Babysitting

[MishMouse]

How many people here have to babysit there stove?
And if not what type of stove do you have?

Everytime I burn I have to babysit my stove, to keep it between 300-550 degrees.
It normally takes 2-3 hours to get it to 500.
The wood I burn is not completely seasoned, the trees where cut over 1 year ago, they were then cut into pieces 9 months ago, and split about 2 months ago.

Also, I have been reading that some people allow there stove to get above 600 on a normal basis.
According to my thermoter that is overfiring, so what is considered an overfire?

Thanks..

 

[dtabor]

Your problem is certainly all about the wood. 2 months is nowhere near long enough. Ive had logs lay on my landing all summer that keep their green leaves that are still stuck on small sucker branches! You wont have nearly the problem getting up to temp with dry/seasoned wood.

My stove manual says 750+ is overfiring. If I believed the color marks on the thermometer, Id be overfiring every day! My stove runs 500-600* when its cruising. I get it to 650* before dampering down usually.

 

[Henz]

You definatly need dryer wood, hands down

 

[crazy_dan]

your thermometer is probably a stove pipe thermometer and yes 600 in the pipe is over firing but stove top depends on the stove. I get my P.E. summit up in between 650-700 before I damper down then I get 600 for a while then 500 and then 8-10 hours later 400 on the stove top

 

[gpcollen1]

Check your manual for what over firing is - mine says 800, I think. That is just a generic thermometer. I try not to damper down until 600, or i only damper down a bit as it climbs to 600 and then I damper down a bit more to where I want it.

I had one year with sub-par wood and it was awful. I never had enough time in the AM to really get it ripping before closing it down for the day. Then it was a bigger chore than necessary to get it cranked up when i got home - and also to crank it up and load it before bed. Burning off all that moisture is a lot of work...

 

[MishMouse]

Exactly, and with a small stove 1.5 cu ft, it takes a while, and by the time I get it going hot enough to get a efficient burn going, I need to shut it down due to work or going to bed.

That is another of the many reasons why I am looking for something bigger, that has longer burn times.
Like the Harman TL-x00 stoves, they seem taller then wider, that way I get a hot fire burning around 600, then load it up, by the time the wood on top gets to the point where it burns most of the moisture should be already gone. hopefully that is.

By, next year my 10 cords of wood (mostly Oak, Birch) should be dry enough for a few good burn seasons.

Actually I am still in the process of splitting some of it, right before I borrowed one of my friends splitters we got about 16 inches of wet snow, followed freezing rain and over 2 weeks of sub zero temps (-5 for highs). By the time it got warm enough to get the splitter started > 10 the wood had been frozen under the snow. So when I do split a log, I pry it with the crow bar, then bash it a few times with the maul to get it loose. I figure in May I will need to borrow it again to get the stuff that is completely under the snow and ice.

 

[stoncold]

My wood isn't so great this year, so I just split it down smaller...more surface area to burn off the moisture. I'm wondering if not loading it full, and slowly adding the splits in would work better when...any thoughts?

 

[RedRanger]

My wood isn't so great this year, so I just split it down smaller...more surface area to burn off the moisture. I'm wondering if not loading it full, and slowly adding the splits in would work better when...any thoughts?

Now that it`s Feb,same problem. Splitting smaller will help, and adding some pallet wood (if you can scrounge some)? will also help a great deal. Mix the two together and it might get you thru the remainder of the winter. Most retail outlets will be quite happy to let you haul away their pallets.

 

[bokehman]

split about 2 months ago.

I've got some olive that was split in October and I live in a desert with humidity in the 30% range but there's no way that's anywhere near ready so there's no way your 2 month old splits are going to be burnable.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

MishMouse, one thing you have not mentioned, nor have any others, is what type of wood you are burning. For sure everyone is correct that the wood is not seasoned but different woods season faster or slower than others. We also do not know what size area you are trying to heat, but 1.5 cu. ft. firebox is not very large. Our Fireview has 2.1 and is rated to heat up to 1600 or 1700 square feet.

