Secondary Burn

[tumm21]

I have a Regency Medium Insert. Is it normal not to have any secondary flame coming from the tubes when my stove top reads 400 degrees. I have had this stove about 4 years and I hate to say I am not impressed with it. It is my primary source of heat. I am filling this thing like every hour or so with more wood. What is my problem

 

[Pallet Pete]

Are you maintaining a good coal bed ? My issue with the old stove was it had to have a large coal bed or there was no good secondary going on! Could you also explain your setup that could also be the issue.

Pete

 

[mikepinto65]

Filling the stove every hour with wood and only getting to 400 dosnt sound right (but mostly filling every hour). Are you certain you have properly seasoned wood?, if so please explain your setup as draft could very well be a big issue.

 

[Pallet Pete]

Something else to consider you shouldn't need to fill every hour with a good coal bed. Most of your heat is from the coal bed a burn time is not how long the fire is there but how long it puts out heat from the coal bed. You may already know this but just in case! Someone more knowledgable than me will be along shortly anyway with more ideas ;-)

Good Luck
Pete

 

[kingquad]

Tell us about your wood supply. You have a good insert. You need higher temps for proper secondary combustion. What setting are running your blower at?

 

[clemsonfor]

YOu must only be putting one or two pieces in every hour? Even those old stoves i dont think you can load um every hour?

 

[oldspark]

This is another one of those post that make you say WTF, something is just not normal and we need much more information to help you out.

 

[seeyal8r]

I have the large Regency and love it. I always get an awesome secondary burn. I burn 1 year seasoned white oak. I load the stove every 4-6 hours. After initial startup I load it full of wood and let it run on full primary air for 15 minutes or so. (sometimes less with a full hot coal bed and sometimes more if it got a little light) then I close the primary to roughly 50% sometimes less sometimes more depending again on the coal bed and how much heat I really want. The secondaries ignite huge.

The times I haven't gotten the secondaries to ignite were because the wood was too green or their weren't enough coals and the firebox itself was too cool.

I've had roaring fires full of coals where i've closed the primary completely. The stove will cruise for a couple hours on secondaries alone ideally but then I have to go make an adjustment to the air. I usually load it and forget it for 6 hours at a time.

Mine heats my entire single floor ranch style 2300 sf house.

I also have a 5.5" stainless flexible chimney flu that keeps the draft going. If yours vents into a large chimney you may not be able to get enough draft. just my 2 cents.

 

[tumm21]

Im burning 1 year seasoned split and stacked hickory and maple. My chimney is 25 feet liner all the way up. My chimney is interior of house and I dont have a block off plate nor is the liner insulated. I try to heat my first floor wich is only about 1000 square feet. I have a thermometer on the stove. Blower runs on high sometimes but mainly on low.

 

[tumm21]

I can get my stove to 500 for a short time with dry kindling and some regular splits but I cant maintain it on a lower setting with draft for a long period of time

 

[basod]

Are you leaving the air control open or slowly backing it down.
If your attempting to have a pretty fire roaring then I'd say the former, which will cuase you to eat through wood.
If you can't back it down without maintaining some form of burn the wood is probably your problem.
Maybe buy a bag of the kiln dried stuff (it would pain me to do this) and see how the temps are.

 

[Huntindog1]

You have to load it up full , adding a couple logs every hour leaves too much open space in which to get the heat up and to maintain the heat , as once your get the secondaries to fire its the secondary burn that keeps the heat up in the stove. Too much space in the stove with very little wood keeps this from happening. I have seen in my stove adding in a couple pieces of wood they burn like heck but the stove doesnt build up the heat. Plus its hard to imagine but its the shutting down the air intake that lets the stove heat up once the wood is burning good. But at reload on hot coals its important to leave some space in the front to load some kindling that will burn hot and fast. And this is an important point to remember, its the small kindling that will burn hot and fast even when you turn down the air inlet as with something burning in their with less cold air coming in will build heat faster than anything. Big pieces of wood wont burn well or quickly to get the heat up in the stove quickly so as to fire off the secondaries even with the air wide open but the kindling once you get it going will burn hot with the air turned down which builds the heat.

With a full load of wood load up to about an inch from the secondaries creates a small burn chamber up in the top of the stove for the secondaries to burn and maintain the heat. What your really hoping for is too just have most of the burning going on on top of the wood up by the secondaries. But if your are burning up all your big stuff in the stove just to get the stove temps up then your left with very little wood for a long burn. So use kindling up in front on top of the coals. Try a super cedar also if you want even better results with the kindling. but on coals most just use kindling. I leave the door cracked a little to get the kindling going hot and fast then close it and then slowly reducing the air by 1/3rds so heat will build.

Lastly if your wood is too much above 20% moisture your gonna have trouble with these new stoves .

 

[tumm21]

I probably should season the wood longer. Im going to insulate above the stove and see if that help my stove temps alot. Luckily I have tons of wood this year to keep me goin.

 

[firefighterjake]

Are you leaving the air control open or slowly backing it down.
If your attempting to have a pretty fire roaring then I'd say the former, which will cuase you to eat through wood.
If you can't back it down without maintaining some form of burn the wood is probably your problem.
Maybe buy a bag of the kiln dried stuff (it would pain me to do this) and see how the temps are.

I suspect BASOD is on the right track . . .

How do you use your air control? If you leave it wide open as BASOD says there will be lots of flames, but you will not get a secondary burn and are losing a lot of heat up the chimney . . . and burning through a lot of wood quickly.

If you are running the stove in this manner try his advice . . . bring the stove up to temp and then start slowly closing the air control . . . 3/4 . . . wait 5-10 minutes . . . if the fire is still burning OK back it down to 1/2 . . . and so on and so forth . . . most folks can get down to 1/4 closed . . .

 

[kingquad]

Where and what are you using to measure temps on your insert?

 

[seeyal8r]

tumm21,

try this if you haven't already. get your fire started with kindling and pile in as many splits as you can. leave the air fully open until the splits are burned down enough you can break them up and make a nice big coal bed. (usually takes an hour or so) then stack in as many splits as possible leaving as little space for air as you can with the air fully open for 15-20 minutes. Then close the air to about 50%-40%. This should errupt the secondaries. after that you'll add wood every 6 hours or so. If that doesn't work then I'd blame your wood for not being dry enough.