A strange 450*

[NH_Wood]

Loaded her full with mainly ash and a split or two of cherry at about 2:30pm. I normally load N/S, but I set aside splits too long to go N/S and do periodic loads of E/W. This was E/W. My normal E/W burns typically result in consistent lower stack temp - perhaps 100-150* that of N/S loads, but the stove top always reaches 550-600*, just like with N/S loads. The fire was producing excellent rolling secondaries, primary was completely shut down (as usual) and pipe damper at 1/2 closed. I was sitting in our livingroom with the family and just felt a little cold. Went to the stove and noticed that the stove top had not climbed above 450*. Waited another hour - still at 450*. This has never happened before. I decided to open up, rake the BIG coal bed to even things out, and through in one medium split of ash, and a small ash and cherry split. Took right off (obviously), and stove top eventually reached 500*, but no higher. Definitely an out of character burn for my stove, and not sure why. Same wood (1 year seasoned ash and cherry) and the wood is great - lights off quick, clean glass, no smoke from chimney, etc., etc. Anyone ever have a strange result with stove top temps that are quite different from the norm? Cheers!

 

[oldspark]

Yes but it was hotter than normal, start up from cold stove with kindling a couple of sticks and 2 pieces of crappy elm, stove hit 700 stove top with only a 400 flue temp, never happened again, weird.

 

[remkel]

Sounds to me like mother nature is in a silly mood. Sometimes these things happen and all you can do is roll with them.

 

[BrotherBart]

All of the weird ones always happen to me about the time I need to get in bed.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

The strange ones to us are the high temperatures we kept getting last year. Many times we had the draft closed. Not so this year as all is back to normal. Maybe it had something to do with what we were eating.....

 

[Battenkiller]

I had several problematic burns at the beginning of the season, so bad that it felt like the stove had metamorphosed into a caterpillar instead of the beautiful butterfly I remembered from last spring at similar outside temps. BG here recommended to someone to thoroughly clean out their stove when they had similar sounding problems, so I gave it a try with mine. Burns instantly improved. Of course, during the cleaning I discovered that I may have had the top baffle plate slightly out of position all last year, so I'll never know if one or the other was responsible. Likely both.

I suspect the abnormally large coal bed was partially responsible in your case. If I let my coals get out of control, the stove just doesn't want to crank out the heat for me. Counter-intuitive, but that's what I've found almost all the time, at least with my setup. Too much ash can have the same effect, and sometimes it's hard to tell how much ash and how much coals are actually in there until you go ahead and remove the ashes. This morning it looked like I had a mountain of coals, but by the time I got all the ashes separated and removed, there was just a normal amount of coals.

Chaos rules inside a firebox. The placed placed splits of mice and men... you know. When my wife and I sit by the campfire, we try to predict which logs will fall and when. Even looking right at them, we are right only about half the time. When it goes well, we call it a "fortuitous drop". The obvious place to put the next piece is easy to see. In my black box, things are different. Like Forrest Gump, my stove is like a box of chocolates. I never know what I'm gonna get until I open it.

 

[NH_Wood]

I had several problematic burns at the beginning of the season, so bad that it felt like the stove had metamorphosed into a caterpillar instead of the beautiful butterfly I remembered from last spring at similar outside temps. BG here recommended to someone to thoroughly clean out their stove when they had similar sounding problems, so I gave it a try with mine. Burns instantly improved. Of course, during the cleaning I discovered that I may have had the top baffle plate slightly out of position all last year, so I'll never know if one or the other was responsible. Likely both.

I suspect the abnormally large coal bed was partially responsible in your case. If I let my coals get out of control, the stove just doesn't want to crank out the heat for me. Counter-intuitive, but that's what I've found almost all the time, at least with my setup. Too much ash can have the same effect, and sometimes it's hard to tell how much ash and how much coals are actually in there until you go ahead and remove the ashes. This morning it looked like I had a mountain of coals, but by the time I got all the ashes separated and removed, there was just a normal amount of coals.

Chaos rules inside a firebox. The placed placed splits of mice and men... you know. When my wife and I sit by the campfire, we try to predict which logs will fall and when. Even looking right at them, we are right only about half the time. When it goes well, we call it a "fortuitous drop". The obvious place to put the next piece is easy to see. In my black box, things are different. Like Forrest Gump, my stove is like a box of chocolates. I never know what I'm gonna get until I open it.

BK - yes, stoves are funny things I guess. When I first loaded, the coal bed was normal - the BIG coal bed was just after the secondaries had stopped, and I threw a few splits on to see if I could get the stove hotter than 450*. Hasn't happened again since then - stove at 525* right now and will likely cruise at 550*. I guess it was a random event! Cheers!