Burn times with osburn 2200.

[Sully]

What type of burn times are people seeing with osburn 2200 insert. So far I have nothing to brag about. I am new to stoves but seems like I get three to 4 hours max. It's a new stove. The fan is on a sensor and usually is off when I come Down in morning. I can put wood in and it lights up with out a match , that's nice but not exactly what I thought I'd be getting out of this insert. I am leaning towards the wood not being great. It's just mixed wood. I am looking into getting a cord of oak and cherry and seeing if that changes the game. Hopefully because I can't keep coming up with ideas/excuses to the wife on why it's burning down so fast. What is the best way to load and run stove , no air before bed ? Thanks in advance to replies

 

[Huntindog1]

With that size of stove you should be able to get an 8 hour cycle time.

You wont have flames the entire time but hot coals will be left to start another fire.

If you have enough coals left after 8 hours to start another fire without the help of fire starters then you had an 8 hour burn cycle.

To get a longer burn time you have to get the temps up quick in the stove so as to get the stove input air shut back down quickly. Usually with wood thats not real dry a person burns up alot of the wood trying to get temps built up so they can then get the stove shut back down for the over night burn. But temps take longer to increase if there is moisture in the wood cooling the fire box as it boils out of the wood. Dry wood will heat up your fire box much quicker then your not spending alot of time with the input air wide open trying to get the wood burning and fire box temps up. Using good thin split kindling will help if you wood is sub par. Plus if your input air is wide open you flushing your needed heat up the flue. Its being able to shut the air down in small increments of like 25% increments that allows the heat to build in the stove as there is less heat flushed up the flue when the air is turned down. Its a feel you will have to get on when and how fast to start shutting that input air down. Plus you need a feel for what the quality of the wood and how much kindling you used that also is involved in how fast to shut the air back down.

Good dry wood makes all this really easy.

Rake your coals forward is a method that helps with burn times.

Here is a link to some pics of rake your coals forward method.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/rake-coals-forward-and-stove-start-up-pictures.80659/

 

[Grisu]

Could you maybe tell us more on how you prepare the overnight burn? Is the stove already hot before you load it for the night? How big are your splits? How many do you put in? What temps are you getting once the air is closed down? Do you have a lot of coals left in the morning?

 

[etiger2007]

Osburn also recommends you run your blower on medium, this will pull tons of heat but not cool down the firebox as fast, many think running your fan on high will give you more heat but this is not true because the air going around the stove dosent have time to heat up and cools the stove down faster. I started doing this and have been amazed at the difference ive seen. My load of wood last longer, I have very little of the black charcoal left after the fire dies out, because the firebox is staying hotter longer my firebricks look like new. House is in the mid 70's. Good luck.

 

[Sully]

Thanks. I will give that reloading style a try. I guess I'm still use too open fireplace. Trying to keep flames going non stop

 

[Sully]

I do have coals in the morning. Using the ir gun on this stove seems difficult. I try and aim under vent. The stove top. I have never had 500 on that. Usual high 400. Wife usual loads stove before bed being I get up very early, she is usually up later. Last night I believe around 11 she put in three splits. 16 inch long, not huge. At 4 when I came down the auto fan was off , after storing coals and tossing on log a fire started within 5 min. Getting this stove to temp seems to be a long long process. Once it gets to over 400 temp than it's a steady drop back down. I tried putting logs in back take coals to front and so far it's been about hour and half and fan has not come on and I'm around three hundred. It is frustrating reading other people get to temp in twenty min. Lol.

 

[Grisu]

I guess the problem is you are not putting enough wood in to get long burn times. Those stoves want to be filled up completely for best burns. See that you have a good bed of hot coals and a warm stove before loading it for the night. Put as many splits as you can fit in up to the top of the firebricks maybe leaving only a 1.5 to 2 inch gap to the burn tubes in the top. Let the wood catch fire and start a good burn, then close door. Leave the air all the way open until the wood is fully engulfed then start to stepwise close the air, maybe a quarter every 5 min. When the air is completely closed you should have nice secondaries in the top of the firebox and the stove top should read 400 to 500 F. If you have lots of cold coals left in the morning it could mean that your wood is not fully seasoned, check it with a moisture meter.

In the morning put on more than one log, a bunch of smaller splits filling half to 2/3 of the firebox would be better. Leave the air open a little bit (but not all the way once you have a good fire) to get a quick hot fire going; that should get the stove and the house back up fast. Once that fire dies down fill the stove up again similar to what I described for an overnight burn and let it cruise during the day. I manage to do a quick, hot fire in the morning (~2 h), two fill-ups during the day (~6 h each) and one overnight burn (~10 h) with nice dry hardwood.