Draft too low on Fireview?

[akennyd]

Just curious, has anyone ever found the lower limit with the draft on the fireview? What happens if you do?

I have been sweating reducing mine down below 0.75 fearing a snuff out or backdraft or some other nightmare but I've just been researching old posts and found where Backwoods has gone down to 0.25

BTW, still loving the fireview

Wishing y'all a Merry Christmas

 

[shawneyboy]

I assume you mean the air intake not the draft.....turn it down lower when you can monitor the stove. Keep and eye on the fire. It is a "fireview" after all. The lower end will depend on many things from type, and moisture content of wood to the draft you have and even the outside temperatures. It is best IMHO to not lock in a number but more so to learn by look and temps in your particular set up what/when to set the intake at. It will take some time, and some experimenting to figure it out but.... once you know what you are lookng for, it becomes easier and easier to achieve the optimum burn.

 

[Stump_Branch]

I assume you mean the air intake not the draft.....turn it down lower when you can monitor the stove. Keep and eye on the fire. It is a "fireview" after all. The lower end will depend on many things from type, and moisture content of wood to the draft you have and even the outside temperatures. It is best IMHO to not lock in a number but more so to learn by look and temps in your particular set up what/when to set the intake at. It will take some time, and some experimenting to figure it out but.... once you know what you are lookng for, it becomes easier and easier to achieve the optimum burn.

From what I understand Backwoods has some of the dryest/ longest seasoned stuff around, could be a good reason why...

 

[akennyd]

Yes, shawneyboy, that is what I mean. The Fireview manual calls it the "draft lever" and the "damper lever" in different places but the air intake control is what I'm talking about. I know there are a lot of variables here but I was wondering if anyone had found a lower limit that resulted in any negative effects. Thanks for the input.

 

[shawneyboy]

akennyd, the problem with your question is there really is no good answer. The lower limit for you will be vastly different than that of someone else, unless you can find someone with your stove, your climate, your chimney, your wood, your wind, etc. etc. etc. As for what can happen when you reach that lower limit, well that would be snuff, backdraft, puffing, creasote build up, smoke detectors going off, etc. But what that lower limit is, is subject to so many variables. I would suggest experimenting a bit, do it during the day, monitor the smoke, or lack there of, the stack temps, the stove temps, etc.

Many here have a thermo on their stove, me included, but I use the look of the fire, what the secondaries are doing and the like along with the temps to make needed adjustments.

The better seasoned the wood, in general, the lower you can set the intake. Of course that also depends on the type of wood as well.

Have fun with the stove, learn it when you have time, don't experiment overnight, do it during the day, then apply that which is learned to the overnight burns. The best way to learn is to do. If you rely on others experiences without taking into the consideration the many variables you are IMHO more at risk of having an adverse situation than taking "baby steps" from where you are to find out where you can/should be.

So many people want to use a number, be it a temperature, or a setting, and when they try to achieve that they are not happy with the results because.."Wally the Woodburner" sets his on (blank) and when I do (blank) happens. You know what I mean. Enjoy the warmth, the learning curve can be shortened a bit by getting advice but it will still be there. Heck there are people on here that have to relearn the 5, 10, or 20 years of woodburning knowledge because a set up or a stove change.

Good luck, have fun, and let the learning start.


Oh and Merry Christmas to you as well !!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Kenny, we have found our lower limit to be zero.

Yes, I am not kidding but we have several times ran the stove with the draft closed. Our normal setting is about .75 but there are times when we need a bit more. There are indeed many variables which come into play. Perhaps ours is a bit more sensitive because of a short chimney but weather does come into play a lot. Most times up to the last couple of weeks we've ran it at 1 and sometimes slightly above. Now that it is a bit colder we're back to .75.

Yes, the fuel is still the biggest factor. At present we don't have a big mix of wood because of all our ash trees dieing so we burn mainly ash. If we had oak I'm sure the setting would be different, but we've found ash and elm are close to the same and cherry is close too. Soft maple burns hotter. That pretty much takes care of what we are burning now. I will be cutting some oak this winter but that won't be burned for a long, long time. We don't have a lot of oak but we do have a couple of pin oaks that are dieing and I also want to clear a couple of lanes for hunting and there are some young oaks that will go. I don't think there are any over 6" though except the pin oaks.

On negative effects of the low draft setting, the only negative is that the temperature of the stove top will be much higher than the temperature of the rest of the stove. But, that is not really a negative. Sometimes it is best and other times it is best to have more flame in the firepot which will make the entire stove hotter.

 

[Todd]

Woodstock says even at 0 there is still a little air coming in due to the EPA regs. My lower limit on my Fireview is about .5, this setting is where the flames snuff out and everything goes black in the fire box, but the cat will still be glowing and doing it's thing. Sometimes this low setting will cause the cat to overload on smoke and I have seen the stove top temp climb as high as 750 so I usually burn somewhere around .75-1 and like to keep some flame and red in the coals.

My Keystone likes to cruise a little higher but it is a different stove and has a shorter chimney. Low burn is at #1 and high burn about 1.75.

Also noticed a big difference in air settings when I switched from the last of my Black Locust to some 3 year old Oak. The BL needed more air than the Oak.

