
 
BrianAl,
What insert picture is in your profile, it doesnt look like a 550, cuz the 550 is flush.

GolfandWoodnut, the air control opening isnt the only intake for the primary air. There are also slots just above th door that let air in.
 
After an incident like this I bought a digital watch that has two pre-settable countdown timers. I keep one at 5min and the other at 10min. Whenever I am lighting a new fire or reloading I set the 5min countdown timer. And when it goes off I check the fire and set it again (and again, and again, if necessary) until I can finally engage the cat, set the damper down, and the fire stabilizes. Then I set it once for a ten minute check just to be sure.
 
EJL923 said:
BrianAl,
What insert picture is in your profile, it doesnt look like a 550, cuz the 550 is flush.

GolfandWoodnut, the air control opening isnt the only intake for the primary air. There are also slots just above th door that let air in.

I need to update the sig. That's the old pe pacific that got ruined in the tornado in April 2011. I wanted to go back with a bigger stove.

The hackberry I'm using now seems to burn hot! and generates lots of ash. The consensus seems to be that it's a fast burning wood but I've not seen that. Maybe it's because my wood is usually pretty crappy.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Brian
 
GolfandWoodNut said:
I find you really have to let the coals burn down before a reload, I will open up the air when coals are burning and it is cooling down. This generates more heat and burns the coals more, wait to at least 400 before reloading and I doubt you will have a problem again. Mine has reached high temps before and never saw any glowing, that must have been real hot. I think you could cover the air control with tape or something because I think that is where it gets the supply.

I don't reload until around 200 to 300, usually closer to 200. If I reload at 400 forgetabouti...
IMO that is too soon for a reload.
Took me to this 6th heating season to realize this. And also to realize I can burn 2-12hr burns instead of 3- 8hr burns, and guess what, no tons of coals building up.
If it is below 20, then a may throw a small load in between the 2-12 hours loads. Saves lots of wood and the temp swing is not that different. And again, that solves the massive coal build up issue.
 
Brian AL said:
EJL923 said:
BrianAl,
What insert picture is in your profile, it doesnt look like a 550, cuz the 550 is flush.

GolfandWoodnut, the air control opening isnt the only intake for the primary air. There are also slots just above th door that let air in.

I need to update the sig. That's the old pe pacific that got ruined in the tornado in April 2011. I wanted to go back with a bigger stove.

The hackberry I'm using now seems to burn hot! and generates lots of ash. The consensus seems to be that it's a fast burning wood but I've not seen that. Maybe it's because my wood is usually pretty crappy.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Brian
I think hackberry is a middle of the road wood.
 
Think this one is done. Reload temps are a current subject in another thread.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.