Tips and tricks for your fireview
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Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
dr. drew, the first thing is to do a good burn-in of the new stove. Three burn-in fires are ideal. The first with just some kindling. Light it, let it burn and then after the stove cools do another with some kindling and maybe 1 or 2 small splits. After the stove cools then do the third one but use 3 splits. Now you are ready for the heat.
With fires, have patience. With the cold stove it will be a bit over a half hour before you engage the cat but once you engage the cat the stove will heat up fast. The big key is to use good dry wood.
I like to put in a fast burning wood in the front of the firebox. In the rear I use a big split or round on the bottom. The rest you fill as needed and you certainly will not always load the stove. Spring and fall are the hardest times as you don't want much so if you load up the stove it will roast you out fast. Many times we'll just have 2 splits or rounds and at times we just let one piece smolder.....but make sure that piece is very dry wood because you probably will not engage the cat for that small of a fire.
Also for spring and fall this is a good time to burn those odd sized pieces and knotty pieces that won't load good in the stove. It is also a good time to burn that softer wood like popple or willow or cottonwood. Save the good stuff for January and February.
As to the setting that Wendell used, it all depends upon your installation and your wood. We usually turn ours to about .25 and sometimes run it with the draft shut full and have plenty of heat and still a small flame. Experiment.
With fires, have patience. With the cold stove it will be a bit over a half hour before you engage the cat but once you engage the cat the stove will heat up fast. The big key is to use good dry wood.
I like to put in a fast burning wood in the front of the firebox. In the rear I use a big split or round on the bottom. The rest you fill as needed and you certainly will not always load the stove. Spring and fall are the hardest times as you don't want much so if you load up the stove it will roast you out fast. Many times we'll just have 2 splits or rounds and at times we just let one piece smolder.....but make sure that piece is very dry wood because you probably will not engage the cat for that small of a fire.
Also for spring and fall this is a good time to burn those odd sized pieces and knotty pieces that won't load good in the stove. It is also a good time to burn that softer wood like popple or willow or cottonwood. Save the good stuff for January and February.
As to the setting that Wendell used, it all depends upon your installation and your wood. We usually turn ours to about .25 and sometimes run it with the draft shut full and have plenty of heat and still a small flame. Experiment.
Todd
Minister of Fire
Trial and error. A good starting point is to get a good coal bed established, reload, burn at full til it catches, turn it down to about #2 and wait about 15 minutes, engage the cat and turn it down to #1 and wait for about 30 minutes to see what happens, you may want to adjust the air in small 1/4" increment's it doesn't take much to make a difference. It seems on average most people burn around .5 for long burns and around #1 for hotter shorter burns. Do yourself a favor and paint your air setting numbers white for better visibility and it's also a good idea to put a white mark half way between 0 and 1.
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
Todd, your 30 minutes is my 5. Most times even less. Sometimes I just go to .25 immediately. It all depends upon the fire.
Todd
Minister of Fire
Backwoods Savage said:
Yep, everyones different, I don't usually let it sit at #1 for that long and sometimes I just engage, set it, and forget it, but thought it was a good starting point for Drew to see how his set up will work.
Flatbedford
Minister of Fire
Dry wood is very important. From cold stove I start with a couple smaller splits, paper, and kindling with the bypass open and draft open as well. As that get burning better I add more and more progressively bigger splits. I keep loading until I can fill the whole stove, adjusting the draft down to 1.5 or so. Once I have reached stovetop temp of 300 or so and all the wood inside is engulfed in flame, I close the bypass, and set the draft to somewhere between .5 and 1 depending on how much heat I want. This usually takes about 1/2 hour.
For the reload with a good bed of coals I open the bypass and set the draft wide open. I stuff as much wood as I can into the stove and close the door. Once all the new wood is engulfed in flame, 5-10 minutes, I close the bypass and set the air to the same .5 - 1 depending on how much heat I want. The Fireview is definitely geared much more towards 24/7 use than occasional burning.
For the reload with a good bed of coals I open the bypass and set the draft wide open. I stuff as much wood as I can into the stove and close the door. Once all the new wood is engulfed in flame, 5-10 minutes, I close the bypass and set the air to the same .5 - 1 depending on how much heat I want. The Fireview is definitely geared much more towards 24/7 use than occasional burning.
Flatbedford
Minister of Fire
The flame will go away at low air settings. The cat is making the heat by burning the smoke. It takes a while to get used to the idea of a fire with no flame, but I believe that is when these Stoves are most efficient.
Flatbedford
Minister of Fire
Pretty much. You will get a cool northern lights-like thing sometimes for a few minutes and then it just goes away. We just finished our first season with the Fireview, there are others here with much more expertise then I have.
