How hot is too hot?

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BethelStrong

Member
Dec 12, 2018
146
Ohio
How do I know if my Quadrafire Millennium 3100 is operating correctly? I just installed the baffleboards and blanket but it was a floor model that was made in 2009 never fired until this season.

It heats the house. I only have an upper floor of 1200 sqft to worry about, and having the bedrooms get to 65 or under at night is preferable (and happening).

I have an old stove in the garage, but it’s probably twice bigger than my 2.0 cu ft stove. I’ve just noticed that it burns the wood up faster and even on low I seem to reach burnout before morning.

I hate to overload and go to bed, so my main question is how hot is too hot to ever get the top of my stove?


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To clarify, you have a 2cf Quadrafire in the house and a 4cf smoke dragon in the garage, and you want to know how hot the stovetops should be allowed to get?

Try to keep both below 700 on the hottest part of the stovetop. Get flue probe thermometers for more useful temperature readings. Stovetops vary too much by stove to be consistently helpful.

The Quad manual doesn't specify a max temperature other than to say that it shouldn't be glowing or warping. Stick with 700 as a guideline, I guess.

I know plenty of people (including me) have run their smoke dragons well over 700, but I'm standing by my 700 advice. :)
 
I have a new Morso stove and it doesn't specify anywhere in the manual how hot is too hot for stove surface temps. Only to keep the flue gasses under a certain area. I just try and keep the stove top under 800.
 
The very few manufacturers that list maximum temperature for the steel plate stoves seem to like 800 degrees as a max.

Most say that no external parts of the stove should glow red.

I run a modern epa plate steel noncat stove really hard and it likes the 700 degree area. Seems to get there quickly and burn steady and clean until the fuel runs out after couple of hours and temperatures start to fall. If your chimney is normal height it is really very hard to overfire a modern stove. They are designed and tested to safely withstand operation by idiots.
 
I usually get the hottest top a little over 700, but usually around 400-600. It’s just starting to get cold here though.


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... except that one time, where I had it running all day and built up a good bed of coals and threw on 3 logs and it got to 950 on top.

I just wondered if the airflow is right, or if I have something to check. Generally it seems to run right. I just had that one time it got hot. I usually try to keep it on the low side due to a small space.


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I think we're missing the other question, which was 'How do I know if the quad is working right?'

I don't know the stove, but I would make sure I was getting good secondaries, good heat output, and burn times that were in line with what other users were seeing.
 
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It seems to heat up well. Well enough for my space. Plus, I’m not in Canada. I set the house thermostat on 60 and try to maintain there to up to 75-78 in the immediate room. I’m mainly doing that with just a log at a time once the fire is going. It’s at night I’m not making it... I don’t want to over fire it, but I don’t know how far that is really.


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I have the value model cousin of the 3100. I wouldnt want to go much past 700::F IMO.
 
I wouldn't get it over 700 degrees. It may be able to handle an 800 degree temp but I'm not sure it is worth stressing the stove either.
 
So next I’ll have to see how many logs at the lowest setting, because I’m wanting the optimal burn through the night or partially anyway. Unless I wake up I think I’ll always have to restart in the morning the way it is.


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I think usually with wood, you build a fire, the heated area gets hot, the wood burns down, the area gets cooler and then you feed it big again.
I don't think people usually put in a log at a time. Maybe too many coals? Smoke? Hot stuff falling out on the floor?
Wood heat is usually cyclical. But I'm sure some people try to keep an even temperature.
Nice stove bye the way.

edit: I think I read the post wrong, sorry.
 
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Usually I cycle the heat, and to be honest there isn’t much choice with this stove. Low gets pretty hot and burns the wood well. This time I might have gotten too many hot coals, because 3 small logs really got it going. I guess I tested my first chimney install.


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