Alderlea T5 thought dump - 2.5 months later

[BirthofSerpents]

I love this stove. It's simplicity and output are everything I wanted. Here are some questions, some observations about both the Alderlea and compliant wood burning stoves in general after burning in both winter and early spring. I'm experienced but no expert, so feel free to challenge me.

1. Top down fires seem best for large load fires but bottom up works better for smaller loads.

2. Once a fire has burned down to coals, I haven't observed smoke no matter how low the chimney or STT temps get. It doesn't seem like creosote would be building up at this point, so at this stage temperature shouldn't matter. Am I off on this? If not, there's basically no issue with using this stove at its lowest setting as long as the first stage of the fire reaches recommended temperatures. Basically, making this a three season stove. Am I wrong?

3. I can hear the a 'ting' in the stove that's not heat expansion ticks. I'm assuming this it the EBT switching? I even hear it up to 24 hours after the fire has dies down.

4. NIELs are the perfect shoulder season option. Two NIELs and a split is great for a low 60s to low 40s day. You can otherwise regulate burn time with a combination of hard and softwood.

5. My cats go into 'hearth comas' once the fire going. This condition is apparently irreversible until it's dinner time. My wife also occasionally succumbs to this condition as well. Luckily, it doesn't appear fatal.

6. I never knew how much I'd love the flame show. It's amazing. My old smoke dragons were either windowless clouded over so I didn't know it existed. I could never go back or have a stove where you can't see in.

7. In shoulder season, it seems like one medium load fire at the end of the day warms the house through the next day without heating you out of the room.

8. I've stopped even looking at STT mostly and really only monitor the pipe temps.

9. NIELs are amazing but don't seem to coal as long if you're burning a hot fire.

10. I've got the fire down to only producing visible smoke for ~20 minutes if I load and light correctly.

11. You need to keep the wood at least 1" away from the glass, or you're going to be cleaning it a lot. 17-18" splits will work. But the T5 really prefers 16" splits.

That's it. Thank as always to all the awesome advice and great vibe from this site.

 

[moresnow]

5. My cats go into 'hearth comas' once the fire going. This condition is apparently irreversible until it's dinner time. My wife also occasionally succumbs to this condition as well. Luckily, it doesn't appear fatal.

Nice review. The 'hearth coma' affliction seems widespread among Hearth membership!

 

[Highbeam]

I love this stove. It's simplicity and output are everything I wanted. Here are some questions, some observations about both the Alderlea and compliant wood burning stoves in general after burning in both winter and early spring. I'm experienced but no expert, so feel free to challenge me.

1. Top down fires seem best for large load fires but bottom up works better for smaller loads.

2. Once a fire has burned down to coals, I haven't observed smoke no matter how low the chimney or STT temps get. It doesn't seem like creosote would be building up at this point, so at this stage temperature shouldn't matter. Am I off on this? If not, there's basically no issue with using this stove at its lowest setting as long as the first stage of the fire reaches recommended temperatures. Basically, making this a three season stove. Am I wrong?

3. I can hear the a 'ting' in the stove that's not heat expansion ticks. I'm assuming this it the EBT switching? I even hear it up to 24 hours after the fire has dies down.

4. NIELs are the perfect shoulder season option. Two NIELs and a split is great for a low 60s to low 40s day. You can otherwise regulate burn time with a combination of hard and softwood.

5. My cats go into 'hearth comas' once the fire going. This condition is apparently irreversible until it's dinner time. My wife also occasionally succumbs to this condition as well. Luckily, it doesn't appear fatal.

6. I never knew how much I'd love the flame show. It's amazing. My old smoke dragons were either windowless clouded over so I didn't know it existed. I could never go back or have a stove where you can't see in.

7. In shoulder season, it seems like one medium load fire at the end of the day warms the house through the next day without heating you out of the room.

