Does the manufacturer give specific instructions on how to operate the stove without the cat installed?
Yet another hair raising moment with my new stove. Plastic smell and tinging inside the pipe.
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Woodsplitter67
Minister of Fire
Its still.a crap shoot on this.. Taking the OP information and assuming it is correct.. If ist off and higher.. this is adding to the issue.. That box in in really poor shape.. for being brand new.. the wood could be subpar..
Also, the picture of the glass door does not look good. That is not soot from overnight burn. That is shiny caked on creo from either sub par fuel (likely) or burning way too low (choking the fire). This is my personal view from what is said and shown.
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Choking a fire can do that over night…even with 4 year cut, split, stacked off ground, and top covered wood. Read my above posts…because I just did it to mine. Made a mess. BUT I was assuming my door spinner intake openings were “normal” size…and they were not. Still user error on my part. I should have looked closer.
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
It was my first guess too. But after repeated explicit asking, it is clear he tested on a fresh split.
If a poster asks for help, then one has to take their word for the info given, especially if my questions were explicit and repeated.
If that info is in doubt there is nothing more we can do... Then nothing here would make sense.
I may be naive but given the discussion I had with the OP (pls read above), I prefer to be naive rather than distrustful.
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Wow that glass looks like the inside of my dads smoker. This is only my second year burning, but I’m pretty paranoid about creosote formation. I’m always checking to make sure theres minimal if any smoke coming out of my chimney stack with every adjustment I make to my stove to ensure a clean burn.
Listen to these guys advice, they know exactly what they’re talking about and have given me good advice to any questions I’ve had so far in my short time here.
Listen to these guys advice, they know exactly what they’re talking about and have given me good advice to any questions I’ve had so far in my short time here.
Woodsplitter67
Minister of Fire
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
I have two. One regular and one wireless. Won’t burn without them. Washer and probe (have a second probe in box but never got around to putting in to compare liner skin temp to flue gas at the appliance adapter.
The Dauntless just looks like a larger Intrepid. The secondary burn chamber looks very similar as well. Burning with a secondary burn temp of 400 is a cold burn. Trying to get a 8 hr burn with it running that low will definitely cause that creosote inside that stove. That downdraft design will not allow for a cleaner burn running that low. Without the cat in you need to run the combustion chamber temp above about 650. At 850 there is very little smoke out the chimney. The manual does specify wood size and loading. The other thing that causes that much creosote on the glass is a cold air wash which cools the glass and acts like a magnet for the formation of same.
My vote goes to offgassing too.. 450 stove temp should be plenty hot to get things moving. So if it's shut down too much and the wood had a chance to start offgassing. You're gonna get a soupy mess of wood offgass and cooling that's got nowhere to go but stick to the doors. That doesn't look like just soot on the glass to me.
The heats there, the fuels there but no oxygen. Thus the glass looks like that, takes all the condensate. You gave it air again and poof
Go watch this video from the slo mo guys. It's obviously not the exact situation but a similar concept.
The heats there, the fuels there but no oxygen. Thus the glass looks like that, takes all the condensate. You gave it air again and poof
Go watch this video from the slo mo guys. It's obviously not the exact situation but a similar concept.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
Time for me weigh in. I like to ride the bottom end of my burn rate. In a secondary combustion stove you absolutely must keep secondary combustion active You can snuff out the primary but in a traditional tube stove the heat generated by the secondary combustion can keep the wood out gassing, this feeds the clean and complete secondary combustion. The down draft secondary combustion system I don’t think, and this is just my opinion looking at their brochure, would allow enough heat from the secondary combustion chamber to reach the wood providing a sustained and nearly only secondary combustion (ie lowest possible air setting and heat output). And I don’t see how adding a cat would clean up the glass but it would likely (if run properly keep the pipe clean and help prevent a chimney fire)
So the OP asked how do you run the stove. And my answer is hot enough to keep the glass clean would be a start. Flue gas probe too. It’s going to take time to learn a new stove and possibly even longer with the VC and it’s updraft system. Give up, for now at least, on the overnight burn. Hot and fast will keep things clean. You will learn how to ride low output line in time. But it can be frustrating. Changing weather, wood and MC all effect your learned low output settings. It may take babysitting the stove for 90 minutes (in my experience) to keep the burn clean and low. And sometimes I just give up and load a smaller load and let it burn on medium. I Hit the easy button(the thermostat temp up button) once in a while when it’s not too cold cold outside and I am worried about over heating the house. It will get colder and this low burn rate issue won’t be bothering you untill it warms back up in the spring.
