new member. had an england 30 a couple years now. found this board and i'm confused about the long burn times i've read about. when i load up the stove and get i cranking out heat, then shut it down a bit, i probably get 2 hours of burning out of the stove. after the initial burn it's just a mass of glowing coals. wood is dry locust or hard maple so it's not the wood. when you talk about the burn times of 6 hours do you mean secondaries are lit for that long? till the coals go out? on overnight burns i always have had good coals after 8 or 9 hours but the fire is long gone
burn time
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SummerTyme
New Member
I am having the same issue. I purchased a new Napoleon 1450 because it advertised 8 hour burn times. I was in hopes I could sleep through the nite without having to get up every 2 hours to reload like I did with my old stove. However, the most I can get out of it is a 5 hour burn time (which is from start of firing it up to a bed of hot coals). Yes I still have plenty of hot coals to start a new fire with, but I have to get up in the middle of the nite around 3 am to reload. It takes about a half hour to reload, fire it up to get good flames and char the wood, and then gradually shut the draft down before I can go back to bed. By that time I am wide awake and can't get back to sleep. And that totally sucks.
I have good hard wood (ash, oak, hickory) and it is seasoned well with moisture between 15 to 20%. So, like you, I know the wood is not the problem. The problem as I see it is because its hard to pack a big load in the firebox due to the height of the box only being 11 1/2 inches. Once you have a good bed of coals that takes up about 2 inches of space and then you have to be careful not to hit the baffles as you load so I leave about 2 inches of space below the baffles and that decreases the height more.
The stove heats the house well, its just not giving me the burn times that was advertised so I'm very disappointed. I was considering getting rid of the stove and buying a Englander N30 because it has a bigger firebox and I could pack more wood into it for night burns. But, now with you saying you are not getting the longer burn times I'm hesitant to do it. I'm upset I spent that much money for my Napoleon and not getting the burn times it advertised.
I have good hard wood (ash, oak, hickory) and it is seasoned well with moisture between 15 to 20%. So, like you, I know the wood is not the problem. The problem as I see it is because its hard to pack a big load in the firebox due to the height of the box only being 11 1/2 inches. Once you have a good bed of coals that takes up about 2 inches of space and then you have to be careful not to hit the baffles as you load so I leave about 2 inches of space below the baffles and that decreases the height more.
The stove heats the house well, its just not giving me the burn times that was advertised so I'm very disappointed. I was considering getting rid of the stove and buying a Englander N30 because it has a bigger firebox and I could pack more wood into it for night burns. But, now with you saying you are not getting the longer burn times I'm hesitant to do it. I'm upset I spent that much money for my Napoleon and not getting the burn times it advertised.
What's "a bit"? Where I have my air setting determine my burn times... mostly open could mean two hours, but fully closed could mean ten.
Does seem short for a 2.2 cu ft firebox. Is that with air fully shut, or partly?
SummerTyme
New Member
I fire it up fully open draft, then gradually shut it down to fully closed. I have plenty of hot coals after 5 hrs but its not heating the house well so must reload. And this is with night temps in the mid 20s. I don't know what will happen once the severe winter temps get here in January and February. I don't think the house will stay warm enough at night without reloading more often.
No one really knows. That's what makes the discussion fun. And interminable.
You know you could, assuming you have a hot bed of coals and if you were so inclined, throw one or two pieces in - just enough to get you through the remainder of the night - shut the door and go back to bed. Eh? Just sayin'
mark cline
Minister of Fire
I determine my burn times by when the stove needs to be reloaded to keep the house comfortable. Usually about 8 hrs. I reload before bed then again , when I get up at 6am . From then on it won't be loaded again until I get home about 5. That's an 11 hr burn , then a 5 hr burn , then 7 hr and so on.
Is the stove sized for the house? Do you need additional insulation in your walls and ceiling ? How new are your windows. drafty?
Is the stove sized for the house? Do you need additional insulation in your walls and ceiling ? How new are your windows. drafty?