8. I've stopped even looking at STT mostly and really only monitor the pipe temps.

9. NIELs are amazing but don't seem to coal as long if you're burning a hot fire.

10. I've got the fire down to only producing visible smoke for ~20 minutes if I load and light correctly.

11. You need to keep the wood at least 1" away from the glass, or you're going to be cleaning it a lot. 17-18" splits will work. But the T5 really prefers 16" splits.

That's it. Thank as always to all the awesome advice and great vibe from this site.

Sounds great. The t5 is my current “chosen” noncat if I ever needed to get one. They have a good reputation for being good heaters.

 

[Woody Stover]

I've got less experience than you with the stove (slightly different, no EBT.) I haven't done much with her stove other than install the second flue damper, which did seem to give a little more control over the burn rate. It didn't get very cold so I never had to test the stove with full loads; She was getting enough heat by burning 5-6 split loads, and those are easy to control. I can mention a couple things from my limited experience, though.

1. Top down fires seem best for large load fires but bottom up works better for smaller loads.
2. Once a fire has burned down to coals, I haven't observed smoke no matter how low the chimney or STT temps get. It doesn't seem like creosote would be building up at this point, so at this stage temperature shouldn't matter. Am I off on this? If not, there's basically no issue with using this stove at its lowest setting as long as the first stage of the fire reaches recommended temperatures.

Did the top-down start on the big loads make it easier to keep the burn rate under control?
Yes, once the load is coaling, there's not much coming off the wood that can gunk the chimney. You can idle along with a low stove/flue temp and not worry about it.
Is that how you run your stove; A bit more air early in the load, then cut it low once it's coaling? We pretty much run her stove on minimum air all the time..wondering if you have a wider range of air settings.
I didn't go up and check her flue, but I never saw anything of concern building up on the bird screen, and I don't expect to get all that much when I brush, judging from how it looked with her previous stove.
But what do you mean by "recommended temps?" Is there certain flue temps that you need at the beginning of the load, where you know it's gonna be burning clean if you go out and look? Or do you need to see a certain amount of secondary flames to guarantee a clean burn?
I have a surface meter on her single-wall, maybe 15" above the stove top. I'd sometimes see 475 or more on the flue, and I'd be trying to slow the burn a bit at that point..I just didn't like seeing that much heat going up the flue.
I'm sure I'll get better with more experience, at cutting the air at the right time to keep flue temps down, but I'm not there yet. It's hard for me to get the fast "no-smoke, 20-min start", and yet not get too much wood going to where the stove/flue temps are higher than I want.
A cat stove is a lot easier to control. I bet that some of the folks that saw a big wood savings going from a non-cat to a cat, never really mastered getting a lower burn rate out of their non-cat. I realize that there's only so much leeway that you have with a non-cat, though.
I still wonder whether I made the right choice, getting the 2019 model without EBT. I wonder if the EBT makes it easier to cut the primary air, yet the EBT will still feed enough air to the baffle to keep the burn clean? The secondary baffle air is directly linked to the primary in the 2019. I have to make sure I don't cut the air too much, in order for the burn to stay clean. I'm sure that's still an issue for you, but I wonder to what extent? My concern when buying the stove was that maybe the 2020 would eat through more wood with a higher burn rate, but I'm not hearing that so far. We haven't gotten a ton of feedback yet, though.

I never knew how much I'd love the flame show. It's amazing. My old smoke dragons were either windowless clouded over so I didn't know it existed. I could never go back or have a stove where you can't see in.

When lighting a new load, there's no substitute for being able to see the fire, to know when and how much to cut the air. And yeah, the secondary burn just looks cool.
It's nice that I can cut wood to 16", same length as for the other stoves I supply.

 

[begreen]

I'll be helping a neighbor put in a new T6 LE later this summer when we can comingle again. I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs next winter.

 

[BirthofSerpents]

Did the top-down start on the big loads make it easier to keep the burn rate under control?

I've done some pretty full loads, and I feel like its more controlled. I still haven't done a stuffed to the gills load where I fill in every space with a small split. Maybe if it gets cold enough next winter, but we're relatively mild compared to most in the coastal range here and it was doing fine into the mid 20s.

