Tips for burning

[ikessky]

I thought maybe it would be a good idea to compile some tips for burning pre-EPA stoves. My wood furnace is EPA exempt, so I am interested in any tips that will keep my chimney cleaner and my home safe and warm. How do you start your fires, what is your re-loading proceedure, etc.

Just a note, I would hope that it is common knowledge to use dry, seasoned wood. No need to state the obvious here.

 

[pen]

A wood furnace is often a different beast than a pre-epa wood stove. I'm going to move this over to the boiler room where it should get more exposure by folks who also do what you do.

pen

 

[BoilerMan]

Keep stack temps above 300F preferably in the 350F range

TS

 

[laynes69]

I would try a top down fire with the air open when starting. Not sure how it would work for the daka, but it works well for us. Whenever we would reload, we would make sure there's a decent coal bed. This way we had a quicker recovery of heat. Having a simple wood furnace, we would run the furnace pretty hot before backing down the air after reloading. Our furnace was different but I had a thermometer above the loading door, when it was in a certain range it burned pretty cleanly. It seemed whenever I woke up during the night the chimney smoked like a train, then a few hours later would burn super hot and almost be out in the morning. I would check the chimney religiously before bed to make sure things were good, but we still would pull quite a bit of creosote at times.

 

[ikessky]

This year I think I'm going to try to run the ceiling fan in the basement or a box fan to get some of the heat out of my furnace room. The t-stat on my furnace is a bi-metal t-stat that opens and closes the damper based on the heat of the room. I'm wondering if the room is getting too hot and the damper stays closed too long.

 

[laynes69]

I was thinking that thermostat was for the temp of the furnace and not room air. The problem with the daka like our old furnace was the 2 small openings on the top of the air jacket. There's only so much air that can flow through, and when the furnace has a decent fire the jacket is hot and a bit of radiant heat comes off the furnace. With our new one having a large plenum opening and an insulated jacket, the walls are cool to the touch no matter how hot the fire is. I remember times I couldn't even touch the air jacket on our 1500 hotblast. As far as the thermostat goes on the daka if it's anything like our old furnace (which was in the door) it's junk. I would suspect that alone will cause creosote. Without any source of secondary air, when the thermostat closes it will cool the firebox where it's hard to burn clean. A fan like you say would probably help.
Did you ever upgrade the blower? If you have it should have helped, but with two 8" openings it limits things.

 

[jjs777_fzr]

I thought maybe it would be a good idea to compile some tips for burning pre-EPA stoves. My wood furnace is EPA exempt, so I am interested in any tips that will keep my chimney cleaner and my home safe and warm. How do you start your fires, what is your re-loading proceedure, etc.

Just a note, I would hope that it is common knowledge to use dry, seasoned wood. No need to state the obvious here.

I'm not trying to be picky - and not sure if you meant it the way you wrote it - but there is a distinct difference between pre-EPA and EPA exempt.
Maybe it doesn't matter with respect to the question but that wording caught my eye.

 

[ikessky]

I added a second blower and now have over 1000cfm. I try to burn pretty hot and don't get much of the tarry creosote. Most of what I get is dust and the hard "clinkers".
The bimetal t-stat sits on the front of the furnace. You have ajustment from "Off" to "High". It opens and closes the damper based off how much heat is coming off the front of the furnace. Being that it is a smaller room, it doesn't get too much air movement.

jjs - Yep, poor wording on my part.

 

[BoilerMan]

I'm not trying to be picky - and not sure if you meant it the way you wrote it - but there is a distinct difference between pre-EPA and EPA exempt.
Maybe it doesn't matter with respect to the question but that wording caught my eye.

Whats the differene? I thought they were the same. Like an old airtight, on cast iron sectional non-airthight stove.

TS