I do not want to hyjack the thread but if you want to watch a fire than you do not want to by a cat stove? Interesting I thought about a cat stove and did not realize that. I suppose you have a flame on the higher settings.
Flatbedford
Minister of Fire
Burn time is hard to define. On the coldest of days we burned at 1 or even 1.5 and reloaded every 4-5 hours. Last week with daytime temps around 50 and nights in the high 30's burn time was about 24 hours at .5 or lower. Generally good heat is available for 6-8 hours for us, while there will be enough coals to reload after 24 hours. You have to find the balance between heat output and burn time. Everybody's setup is a little different.
Todd
Minister of Fire
dr.drew said:
Woodstock says the most efficient burn is when you turn it down til the flames start to lift off the splits and kind a float above, that is what I try to achieve most of the time and gives me consistant 12 hour burns but If I need more heat I turn it up and keep a good flame and red coals to heat the whole rock up. You will find on low burns the cat can get very hot doing all the work and the stove top can sometimes get up over 700 with no flame but the rest of the stove is relatively cooler.
Todd
Minister of Fire
Here's a thread with some videos with different burns and what they look like in my setup.
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/53386/
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/53386/
Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
dr.drew said:
We have flame most of the time. Early in the burn is where the real fireworks are but then it will die back to a small flame. Yes, sometimes no flame at all but lots of heat as the cat is burning the smoke.
You stated you turned the stove down to 2 then waited 20 min , then set it to 1 waited 20 min, then set it to .05. I have to first ask why did you turn the stove down to 2? You also did not state if this was with the cat on or not.
The only time we turn down to 2 is when we are heating a cold stove up to the 250 stove top temperature and don't want the flue getting too hot or losing all the heat out the chimney. So when we turn the stove down it is almost always down to 1 and then only for a short time (usually not more than 5-10 minutes and most times only a minute or two depending upon the flame). Then we turn down to .25 or .5.
Please remember too that right now you are probably not building the same type of fire you will build next winter so you no doubt are not putting much wood in the stove. Therefore, if running on a higher draft setting a lot of the wood will be burned up by the time you are down to your .5 setting.
Todd
Minister of Fire
The only time I burn on #2 is during reload in the bypass mode. One thing to remember is the cat needs time for the smoke to burn and if it passes through too fast at higher air settings you will lose efficiency and heat up the stack. I think the highest I've gone in the cat mode is 1.5 and that was on more warmer sluggish draft days, when it gets cold your air settings will probably go down because of the increase in draft.
Slow1
Minister of Fire
dr.drew said:
On my stove I can put the lever all the way to the "0" mark - looking at the top of the lever. Of course in a sense it is all relative anyway so it doesn't make a huge difference given that I never burn at that point anyway. Now Dennis does so I suppose it would matter to him.
As to flames going out - on my stove they will go out generally around .75 or so. It takes a little while usually (i.e. it isn't like I turn to .75 and poof flames are out - they will linger and diminish over 10-20 minutes or so). The first time it did this I just about panicked as I had trained myself to _always_ keep a flame in the stove with my prior stove. I've since learned that this is not only acceptable, but quite normal for lower/longer burns.
My guess is that the exact point where the flames go out is going to be a function of the wood you are burning (how dry it is etc) and the draft (which is in itself a function of the 'constants' of the installation features and the 'variables' of the weather and in-house competition for pressure - exhaust fans etc).
my stove is set at 0 all the way closed for about 20 min I can't even see any coals but the cat is red hot , the manual says not to run it like this. what do you guys think. It would make things very easy if that's all I have to do. I don't find much difference between 0 and .75 anyways.
Todd
Minister of Fire
What's your stove top temp at 0? There are a few times when I had a low setting and there were no flame or red coals and the cat just took off with the stove top over 700! In fact I hit 750 once and opened the bypass to cool her down. I've never tried burning at 0. 90% of the time I burn between .5 and 1. If I go any lower I might get some back puffing or unburnt logs in the back of the stove, could be my draft. Sometimes the flames die out when I engage but almost always comes back as a slow dancing or burst of flame. I think the most efficient burn has got some flame in the box and takes some of the stress off the cat.
Keep playing with your settings, every setup can be a little different as well as firewood difference. I would say if your burning at 0 and still have little control with lots of flames your air slide may be off track. Mine was off when I got the stove and didn't notice til the following year. After I put it back in place the air settings were much different and I couldn't burn as low as before. Maybe it got bumped during shipping?
Keep playing with your settings, every setup can be a little different as well as firewood difference. I would say if your burning at 0 and still have little control with lots of flames your air slide may be off track. Mine was off when I got the stove and didn't notice til the following year. After I put it back in place the air settings were much different and I couldn't burn as low as before. Maybe it got bumped during shipping?
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