SummerTyme
New Member
I did try that during the day with the draft set on lowest setting and just a good bed of coals just to see what would happen and if I could do it at night. I found that by not opening up the draft to fire the wood it just creates a lot of smoke and the window gets all cloudy and I would assume is also making creosote. I don't want to have creosote build up in the chimney because I'm not firing the wood properly first before shutting down the draft to low.
Thislilfishy
Member
What I am learning is I get about 2-3 hours of actual 'burning' then 3-4 hours of useable heat before the stove cools enough that it can't keep the house warm. I am finding that that coal bed can generate a lot of heat if you keep it stirred up and increase draft a bit. Once I get down to mostly ash and small pieces of coals I can add more wood and start the cycle over. Doing this keeps the house toasty and I get what I consider to be reasonable 'burn times'. I imagine I'll need more burning as it gets colder out, but my house was down to 17 degrees Celsius this morning with -5 degrees outside, after 9 hours. I did a very small load (maybe a half load) of wood before bed, and had a large coal bed already there. Keep in mind this is a very drafty old old house.
Type of wood, how well your house is insulate, chimney type, outside weather all seem to determine how well the stove heats the house. If you need to keep the stove on a blazing flame all the time to keep warm, you have other issues I think.
Ian
Type of wood, how well your house is insulate, chimney type, outside weather all seem to determine how well the stove heats the house. If you need to keep the stove on a blazing flame all the time to keep warm, you have other issues I think.
Ian
smokedragon
Minister of Fire
That would SUCK. My stove is still 300 degrees from a load of softwood this morning at 6am. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that could cause your problems (stove size being one of them). Perhaps your stove is undersized for your situation. Also, perhaps those advertised burn times and BTU ratings from the manufacturers are BS in most cases........
I know this will draw the ire of some, but that is why I looked at the EPA heat ratings before purchasing my stove. Those numbers are filling the same percentage of the firebox, with the same type of wood, burning at 5 different air settings. They are comparing apples to apples.
Burning firewood, you always get the most heat at the first 1/3 of the burn cycle. If your stove cannot produce enough heat this time of year to run you out during the first 2 hours of a burn, then it will not keep up when it gets really cold. The idea is that you produce a little more heat than you need in the first 1/3, just right the second 1/3, and then the house starts to cool as the stove does in the final third of the burn.
My $0.02
I know this will draw the ire of some, but that is why I looked at the EPA heat ratings before purchasing my stove. Those numbers are filling the same percentage of the firebox, with the same type of wood, burning at 5 different air settings. They are comparing apples to apples.
Burning firewood, you always get the most heat at the first 1/3 of the burn cycle. If your stove cannot produce enough heat this time of year to run you out during the first 2 hours of a burn, then it will not keep up when it gets really cold. The idea is that you produce a little more heat than you need in the first 1/3, just right the second 1/3, and then the house starts to cool as the stove does in the final third of the burn.
My $0.02
i dont think a full load shut down all the way over 10 hours would heat my chicken coop. there's got to be a better strategy than that.
I wonder what your stove and flue temps are over the course of that 5 hours... sounds like maybe you are still getting heat output from those coals, but again, is it a big or drafty house? Depending on how deep those coals are and what temp the stove is at, some might define your burn time as more like 6-7 hours.
Even with the baffle reducing useful space in the box, I would expect good oak and hickory to go a little longer in giving useful heat. You had short burn times with your old stove, so i wonder if the flue is not over-drafting, pulling more heat up and giving shorter burn times. So your stove and flue temps might help determine if that's the case.
To your original worry about the NC30 not giving additional burn times compared to your stove, the OP's situation may be atypical. That big firebox gives most people on this site a good long burn. (Actually, he did say "good coals after 8 or 9 hours".) If you are getting 5-6 w/ a 2 cu ft box, I think you should easily get a few more hours with the NC30.
Around half of the heat value in firewood is in the coal stage after the flames (burning smoke) go out. Like it or not, the coal stage is part of "burn time".
And as BiggRedd says, that's where the fun part of the discussion heads... since the coal stage makes a long, slow transition into the "cold ash stage" and there's no real definition of coals that are big, little, deep, useful, etc. Coals that give "useful" heat when its 40f outside aren't much use when its 40 below.
What kind of insulation you got in that coop?