 

[shawneyboy]

I run a Mansfield rock. As I type, my stovetop is at 525 the main intake is fully closed... Secondaries are fully lit. No smoke from chimney at all. Full load of well seasoned wood (mix of Oak and Maple).

 

[Stump_Branch]

I run a Mansfield rock. As I type, my stovetop is at 525 the main intake is fully closed... Secondaries are fully lit. No smoke from chimney at all. Full load of well seasoned wood (mix of Oak and Maple).

How lucky are you that your home by the stove...I'm jealous

 

[Slow1]

I am currently burning around .75 - perhaps a bit less. It really does vary depending on the outside temperature and (of course) the wood. The lowest so far that I have gone is slightly below .5.

I set the air based on how the flames look when trying to go as low as possible for an extended burn (i.e. just trying to keep the house warm when it isn't that cold outside). I start off getting things good and warmed up as fast as possible to get cat engaged, then leave it at 1 for a while until stove top temp has stabilized (and I have time to mess with it). Then I will go down by roughly 1/8 increments with a 3-5 minutes between watching the flames react. Once they really darken and have lifted off the tops of the logs then I know I'm done. I know that after a while they will likely disappear then the ghost flames will begin to roll on the top of the stove.

What I've learned to NOT do is to try and turn down the stove this low on a cool stove (i.e. one that was just started and doesn't have a coal bed) or do it with any of my marginal wood as either of these conditions can lead to the old puffing condition - not a lot of it (I've never seen anything that came close to lifting the lid on the stove) but I have smelled smoke in the house a couple times.

Another thing that I've found important in my setup is that initial stabilization time after cat engagement. Although that may be a function of my habit of engaging the cat as fast as possible. If I'm not going for ultra-low air setting I can just put air at about 7/8 and walk away and all is well, but otherwise I have to let it really warm up a bit more over the whole stove (I think of it as stabilizing things).

 

[akennyd]

Slow1- Yea, I was experimenting with some lower settings last night, around 0.5 or so, and noticed a couple of times a very faint smoke smell as I walked into the room. Nothing bad and nobody else noticed it or mentioned it. It's funny you mentioned lifting the lid because it seemed the smoke might have been seeping out around the lid on the right side, according to my sniffing around. I know that can be very misleading though and that the smoke could have been coming from somewhere else entirely...I am running about 0.7 tonight and have smelled no smoke at all... Might be as Todd said, just too much smoke for the cat to burn and it begins to seep out around the lid?

Thanks to all for the input.

 

[Bobbin]

Our Fireview is a 201 model and the controls on the Classic are the exactly the same. Would one of you kindly post a picture of the controls on the 205? when you speak of numerical settings I don't really have any idea how they are controlled.

 

[Todd]

Here you go Bobbin. The 205 air control is right next to the cat lever.

 

[Bobbin]

Thanks for posting that, Todd. What do you have on the door? I have the "twisty knob" that is either "open" or "closed" and the sliding control at the bottom of the door. That's it. Are those present on the 205, as well? The control for the combustor simple pushes in or is pulled out on both of our stoves, I see it's up and down on the 205 and I understand that the combustor is located front and center on the new model, too, yes? On our's it's over the left side of the firebox.

 

[Todd]

Thanks for posting that, Todd. What do you have on the door? I have the "twisty knob" that is either "open" or "closed" and the sliding control at the bottom of the door. That's it. Are those present on the 205, as well? The control for the combustor simple pushes in or is pulled out on both of our stoves, I see it's up and down on the 205 and I understand that the combustor is located front and center on the new model, too, yes? On our's it's over the left side of the firebox.

The door is solid, no knobs or air controls and yes the cat is dead center of the stove. You do have an advantage of having that cat on the left side however, you have room to lift the lid and throw some potatoes in there. I have an old video from Woodstock that shows this on the old 201 model and when I bought my 205 I thought it was the same and was kind a disappointed that I couldn't bake potatoes. :-S

I also think there is an option to have glass on the door on the Classic, I saw one on Youtube. Don't know how clean the glass would stay? If I knew this 6 years ago I might of gone with the classic over the Fireview.

 

[Bobbin]

Thanks again, Todd. You da man when it comes to specs.! Fun to see the evolution of these stoves and read of others' experiences with them.

I haven't missed the window at all with my Classic. I use the stovetop thermometer and I also use my ears to listen to the fire inside the firebox. I've also gotten pretty good at judging the fire's activity by opening the bottom damper and studying the coals and the play of light inside, but mostly I use the thermometer. I will have to look for the Classic with the glass door... but I can't imagine keeping the glass clean would be all that more difficult that it is on the Fireview (not hard, at all).

(Still trying to figure out how to remove baked potatoes without shotgunning the entire room... . Clearly, timing the potatoes and burn cycle of the stove would be critical.)

 

[Todd]

I found the video, pretty cool looking I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np71Xpojs_Q&feature=related

 

[Bobbin]

Nope! I like mine "straight up", thanks. But I really like the Rube Goldberg-esque aspect of the set up. I love stuff like that anyway. As I stated above, Todd, "you da man"!