Appalachian 52 bay short burn time

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Olson24

Member
Feb 5, 2017
8
Appleton wi
hi everyone first time posting on here a lot of smart people. I recently bought a used 52 bay wood insert. It has brand new cats new gaskets around the door, the guy I bought it from went through it and did a really good job. The problem I have is Appalachian says this thing has a 15 hour burn time, I can get anything more than 6 and that's with 3 big Oak logs at 15-20% moisture. Anyone have any ideas what could be wrong, or is this just a case of false advertisement. Thanks
 
15-hour burn time would be pretty amazing . . . unless this is a cat-stove (which can do much, much longer low and slow burns).

I think this may be the case of someone being a bit over-zealous with marketing . . . although I would be obligated to point out that if they defined "burn time" from when the fire is first lit to when the fire is completely out.

Burn time by the way is a very subjective term incidentally since -- if you think about it -- we all buy into the idea of a long burn time, but no one ever thinks to ask the dealer what is their definition of burn time -- is it from from the time you light the fire to when the stove is stone cold? the time you light the fire to when the last ember blinks out of existence? the time from when there is usable heat of X degrees as measured on the stove to when the temp falls back below that number? the time . . . well you get the idea.
 
How tall is your chimney? Stainless liner all the way to the top? 6" or 8"? Does it seem like you have good air control...e.g. are you able to cut the air low enough so that the flames go out and the stove runs a cat-only burn?
 
Yep, cat. Paging @mellow...

In which case . . . I would say . . . yup . . . you most likely should be able to get longer burns if you are burning low and slow. So forget everything else I wrote after "... unless this was a cat stove." ;) :)
 
Thank you for the responses. That would make sense burn time from the time u light to the time it's cold.The stove is in the basement we live in a ranch so not sure exactally how tall my chimney is. Stainless liner 6 in. My 6 hour burn time is with everything closed the flue closed and all the draft openings
 
The maximum burn time that Appalachian advertises of 15 hours may be a bit of a stretch but on one occassion I did get 14 hours with very little heat was being produced in the last hour. However, I easily get 8 hours of solid heat out of the 52 Bay using it as an insert. With a load of locust 10 or 11 hours is not uncommon and the unit is still producing a fair amount of heat at reloading time.

I would check the ash drop for leaks. When my unit was brand new, I cut a piece of metal and sealed the ash drop. Based on Mellow's experience the ash drop was leaking a good amount of air into the stove. I didn't want to take any chances since I had no intent on using the ash drawer.