What is over firing of a wood stove?

[Joey Jones]

I use a stove thermometer to gage where my stove is with respect to temperature and draft control. In the past with other stoves I have always run the stove hot, twice a day, for 15 minutes, in the too hot zone. Not real extra hot but just maybe 100 degrees F, over the line... I did this in an attempt to burn off creosote that would build up during slow night burns. I never had a chimney fire and never had any thing to clean during my fall chimney cleaning. This is the method I used for 10 years of burning. Am I doing damage to the stove using this method? I did crack the door on my first Jotul and made the plastic handles of both Jotuls into crispy char, which makes me believe those hot burns put the stove at risk.

I must say that I don't think plastic handles are a good idea on a wood stove. Both these stoves I did damage were old, bought used, stoves... Would someone care to comment on the proper technique of a hot fire meant to neutralize creosote as much as possible?

 

[R&D Guy]

Plastic handles are a pretty poor idea, but safety testing allows the highest max temp on plastic handles since it doesn't transfer the heat to a bare hand as fast as metal or wood, so that's likely why they use it.

Over-firing is when you burn the stove hotter than it was designed for and the symptoms you describe are characteristic's of over-firing. Others are the top of the firebox glowing red, and of course the pipe glowing red. It's dangerous because your stove and pipe are radiating temperatures beyond what they were safety tested too and can lead to a house fire and or damage to your stove which voids the warranty.

 

[elmoleaf]

Too hot is when parts glow red....generally in the 800-900 F range for sustained time on the stove top.
If you have a catalytic stove, there should be no need for "hot" burns. A good cat stove properly operated with a good insulated flue produces minimal creosote.
For non cat, I suppose again with a decent flue setup and buring on the upper end of the stove's heat range without overly damping down should eliminate any need for burning at extremely high temps to eliminate creosote.

 

[Joey Jones]

I never did have my old stoves even close to glowing red, but as I said ...I did run both these previous stoves about 100 degrees into the red a couple times a day ( for about 15 minutes)....Guess it was too hot.