Air control advice

[jatoxico]

Running along between 450-500 with a glass on Remy Martin on this damp cool night. Not bad...

Any how, is it normal practice to lower air down all the way once the load has burned down to mostly coals? Don't want to shut it down before that so I get good secondary burns of gasses but once the wood is charred is there less chance of creosote formation so I can go ahead and shut the air all the way?

For reference when I added wood I went full open, to half then a little less trying to keep temps down while still getting good secodary burn.

 

[Shane]

Any time you remove a component of the chemical reaction (air, fuel, heat) it results in less complete combustion. I doubt you would ever notice a measurable difference in creosote accumulation if your choking it down at the coal stage though.

 

[jatoxico]

That's where my head was at too Shane. Just looking for confimation and curious if shutting down air at end of burn cycle is standard practice.

 

[shawneyboy]

That's where my head was at too Shane. Just looking for confimation and curious if shutting down air at end of burn cycle is standard practice.

I open her up more when we reach coal stage, well late coal stage, if in shoulder season, because I am done getting the heat, if in 24 hour season, just to push some heat up the flue to reheat it before reloading stove.

Shawn

 

[My Oslo heats my home]

That's where my head was at too Shane. Just looking for confimation and curious if shutting down air at end of burn cycle is standard practice.

I open her up more when we reach coal stage, well late coal stage, if in shoulder season, because I am done getting the heat, if in 24 hour season, just to push some heat up the flue to reheat it before reloading stove.

Shawn

Same practice here, right before a re-load I will walk by and move my air lever to full open in order to heat the box up again with the existing coals. After a couple of mins I will re-load and leave it full open with the new wood.

 

[Bub381]

When i'm going to let the fire go out and it's all hot coals,i open her up to make sure everything burns up nice.When reloading i usually do so when there's still visual wood in there.On regular burn time i keep just enough air in the stove to see just a small flame.I figure this is on the edge of creosote burn and build up other than 400 degree fires which are too much right now.(this time of year)I seem to load the door with creosote when there's no flame.I'm sure i'll get better at it when we burn full time.These shoulder burns kinda suck as far as keeping a piece of ceramic clean

 

[oldspark]

I learned on this site there is no creosote problems in the latter stages of the burn cycle (after gases have burnt off) so do what the situation calls for, low air for long time low heat or high air to get rid of the coals or reload.

 

[Daren Bracey]

+1 on that I open up the air when temp is getting down to about 300 to burn the large pile of glowing coals down for a little while, then reload, keeps the fire from wanting to run away.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Just before the wood reaches the coaling stage we completely open the draft. This will help to burn the coals down faster. Most folks have a problem with too big of a coal bed in the winter months and we did too when we first got our present stove. So I just started opening the draft full and it worked.

 

[jatoxico]

Ok thanks good thoughts.

Open air to burn off coal and keep glass clean especially if getting ready to reload.

Low air if you want to make the coals last for longer low heat, might be a little dirty though.

 

[Bub381]

Dirty it is,if there is unburned wood.

 

[firefighterjake]

What I do . . .

Air control open on the start up or reload . . .

As the temps come up on the stove and in the stove pipe I start to slowly close down the air . . . well before it gets to the coaling stage . . . typically with my set up I can close it all the way to a quarter open.

Rinse, wash and repeat. . . .

Well, if there is a big build up of coals sometimes I'll throw a slab or small split on the coals and open up the air to burn down the coals . . .