I’d probably spring for the cat. And the AT200. Your experience will be much better with them.
So the OP asked how do you run the stove. And my answer is hot enough to keep the glass clean would be a start. Flue gas probe too. It’s going to take time to learn a new stove and possibly even longer with the VC and it’s updraft system. Give up, for now at least, on the overnight burn. Hot and fast will keep things clean. You will learn how to ride low output line in time. But it can be frustrating. Changing weather, wood and MC all effect your learned low output settings. It may take babysitting the stove for 90 minutes (in my experience) to keep the burn clean and low. And sometimes I just give up and load a smaller load and let it burn on medium. I Hit the easy button(the thermostat temp up button) once in a while when it’s not too cold cold outside and I am worried about over heating the house. It will get colder and this low burn rate issue won’t be bothering you untill it warms back up in the spring.
I’d probably spring for the cat. And the AT200. Your experience will be much better with them.
Ok good to know that I am going to need to keep it to a certain temp to avoid this burning off in the future. That was somewhat frightening, until started reading more about this here and elsewhere.
However, I will not be able to let it cruise. There is no automatic temp control as this manufacturer advertises. If I start with a blazing kindling fire, I must add 3-4 small/medium splits next to get a good bed of coals, then I can pack the stove. After adding the 3-4 small/medium splits on top of my almost burnt down kindling fire, I have to watch it as the oven will overheat so depending on the wood type, I have to adjust my air control fairly after over the next couple of hours. Then I can pack the stove tight. The issue there is, I have to turn up the air else the temps will drop low and quickly. Then I must adjust again , and again and again as it burns throughout this pile. At some point yes I can kinda let it go for awhile , say 3 hours, but it wont surprise me if I leave it for 3 hours set at 600, to return to it being 400.
Because it has been cooler but not cold at night, I was trying to keep the stove at 400 or slightly above. Two weekends ago though, we ran out of oil so all I had was space heaters, fireplace, wbs. Saturday was to be a great 65 sunny day, but it was cold in the morn. So I popped some splits in there and got it going nice and hot for awhile. Then it ran away on me. It was a very windy day, air control at the lowest and damper closed I was running at 700 degrees. Obviously everything got burned up nicely and clean, or as clean as this glass gets. Next night, I had to build another fire to warm up the place. I packed it tight before bed and lowered it to about the 4th from the lowest setting. In the morning I just let it burn down.
I noticed when I do this, I can 'check on it' after a full packing of the stove about an hour later and the wood is all creosote covered, the doors are starting to get mucky. But if I run it any higher it will get too hot for a good while before finally burning less hot then of course going out completely before I wake up.
I am going to try to get another MM from someone locally. I think they have a fluke or something similar that is of higher quality to test my MM. I really hope that thing isnt wrong because Ive been basing a few wood projects based on MC and RH of the build area.
yea I think truer words have never been said. Give up on the overnight burns for now. And that's a shame. I spent so much time researching stoves, trying to find one that was locally well respected and was supported by a number of techs, and that would fit in my tiny space. Meanwhile my neighbor goes to tractor supply, just randomly picks up a stove and "it's great, heats our whole cabin, I dont even run the furnace all weekend now".
Sigh...
These stoves are IMO, 1. NOT meant for weekend burns 2. NOT meant for someone that just wants a plug and play/appliance like experience. 3. NOT meant for a new stove owner, or someone new to this type of technology.
