about the Avalon....

[Garyvol]

Does the Avalon's way of secondary burn realy work. They are using 3 pipes with a row of holes
in each and then simply pass air thru them for the subsequent secondary burn.
Looks to simple to me. But then what do I know.
-gary

 

[VT-Woodburner]

I had an Avalon for years. Yes, it works very well. The unburned gasses that normally go up the chimney as smoke get burned off resulting in more heat. Don't try to figure it out, just enjoy it.

 

[philaphire]

Having recently bought my stove, seems to me that most non-catalytic stoves use air tubes (the pipes lined with holes). Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they supply the secondary air to the stove and as a result ignite the unburned gasses. This is what is known as secondary burn and is just too cool to watch as you will literally see flames coming out of the holes. Yes, it's simple, but we are talking about a fuel that's been burned since the beginning of time!

 

[Henz]

It works awesome. My olympic is the bomb!

 

[gpcollen1]

When I get a full load ripping in my olympic, the flame show is amazing....and the heat it throws is insane.

 

[Henz]

its an awesome stove isnt it. I am 100% happy with it./

 

[Shane]

Fairly typical set up. The only thing really complicated about it is that the air tubes are seated so that the air holes are pointed in certain direction.

 

[Lasher]

I recently installed my used Olympic insert and love the secondary burn show. When that thing gets going, it is like jets of flames coming out of the holes. Made me nervous at first, but I find myself laying on the floor (burning my face off) looking at the tubes. Then when the fire calms down a little, there are just rolling flames all over the fire box.

 

[gpcollen1]

its an awesome stove isnt it. I am 100% happy with it./

Very happy with it. It just sucks that this is the year that I have to do some major service to it. Some of my bricks are really getting bad, the center-top baffle is warped, one of the blower motors just recently died. I bet I have to spend $300 on her - if not more.

 

[Henz]

well worth it..the bricks are like $2.00 a piece..

 

[EddyKilowatt]

You could easily come up with a more elaborate secondary-air preheat system than what Avalon uses, but what they use seems to work pretty well. Once it's hot my Pendleton makes lots of secondary flame for about the first half of every load -- and it only has *one* air tube.

You could make the top baffle out of stainless and feed the secondary air through holes in that -- I believe that's how Quad and PE do it, and it takes up a little less firebox volume -- but Avalon's air tubes work pretty well and I know that in a pinch, hardware-store pipe will work to replace them (after drilling the holes).

I also like that, as mentioned above, the firebricks are standard size and available at any decent building supply place.

I wish mine were a little better about preventing smoke roll-out with the 12' stack I've got on it, and I did add a baffle myself to improve the airwash, but other than that it's a solidly built, readily serviced woodburner that works quite well.

Eddy