We've had our Revere a few months now and love it.
It took us a little bit to learn the best way to burn fires in this. A few tips based on our experience -
- When starting a fresh fire, you need to use at least 3-4 smaller pieces (i.e. 1"-3" splits) if not all smaller pieces, even with the SuperCedar fire starters (which are great)
- Once you have a good bed of coals, load the stove with splits going straight in, not side to side, and shut the damper
- Once you have a good fire going, push the air control in until level with the end of the ledge in front of the door or until just past where the blower end is (if you have one). This later is about the same is pushing all the way in then pulling out 1" - 1 1/2". This will give you a long burn with good secondary burn.
- The air control doesn't control how much air enters your stove, it controls where it enters. All the way directs the air right at the fire, all the way in directs it all through the secondary burn tubes
- Loading splits straight in, if we pack our stove, and use have the air control about 1" out, maybe a tad more, we can get a 10 hour burn. By this I mean at the end of 10 hours the stove is still warm and you have enough coals to start a new fire by raking them forward and loading small to medium size splits.
- If you push the air in too far, or load splits that stick out to close to your glass, you will get build-up. To clean mix a few tbsp of fine ash, some dish soap, and a bit of water until you have a wet paste. Use a toothbrush to clean the build up off. Piece of cake.
- You will get smoke when you load your stove, even if your damper is open, if you are trying to add wood in the middle of a burn cycle, unless it is very cold out, and you have a great draft. My rule of thumb is if I can still see wood, even if it's black and charred, if I try to load more wood I will likely get smoke coming out. The extra cold days are helping with the draft lately so this hasn't been as big a deal, but since you will not always have uber draft (when it's a bit warmer out - i.e. 40-50) it's good to learn. Once all the wood is glowing or covered in white ash, it's safe to load more. The trick is, knowing how far away you are from being able to reload. You don't want to throw in a few new splits, then come back in an hour to pack the stove before you leave for the day. If you know you are going to be leaving (or going to bed) and want a long burn, time it out. Either wait a bit longer to add your wood, then load your stove all at once, or just load your stove sooner, and turn down the air after letting her burn on high for 10-15 minutes.
- Finally, don't fiddle with your wood too much. Easier said then done, but normally if you have hot coals, if you add wood it will burn. You don't need to shift it around, except for later when maybe you want to add more wood. Once in a while when the coals get low, if the wood is only burning on the bottom (and top is blacK) I will shift things around, but not often. This just takes getting used to how wood burns, and trusting your stove.
That's all I can think of right now.
Good luck!
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