But seriously, it really depends where your primary is set. If you have a mass of glowing coals after 8 or 9 hours but the fire is long gone, you still have a good burn time of 8 or 9 hours. With my stove, I need the primary fully shut to get that. Half open, the pile would be gone in half the time. Fully open, I'd have no coals after just a few hours.
The big visible flames from the wood go away pretty fast, but plenty of wispy flames from the coals and burning gases continue for hours, and lots of heat from the big coal mass for hours after that. ALL of that counts as burn time... deciding when burn time is actually "over" is a point of endless debate.
Cockshutt
Member
I'm getting 6-7 hrs out of a 1.9ft box using maple. To get that length of burn, my stove has to be super hot before my last reload.
guess my question is the definition of burn time. on esw 30, how long do you have flames or secondaries lit? does it include the glowing coals with little blue flames dancing on them, or just coals and ash?
Chuck the Canuck
Feeling the Heat
I suppose burn time would be over when you're ready to open the door, rake everything out so you're left with a nice thin hot bed of glowing coals which will easily and quickly light off the splits you throw in on top......
Cockshutt
Member
I think, that if there is a recognizable piece of material in there, and it's red, it is burning. At that stage I can open the draft, and reload.
wow, if that's burntime definition then mine is 15/20 hours. I'll pin a note to the coroner on my icy chest that i had a long burn time.
Cockshutt
Member
SummerTyme
New Member
These are good points you discuss. I have 3 thermometers on the stove. One is an Inferno Stove Top located about 3 inches back from front lip and two inches off center to the left. After 5 hours the Inferno reads around 200 degrees. I have two thermometers located on the flue pipe both 16" above flue collar. One is a Rutland which reads around 100 - 125 degrees after 5 hours; the other is a Worchester Brush (olde but goode from old stove) that reads 200 -225 after 5 hours. On fireups and after I shut the draft down to low stove top will get up to 650-700 degrees with secondaries blazing away. Flue pipe thermometers will read 400-450 on the Worchester and 300-350 on the Rutland. After I have shut draft down to low I have much more secondaries blazing and primary flames are decreased and mid-lazy. It will burn like this for an hour or so and then start coming down with more secondary than primary flames. Then after another hour or so the secondaries start backing off and I have just primary flames. Eventually, the primary flames decrease considerably and I have mostly red hot logs that are turning to coals but still log shaped. After 5 hours I have a deep bed of coals - maybe 5 to 6 inches. If I did not reload after 5 hours these coals would continue to burn down and give off heat. I have still had hot coals under the gray ash 10 hours after the burn if I didn't reload. The stove top is still too hot to touch after 10 hours and reading about 100 +/- degrees.
So my question now is - do you consider the burn time to be 10 hours because I still have hot coals? There is no way that my house would be warm after 10 hours even with hot coals. And once night temps start dropping to zero or below there is no way my house would be warm enough even after 5 hours with a deep bed of hot coals.
The house is an old farm house with blown-in insulation. I also put plastic over the windows in the winter to help seal up drafty windows. I seal off as many drafts as I can find. I only heat the down stairs portion of house - approximately 1000 sq ft. The stove is not located in an ideal place, as its in the utility room at the back portion of the house where all the plumbing is located. Which is good for keeping the plumbing from freezing up but not good for heating the living room which is at the other end of the house. I do have fans hung in doorways blowing the heat from the back room to the front room and one on the floor blowing back towards the stove. Plus the kitchen and living room have ceiling fans. All those fans works well to distribute the heat throughout the house. Stove also has a fan on it (and its a good strong fan which is very quiet).
BTW: Old stove was just a caste iron box with no draft controls - had an opening at the bottom under the door for air which you could not shut down. It was an amazing smoke dragon but heated the house for a good 15 years and ate anything I would put in it - wet or dry - wasn't a picky eater like these new EPA stoves. lol
Perhaps it should be.It isn't called "keeps your house warm time".
Loaded and had the air shut down on the stove last night at 10:30, got up at 8:00 and the stove room was still 72, outside was 27 and I couldn't see any coals in the stove until I raked them.
I think sub-zero temps would substantially reduce the "keeps your house warm time" though.
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