EPA stove newbie - secondary combustion and operation Q

My secondaries get more blue toward the end of the burn or when it’s burning quite hot. I have noticed that the deeper the coal bed the quicker I can turn down the primary air. If it’s a really hot coal bed and the stove top temp didn’t drop below 325 I can light off the secondaries and turn the air down almost immediately. If I’m not wanting to crank out the the heat I have found that starting the fire with two saw dust bricks on the bottom help regulate the temp during slower burn helping keep the secondaries burning longer on smaller load.

Evan

So I've been doing a small fire to get some coals, then throw on some larger split pieces and leave it wide open. I'm not getting much over 500 on the top if that. Whenever i cut the air down, those re-burn tubes don't fire like I've seen on youtube, but instead tends to slowly die out and the stove top temps get down into the mid 300s.

What temp should I cut down on the air and then by how much?

thoner7 said:

So I've been doing a small fire to get some coals, then throw on some larger split pieces and leave it wide open. I'm not getting much over 500 on the top if that. Whenever i cut the air down, those re-burn tubes don't fire like I've seen on youtube, but instead tends to slowly die out and the stove top temps get down into the mid 300s.

What temp should I cut down on the air and then by how much?

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When you have it going good turn the air down a quarter of the way and let the fire reestablish itself, once it does turn it down a bit more. Eventually you'll find you happy spot where you can leave it. The stove will get hotter as you turn the air down as the heats in the box and not going up the flue. If it snuffs out you turned it too far.

How full does the stove have to be to get them to work? Or does that not matter?

Also, should the fire still burn when the air is tortota closed? (Mine does) Maybe it's an epa feature to keep the fire from smoldering??? But it seems unsafe to me.

How dry is your wood?

The wood I'm using..... I've been mixing some small red oak pieces of hardwood flooring and cord wood, which Was given to us by a friend. It was split and stacked in their garage for like ten years. At our new house I didn't have a proper place to stack it so it's been getting rained/snowed on. But I've been carry loads to the porch to dry out before burning them.

I thought it could be the wood so I bought a bundle of kiln dried gas station wood. It's 8 bucks for a small arm load though so I am waiting on some more info before I give it a try.

Mainly.... What temperature should the stove top get to typically, before I can turn down. The air.....

Try turning the air down half way when you hit 350-400. When the fire gets rolling again or your temp hits 500, turn it down again to 25% open. It takes some experimenting.

blacktail said:

Try turning the air down half way when you hit 350-400. When the fire gets rolling again or your temp hits 500, turn it down again to 25% open. It takes some experimenting.

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Ok so if I did that...I'd turn my air down when it reaches 400, the fire wouldn't get going, the temps would drop, not increase (so I would never get to 500)

There are a lot of variables. I tend to turn down the air sooner on a reload compared to a my first fire, which I light top down as it gets the stove top hotter faster and engages the secondaries sooner. If you haven’t tried lighting top down give it a shot. In 5 min in my secondaries are burning smoke and my stove top is 150. I use to layers of paper so if I didn’t get a good light on top I have another chance. I have found that i can’t over load it on start up 3 medium splits on bottom two short pieces N/S then bigger pieces of kindling smaller stuff N-S again and then my little pieces and my news paper. 10 min in I’m getting blue secondaries and the bottom logs are just starting to light on their corners stove top is 245. I might not even turn the air down at all on this first cold start load it just depends on how it burns and it’s warm out so the draft is super strong.
Evan