On a reload, it takes less than a half hour to get the stovetop temperature up to 500 degrees rather than the 2-3 hours you are quoting. Taking that long for sure is the seasoning problem but it just does not seem to me that it should be as extreme as you say. However, some depends also on what diameter and length the logs are cut to. If they are large logs then for sure you haven't had much evaporation until they were split. Smaller logs will cure faster than larger ones the same as smaller splits will season faster than larger splits.

Also on overfiring, our manual says 700 degrees, but different stoves can have different temps for overfiring. I think that most folks probably don't get their stoves much over 600 degrees and for sure we don't. 500-550 is pumping out some pretty good heat.

 

[MishMouse]

Backwoods Savage, It is mainly Oak, Birch, Elm and Popel, I am tyring to heat a 1,024 sq foot block basement while trying to take some pressure off the pro-pain heater upstairs. The house is a 1,024 sq ft double wide Holly Park Home very poorly insulated and constructed. (If looking into getting a pre-fab house do not get a Holly Park, PM: Me and I will give you the details, you will not believe it)

The 2 hours is from a cold start, since the box is small and the burn times are not the best, by the time I get home from work or up in the morning (unless I feed it in the middle of the night), it is mostly dead. The Drolet stove (500-1,500 sq ft) that I have does have a small box it is also not that deep, so it needs to be cleaned out almost on a daily basis (depending on how I burn during the day), of course I always leave some ash in the bottom and any hot coals that survive for restart.

Thanks, everybody for the advise, it does seem to help when I cut the wood into much smaller pieces, I was cutting them into 3-5 in cuts, now I am trying for 2-3 in cuts.

 

[colsmith]

We have a Hearthstone Phoenix, we don't need to babysit it. 2.2 cu ft firebox. Probably helps that the soapstone holds heat in, so even when there aren't too many hot coals it gets hot fairly quickly and the secondary burn is happening, and can be turned down and left alone after 10 minutes or so. We have a lower overfiring temp with this stove, but don't actually pay much attention to the actual temps anymore. We have learned to judge the fire by looking and sometimes smelling (stove gives off an odor when it is too hot.) And although our wood is cut down some time ago and cut to length generally more than a year ago, I am behind in splitting and often split things and burn them a short time later with no trouble. We do have a windy (hill) location so maybe our wood dries faster from just being cut to length for a year or more.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

MishMouse, part of your problem is what you are trying to heat. Being in the basement sounds good because warm air rises. However, those blocks will rob all or most of the heat that the stove gives!

I also have heated with the woods you describe but do shy away from birch and popple any more. And I'll be burning white ash for several years, thanks to the emerald ash borer...

 

[MishMouse]

That is one of the other reasons why I am looking for a bigger stove.

My stove is currently sitting around 4 inches from the block wall (I have up to 2-4 blocks exposed, hopefully I should get that fixed this year, adding insulation and connecting tin to the siding), so I would imagine most of the heat is going right through the wall. I will try to post a picture of the install that was done later.

But for the short term, maybe long depending on how things go. :down: I need to get the most out of what I have.
One thing I may also do is add a outside air vent for the stove, my wife was gone Sunday and Monday so I turned the pro-pain down to 64, the stove seemed to run much better when the furnace wasn't kicking on every 10-15 mins, it actually raised the temp in the house by about 3-4 degrees.

So, my question to the experts is, Is there anything I could place between my stove and the block wall to reflect some of that heat back?

thanks

 

[MishMouse]

Here are the pictures of the install.
They used double wall pipe on a 45 degree angle going up to Class A HT pipe.

The people who put in the septic system put it on the SW side of t he house, the sewer drop is on the N side of the house in the center, so the pipe goes around 20 ft to the W, 24 then down and out.

 

[cmonSTART]

Wow, that 45 degree length of pipe might have something to do with it too. Maybe some of the more knowledgeable folks will chime in on this and either confirm or deny this.