End of season choked down slow burns more dangerous?

[777funk]

I'm trying to figure out how best to run these burns (my first season). It's cold at night still unitil about 10AM. So it's nice to have heat until then. After, the house will get up to 90F if I let it burn full blast. So I've been choking it down then restoking the smoldering fire to burn hot again at night. Seems like there's a lot of smoke this way when I let it smolder with the air stopped down.

Is this a problem, Is there a better way to manage this? Is there risk that the smolder smoke can come out of the intake vents when the cat is bypassed.

 

[Grisu]

Build only a small fire in the morning and let it go out during the day. The retained heat should hopefully keep your home warm enough. Build another one in the evening and let that go overnight.

 

[Warm_in_NH]

+1 to Grisu's comment.
I dread it this time of year because I haven't had to "lite" a fire for months, now I have to lite two a day, but it's far better than choking the stove, puking smoke, making the stack and the glass filthy, etc...

We just split some of our bigger logs down into small guys for this purpose yesterday, it's easier to get a quick hot fire with smaller sticks of wood.

 

[Knots]

If I'm gonna burn - I burn. No more attempts at a "slow" fire.

Smaller loads or less frequency, but I burn it hot.

 

[777funk]

Makes good sense! I figured the pros would know!

I believe I made it through this winter on around 3 cords. I like this wood stove. I thought an outdoror boiler might be nice for insurance and mess reasons... but I wanted the ambiance of the fire. Glad I did it. Seems to be a miser on firewood.

 

[Hogwildz]

Your running a cat stove, they eat smoldering smoke.
I run air all the way low, and have no issues with smoldering.
Depends on draft, wood dryness, stove etc.

 

[iamlucky13]

How's your flue look? If it's smoking, you're getting incomplete combustion, and that almost certainly means you're making creosote, in addition to the particulate pollution that is the smoke.

I'm not a cat guy, so I can't directly challenge Hogwildz's post. However, I thought cat's needed to be kept at least a few hundred degrees in order to actually be effective.

 

[3650]

can't ya just crack some windows?

 

[777funk]

I get smoke out the chimney with my cat stove until I've got a hot fire. So I believe it's not burning it off until the cat is well up to temp. It does smell funky outdoors if it's a smoldering fire and the cat is a medium temp.

3650, that'd be easy enough to crack some windows. I hate wasting wood. But I guess lighting a bunch of small fires is also wasting wood getting the fire going each time.

Seems like the simplest solution is a fast hot fire first thing in the morning then letting it burn out until the night.

 

[OhioBurner©]

I've never been able to get my Jotul to 'smolder' as long as I have decent wood and get it hot enough initially for secondaries. I usually run it with the air control fully closed, all the time. Thats usually 600+ so smoldering, smoke, and creosote haven't ever been an issue. I just don't reload it as fast, and put less wood in it. My house is large enough and drafty enough I rarely have an issue with it getting too hot unless its over 50º during the day, then I just let it go out. If its sunny, the house will stay up in the comfort range when its 50 anyhow. It is a pain having to relight the stove though. Though now I also have the pellet stove running, so I can shut the stove done for a few days at a time and run the pellet stove lower, that makes things a bit easier to manage.

 

[Grisu]

Of course, the obvious question is if the wood is dry. The next one would be when was the cat last replaced. And finally, does the stove have a cat probe thermometer?

 

[Woody Stover]

If it's smoking, you're getting incomplete combustion, and that almost certainly means you're making creosote, in addition to the particulate pollution

Yep, you need to get the stove up to temp with the bypass open; You want the cat to light off and burn the smoke as soon as possible after you close the bypass, otherwise the cat may become plugged with creosote or masked with burned ash.

 

[Hogwildz]

Hope he is not burning with leaving the bypass open?

 

[Offset]

It is a tough time of the year for burners. My T5 is not the easiest stove to start from cold and so changes in burning strategies are needed. I tend to keep mine going all day with just a small fire with a couple of splits. I load it up at night and run it as I normally would during the dead of winter.

I just keep an eye on the stove at all times to try to keep the flame and burn rate consistent. Tough to do sometimes.

 

[777funk]

Hope he is not burning with leaving the bypass open?

I burn bypassed until the cat thermometer reads in the burn zone. My wood is mostly standing with some downed dead wood for this first season. Burns good. No smoke when the cat is hot. Cat hasn't been replaced and I'm sure it should be. But I made it through this winter on around 3 cords. So I'll probably just leave it. The exhaust gas smells like reburned exhaust so it must still be working. Also there's no smoke when running hot.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

This time of the year we just light a fire at night when it's starting to cool off and stoke it up again just before going to bed and let it burn through the night. By morning the place is still plenty warm, and the residual heat along with the warmer day time temps is enough to keep the place warm all day long until it starts to cool off again in the evening and we do it all over again. Trying to keep the stove going during the day would cook us out of the house.