Is that how you run your stove; A bit more air early in the load, then cut it low once it's coaling?

I typically will give it door open for five to ten minutes. Door closed, full air for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending upon how fast the load takes off. Then cutting in 1/4 - 1/8 increments (depending on how fast the pipe thermometer is rising) while keeping the pipe temps in mid-range (600 ish degrees). Once it's coaled, if it's a shoulder season fire, I'll turn it all the way down at that point. Depending on factors (wood type, how well I made the fire, when I turned it down), I can get a heat producing fire well past the 8 hour burn times advertised for the Alderlea. I don't know if the range is wider. It doesn't feel very wide. That'd be my only minor nit: I wish the damper control had just a little more range.

But what do you mean by "recommended temps?" Is there certain flue temps that you need at the beginning of the load, where you know it's gonna be burning clean if you go out and look? Or do you need to see a certain amount of secondary flames to guarantee a clean burn?

By recommended temps, I mean the recommended burning zone on the Condar Flugard I installed in the pipe. I try to keep those temps in about the upper third of the orange burning zone (600 ish degrees). I try to get them there as fast as possible and then cut the heat incrementally. Usually, I'm getting robust secondaries at this point, and as I turn the air down they turn blue. I also check outside a lot to make sure there's no smoke coming from the chimney.

I've gotten to where I can confirm I'm doing it right a few ways: the appearance of secondaries, the pipe temp, the glass temp (with an IR gun), and what's coming from the chimney. Like I said I'm still playing with it. I want to eventually get some of those 16 hour burns a few users have reported with the T5. I've gotten a few 12 hours burns when it was colder and I was making bigger loads. The shoulder season loads seem to be more 8 - 10 hours.

I have a surface meter on her single-wall, maybe 15" above the stove top. I'd sometimes see 475 or more on the flue, and I'd be trying to slow the burn a bit at that point..I just didn't like seeing that much heat going up the flue.

This is where my experience leaves me short. I'm using the Condar as mentioned, and it's installed into the pipe. My temps are typically a lot higher (600+ during the intial phases of the fire) than that but I don't know if I'm losing good heat up the flue, or that's just how the T5 burns. It could be the EBT, but it seems to like to be right around (600 - 800 degrees f) till the fire decreases to about 400ish and begins to coal. It can stay there for hours.

I could be losing heat up the flue. Or it could be the stoves design to be happy a little hotter than that, which helps ensure minimal creosote?

I'm sure I'll get better with more experience, at cutting the air at the right time to keep flue temps down, but I'm not there yet. It's hard for me to get the fast "no-smoke, 20-min start", and yet not get too much wood going to where the stove/flue temps are higher than I want.

I'm definitley erring on the side of hotter flue temps. Hopefully, this whole plague thing dies down enough this summer to have a chimney sweep come out (the first time at least), to give me an idea, but since nobody knows how this is going to play out, I'm happy making slightly hotter fires for peace of mind that I'm not creating too much creosote buildup. I just have a lot to learn still.

A cat stove is a lot easier to control. I bet that some of the folks that saw a big wood savings going from a non-cat to a cat, never really mastered getting a lower burn rate out of their non-cat. I realize that there's only so much leeway that you have with a non-cat, though.

Oh, I came within a hair's breath of ordering the BK Ashford 30. I still wish I could see how it ran on a day to day basis. I recognize they are wider range stoves, but there's definitely leeway in the burn rate with a non-cat. This year, I've burned kiln dried Cedar, 3 year seasoned birch and maple and NIELs. The various types and combinations have definitely changed heat output and burn time, so I suspect there are some optimal loads combinations I've yet to learn.

I still wonder whether I made the right choice, getting the 2019 model without EBT. I wonder if the EBT makes it easier to cut the primary air, yet the EBT will still feed enough air to the baffle to keep the burn clean?