I tested again on Sunday just in case I had a wood mix up as I have two areas of wood. One for the stove that is well seasoned and one for the fireplace that is seasoned but not as well. I pulled splits in Sat night, went about my day on Sunday eating breakfast out and doing some back back back country driving with the family. Picked up some potatoes and apples, then came back about 20 hours from when I pulled the splits inside, split and was reading anywhere from 12-16% MC in my wood. WHICH is making me start to wonder about my general MM as that MC seems REALLY low for wood that sits outside and was brought in 20 hours prior. The MC of the paneling near the stove is down to like 7.5%, whereas the outside wall it's 9ish. During the summer, those pieces get up there around 13-14MC. I have been tracking MC of a piece of wood flooring that Im interesting in getting, and it's width. Ive had one moment when the size of the board didnt correspond to the MC. Usually at 13%MC, the board is about 5 1/16 heavy or almost 5 1/8.
It's not that I dont want to run it with the cat, if the cat were available online right now I would buy it. My local dealer is 1.5 hours away and they would require me to pick it up or would charge me $50 to ship it to me. So that kinda bothers me. Id also like to run it without the cat to determine if I get any value from the cat. I think if it were a necessary thing, they should have included it. "flex burn" is what they call my stove. What's so flexible about it if the cat is required IMO
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
I agree it is really low.
And referring to my repeated questions above that you there answered affirmatively, I note that you did not say here that you resplit a piece right before you measured it, so you measure the moisture content on the inside.
We often see these numbers on the outside of splits that have been drying. Hence many people are concerned about the mc being right or not.
The issue with the stove is that there is no set it and forget it mode. If the stove is fully loaded with a good bed of hot coals, STT around 500-600, I need to keep the air control on high to catch that bundle of wood somewhat. Because the full pack of wood has disrupted a good air flow. However, I will need to adjust back the airflow as I cant run like that else the burn time will be very low, and once the wood burns down to half then the stove will run away quickly and burn way too hot. Even setting it midway down, eventually the stove will burn VERY hot at like hour 4-5. Overnight burns are not possible then on this stove, as my sweet spot is about 3rd or 4th from the lowest. 4th from the lowest and I wake up to almost no coals. 3rd from the lowest I can wake up to large chunks of hot coals, to half the box being full.
And at some point through the night the stove gets really hot for awhile.
When I first started testing this stove, I would wake up every few hours to check things out. How much wood was left, what did the glass look like, and did I have any flame and what was the STT. If someone can manage this stove better than me, Id get their name tattooed on my forehead.
Draft is great btw, MC of wood seems great but I dont know that I totally trust me MM. I do think the wood is very dry though. If I use this wood in my fireplace, it burns very well, never any pops and definitely not sizzles. Even my oak feels light and clunky like bowling pins.
The wood is good. The last tested sample actually has me a bit worried my wood is too dry, or maybe my MM is wrong totally...but even if it were off by 5%, I would still be under 20%.
The wood that I tested (twice) this weekend was taken outside to be split but was inside otherwise. When I split it is very obvious which is the freshly split side, but because it will get mixed up on the way in with all my other splits I drew a line with a marker to make sure I was measuring the fresh split.
Did you happen to see my pipe picture? The only area I see creosote is at the flue collar where I had to use a single wall stove adapter, then a double wall stove adapter because VC decided to build this stove with only single wall users in mind. (per their instructions.). Could be that everything else burned off when I had a full load of wood in there, was checking to see if it was burning ok (because not obvious through glass) and I let flames rush up over the wood and through the flue pipe. You have to imagine a blow torch about 8" across of flames, rushing up VERY quickly. I even thought to myself hey that looks like it's staying as wide as it enters the flue pipe and normally it looks a bit smaller from the wood area to the flue pipe as it rushes up there, then I smelled the plastic (likely the sticker) and then heard the ting ting ting, and saw smoke puff out of the pipe connector areas on the lower half. So maybe I burned off what creosote was in there, but to me it looks pretty damn clean.
I will grab a picture next weekend when Im up there again. Some of it looks really well aged. Dark. Some of it looks freshly split. They all read the same MC. The stuff that is dark gets rained on if the rain is strong and sideways like you'd get with a strong storm. The other stuff is blocked by this pile. I do not cover my wood on the sides. Only the top and a bit on the sides to allow rain run off without impacting the wood.
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