Burn Baby, Burn! Thelin T-4000

[lbcynya]

A little secondary combustion anyone? Stove top temps around 750 degrees. I know, most of you cringe at that, but this is where she maintains secondary the best. These temps are supported by the manufacturer, so I'm not too concerned. The firebox on this stove is very small, so aggressive burning is required to pre-heat for the secondary system. I think the Thelin stove is one of the more unusual stoves on the market. Comments and comparisons welcomed. If this picture post goes well, more to come. Enjoy.

 

[DonCT]

WOW! That's what I'm talking about!

What type of camera did you use to cap those pictures?

 

[lbcynya]

WOW! That's what I'm talking about!

What type of camera did you use to cap those pictures?

Couple year old Olympus 5.0 mega pix camera. I experimented by blocking some of the camera's sensors to improve the fire resoloution. Honestly, I don't remember what combination worked best.

Here's one more picture for the record. Notice the fire brick at the top front of the stove to restrict air to my 20 foot straight up Class A... Doesn't look like it's doing much, even though I've probably restricted the flow by 25-35 percent.

 

[DonCT]

That's a HOT looking stove.....pardon the pun

 

[MrGriz]

Great looking stove and awesome pics!

 

[Bushfire]

Any pictures of the whole stove and how it sits in it's surroundings? From what we can see here, that's one awesome looking stove.

 

[Greg123]

750 degrees Yikes. That’s hot, the hottest I ever get mine to about 650 degrees.

Very nice stove.

 

[CountryGal]

Wow! Our new Country stove has the secondary burn feature but we haven't fired up a big fire yet.

We've done our first two small break-in fires (20 minutes @ 250 degrees) and tonight will do the 3rd one (45-60 minutes @ 450 degrees).

Not sure how to measure that since we can't use the stove thermometer until we've completed the break-in fires and the paint sets.

The first two, they said use 3 12x4" logs.

Any suggestions???

 

[velvetfoot]

Awesome looking stove.

 

[ourhouse]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM HEAT nice and hot

 

[lbcynya]

Any pictures of the whole stove and how it sits in it's surroundings? From what we can see here, that's one awesome looking stove.

Yes, more pictures to come. I am traveling and the overall perspective photo's are on the home computer. I have the fire pictures to keep me warm on the plane...

Thanks all of you for the kudo's. Our decision process was 1.5 years of arduous pondering before we made our decision. I've never formally burned wood for heat, so I was really in the dark about the characteristics of radiant heat from a woodburner. Like most, we didn't want to burn ourselves out of the stove area, but we didn't want 50 degree bedrooms either. The last thing we wanted to overheat and end up a stove that sat around like a piece of furniture, without a payback... Still too early to see how she'll do in the dead of winter, but all indications are promising.

I am also going to add some "cutting edge" HVAC upgrades to keep the house air more evenly distributed throughout the house and help curb the heat stratisfying at the ceiling. More on that later... Sorry, will have to keep you on the edge of your seat until I have some real world experience to comment on.

-Michael

 

[mgambuzza]

Exceptional shots especially on the secondary burns! I know difficult and frustrating it can be to get the "perfect shot".

Its good to see positive press on the other Thelin stoves. Most of the posts have been for their pellet stoves (Parlor and Gnome). Reviews of Thelin products are not as predominant as Quadrafire or Harman products, so its good to see more people writing about their experiences with this company's products. Enjoy the heat!!

 

[Definca]

After using pellets and and old Buck stove for years I decided on the T-4000 and installed it in 2003.
I set it up in a corner of my living room with a 1 inch stand off wall I made from hardie backer board.
I use a standard single wall 6in flue pipe. This stove burns really well and creates a show stopper view
through the glass door. The fire starts really easily and burns hot and complete with white ash.
Smaller firebox of course.

After using this stove now for almost 6 years. This stove claims to be able to handle up to 1500 sq ft
place. Yet the btu's are approx 40,000 which you do not see in print often. This is similar to a pellet stove
in terms of btu's. Without a fan apparently it performs about the same as a pellet heater.

The firebox uses an insulated vermiculite insulation material to get the fire really hot. The front glass produces
most of the direct heat into the room. So much of the firebox is insulated for burning the smoke that the sides of the
stove do not generate much heat. The plate on the top of the stove is in direct contact with the gases before they exit
the stove to the flue pipe. This top plate gets very hot.

In my opinion A LOT of good quality heat is NOT being used by the stove for the room. It's being used to burn the smoke
and give low emissions. WAY too much heat is going up the flue pipe, and staying inside the stove.

I am currently working on developing a heat exchanger I can incorporate into this very nice looking stove to bring
proper levels of heat into the room. Nice stove, burns way clean, but not much heat.

If anybody develops a really nice design for a heat exchanger for this stove please contact me and post it here.
There like no reviews on this stove. It is a great base design but it got handcuffed to meet emissions.

 

[Definca]

My previous post was from 2009. I am still burning the Thelin T 4000. I have used it quite a bit this winter 2012-2013 and the stove is doing quite well. Still a very beautiful stove with wonderful fires. This is a very well engineered stove when it comes to the fire burning hot and the secondary combustion design. An insulated fire box allows the temp of the fire to raise and thereby burns more of the smoke which contains almost half of the energy of the wood. Cleaner stack output into the neighborhood. When the stove is hot and burning you can not see any visible smoke from the stack at all. very nice. I am still trying to figure out a way to get more heat out of the stove. After using the stove for almost a decade I have a pretty good feel for how it burns and what is happening. This stove has its base design from the pellet parlor stoves by Thelin. The top of the stove uses the casting from the pellet stove and the rectangular holes are not used as a vent like the pellet version. The additional fan will not effectively blow air across the top of the firebox and out these vents. The exhaust gasses exit the stove too quickly and the top plate is not facing the room for any radiant heat. This ultimately creates a poor design aspect when compared to a standard square wood stove with lots of radiant surface area exposed into the room. Agreed it is a challenge to get all the beauty of a parlor stove and the heat of the square box.