I thought the 2019 had the EBT, but not the EBT II tech in it? I'd be interested in learning more about this. As it's an internal "automatic" switch, I really know nothing more than the boiler plate explanation on PE's website. Like I said, I hear an internal ting that's not heat expansion. I'm assuming this is the EBT.

The secondary baffle air is directly linked to the primary in the 2019. I have to make sure I don't cut the air too much, in order for the burn to stay clean. I'm sure that's still an issue for you, but I wonder to what extent? My concern when buying the stove was that maybe the 2020 would eat through more wood with a higher burn rate, but I'm not hearing that so far. We haven't gotten a ton of feedback yet, though.

I don't have a good frame of reference, but am curious myself. Since the stove I got was ordered in early January, and the manual is vague, I know I have an EBT model but I'm not sure it's EBT or EBT II.

When lighting a new load, there's no substitute for being able to see the fire, to know when and how much to cut the air. And yeah, the secondary burn just looks cool.

Watching slow rolling flames and listening to music is one of my favorite evening pastimes now. Thank you for the detailed follow up. I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have.

 

[BirthofSerpents]

I'll be helping a neighbor put in a new T6 LE later this summer when we can comingle again. I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs next winter.

I'll be curious to know as well. I really love these stoves and enjoy reading about how others are doing with them.

 

[bcrtops]

Hey neighbor---------------
We use the NIEL's explicitly for the coaling. Put one on the left or right side before an overnight fire build & there are always coals in the morning no matter what type of soft-wood we are burning. If you don't knock it apart, it will stay in the coal stage for ~20 hrs. Haven't used a match since last Oct.! Enjoy your stove, it being one of the good designs & best ease of maintenance stoves on the market.

 

[begreen]

By recommended temps, I mean the recommended burning zone on the Condar Flugard I installed in the pipe. I try to keep those temps in about the upper third of the orange burning zone (600 ish degrees). I try to get them there as fast as possible and then cut the heat incrementally. Usually, I'm getting robust secondaries at this point, and as I turn the air down they turn blue. I also check outside a lot to make sure there's no smoke coming from the chimney.

Try turning down the air sooner. Since I put in a digital probe I have found our Flueguard undershoots temps quite a bit. Try cutting the air back a bit more aggressively when the flue temp reaches 400º.

 

[thunderhead]

Glad you are enjoying this awesome and good looking stove. We also have a new T5 and are loving it! In fact im lounging next to ours right now as it chugs along during a medium morning warmup burn.

I use the EBT ping noise as one of my air position clues. Just after I start hearing it I know i can turn the stove down. If i stop hearing it( during a reload or startup) i turned the air down a little too much. As a given load matures its ok to stop hearing it.

What wood are you using for 12 hr burns?

 

[BirthofSerpents]

What wood are you using for 12 hr burns?

The 12 hour burns I got were specifically when it was colder back in late January and February, and I was using full loads with the top down fire start method from begreens how-to stickied at the top of this forum. If I remember correctly, it was a combination of hardwood (birch and maple) and NIELs on the bottom with cedar splits on the top row. I don't get these kind of burn times now that I'm doing smaller loads, though I still get 8+ hour burn times.

 

[Woody Stover]

Door closed, full air for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending upon how fast the load takes off.

Wow, your draft must be way lower than what I'm seeing. I'm pretty pretty sure her stove top would be 800+ after half an hour of full air. Could be the fuel too..wood a bit damper than what we've got?

16 hour burns a few users have reported with the T5.

That'll depend on the wood species, too. If I loaded up with big Black Locust splits, I bet it would pump out heat off the huge coal bed for a loooong time.

The 12 hour burns I got....(birch and maple)

Hard (Sugar Maple) has decent burn time, but I think you might have a different type out there..Bigleaf maybe? I think Yellow Birch burns somewhat long.

I'm using the Condar as mentioned, and it's installed into the pipe. My temps are typically a lot higher (600+ during the intial phases of the fire) than that but I don't know if I'm losing good heat up the flue, or that's just how the T5 burns. It could be the EBT, but it seems to like to be right around (600 - 800 degrees f) till the fire decreases to about 400ish and begins to coal....I could be losing heat up the flue. Or it could be the stoves design to be happy a little hotter than that

Try turning down the air sooner. Since I put in a digital probe I have found our Flueguard undershoots temps quite a bit. Try cutting the air back a bit more aggressively when the flue temp reaches 400º.

If I don't cut the air hard and fast enough, I'm seeing maybe 475 on the surface flue meter. Conventional wisdom says double that to get what a Fluegard probe would be reading so that's pushing 1000. Too much heat going up the flue at that point, I think.
If OTOH I stay on top of the air and cut it as low as I can while still keeping the burn clean, it will still be at 250 or so on the surface meter (500 on a probe.) Maybe I'd just have cut air earlier and endure a bit of a dirty burn for a while, until the stove got hotter and secondary stronger? True, I need more experience, but it's hard to imagine the stove burning clean if I start cutting air with only 200 on the surface flue meter, as begreen seems to be saying.
It could just be that his rig works differently..it's a T6, and has the original EBT, a bi-metallic strip thermostat, vs. your EBT2 which is apparently opened and closed by the strength of the draft.
I guess his bigger stove could also extract more heat over its larger area, yielding lower flue temps?
But if I remember right, he's had his various probes at about 2' above the stove top. I thought they usually recommended at least 12" for a surface flue meter, 18" or so for a probe, and that would certainly be a reason why he's reporting low flue temps compared to what we're seeing.

I'll be helping a neighbor put in a new T6 LE later this summer when we can comingle again. I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs next winter.

It would be interesting to hear the differences between the LE and your early prototype. But you'd have to move in for a few days to get a really good handle on that.

 

[begreen]

Our T6 is first-generation, but not a prototype. The first-gen EBT is blocked off and has been from the first year. It's on the boost air manifold. Our draft is strong enough that boost air is not necessary, especially with top-down starts.

 

[weatherguy]

Ive been doing the two NIEL's and one or two split thing last couple of weeks. Since the winter wasn't bad I have half a pallet of the damn things left taking up room in my garage.

 

[mar13]

With hardwoods, my series D T5 runs cleanest with the Condar flue probe at 600 or higher (I aim for a 600 cruise) until the wood is well coaled. I have no trouble keeping my temps under control, but I'm sure my wood and mild climate draft is part of that. If I want to keep it burning cleanly through a full load at the lowest setting, I need to first get it going very hot and we'll charred first.

Next year I'll have some alder ("soft " hardwood) to burn and would like to get some Doug fir to jumpstart the cold starts. I wonder how much of Begreen's rapid cold start demonstration is attributable to Doug fir.

 

[begreen]

With hardwoods, my series D T5 runs cleanest with the Condar flue probe at 600 or higher (I aim for a 600 cruise) until the wood is well coaled. I have no trouble keeping my temps under control, but I'm sure my wood and mild climate draft is part of that. If I want to keep it burning cleanly through a full load at the lowest setting, I need to first get it going very hot and we'll charred first.

Next year I'll have some alder ("soft " hardwood) to burn and would like to get some Doug fir to jumpstart the cold starts. I wonder how much of Begreen's rapid cold start demonstration is attributable to Doug fir.

I have been using up some wild cherry recently. Top-down starts of the same method work fine with it. The only wood that I have had to work a little harder with a fir mix to start is locust.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The T5 is hands down the best stove I've ever run.

 

[Woody Stover]

Our T6 is first-generation, but not a prototype. The first-gen EBT is blocked off and has been from the first year. It's on the boost air manifold. Our draft is strong enough that boost air is not necessary, especially with top-down starts.

Huh. So that was basically a thermostatic control on the primary air coming through the boost? The EBT2 description sounds like it is varying the amount of secondary air to the baffle..
Or does that box supply the boost manifold and the baffle separately?
My series D draws primary air from the ash pan housing, with boost air going through a pipe, and secondary air to the baffle being drawn separately.

 

[begreen]

Huh. So that was basically a thermostatic control on the primary air coming through the boost? The EBT2 description sounds like it is varying the amount of secondary air to the baffle..
Or does that box supply the boost manifold and the baffle separately?
My series D draws primary air from the ash pan housing, with boost air going through a pipe, and secondary air to the baffle being drawn separately.

You have a misunderstanding of how the EBT 1 works of the Summit and T6 A models. The boost manifold gets its air independent of the primary air. All draw air from the unsealed ash pan area just different locations.

Sweep's Library - Pacific Energy's Extended Burn Technology

Here's a look at Pacific Energy's EBT technology, as used on several Summit, Neo and Alderlea wood stoves

hearth.com

 

[BirthofSerpents]

Sweep's Library - Pacific Energy's Extended Burn Technology

Here's a look at Pacific Energy's EBT technology, as used on several Summit, Neo and Alderlea wood stoves

hearth.com

This explanation is what I've been looking for. This is great.

 

[BirthofSerpents]

Wow, your draft must be way lower than what I'm seeing. I'm pretty pretty sure her stove top would be 800+ after half an hour of full air. Could be the fuel too..wood a bit damper than what we've got?

One hour would be the minority but some of my loads have taken off slow. The early stuff I burnt was seasoned but was wet, and because I had only a garage, stored in more humid environment than I wanted. I've got my inside wood rack and added NIELs, everything I burning is bone dry and still get the odd slow start. It's a skill, and I just need to get better.

Hard (Sugar Maple) has decent burn time, but I think you might have a different type out there..Bigleaf maybe? I think Yellow Birch burns somewhat long.

I don't know what kind. I don't even know for sure it is maple except that I was told so. It's dense like a hardwood and burns well. I know we have several species of maple here, including Sycamore and Norway. It was removed in a suburb, so likely one of them.

 

[bcrtops]

Thirteen maples are native to North America; 3 are native to Oregon:
bigleaf maple: leaves commonly 6"-12" in diameter (sometimes larger); samaras grow at right angles to one another and have fuzzy heads.
vine maple: leaves have 5-9 lobes and are generally 2"-4" in diameter; samaras grow at 180 degrees to one another and do not have fuzzy heads.
Rocky Mountain maple: leaves have 3 main lobes and are 2"-5" in diameter; samaras grow at right angles to one another and do not have fuzzy heads.

Source = OR State edu

 

[Woody Stover]

You have a misunderstanding of how the EBT 1 works of the Summit and T6 A models. The boost manifold gets its air independent of the primary air. All draw air from the unsealed ash pan area just different locations.

Gotcha. On the Series D T5, the air from the ash pan housing has to go through the primary air shutter to get to the boost manifold feed tube.

 

[BirthofSerpents]

Thirteen maples are native to North America; 3 are native to Oregon:
bigleaf maple: leaves commonly 6"-12" in diameter (sometimes larger); samaras grow at right angles to one another and have fuzzy heads.
vine maple: leaves have 5-9 lobes and are generally 2"-4" in diameter; samaras grow at 180 degrees to one another and do not have fuzzy heads.
Rocky Mountain maple: leaves have 3 main lobes and are 2"-5" in diameter; samaras grow at right angles to one another and do not have fuzzy heads.

Source = OR State edu

I'm sure this is the case. I've read that in the suburbs, they planted a lot non-native species like the Sycamore and Norway, which is why I suggested it might be one of them. End of the day, I just don't know what kind of maple it is. Hopefully, native, but impossible to say.

 

[Newburnerwisconsin]

Hey neighbor---------------
We use the NIEL's explicitly for the coaling. Put one on the left or right side before an overnight fire build & there are always coals in the morning no matter what type of soft-wood we are burning. If you don't knock it apart, it will stay in the coal stage for ~20 hrs. Haven't used a match since last Oct.! Enjoy your stove, it being one of the good designs & best ease of maintenance stoves on the market.

How would this stove compare to the Summit Classic? Thanks