ESW 28-3500 Optimal burn settings

[freeburn]

Just installed a 28-3500 and I understand there is a learning curve to this furnace as probably to any. Could anyone who owns this furnace comment on the startup, and burn settings you have found to work for cleanest and longest burn times? Obviously assuming you have dry wood. I've got a mix of oak, maple, and elm with a 20'+ mason chimney in the middle of the house.

1. How do you start up? Top down fire, or traditional bottom up, add more, fill up?

2. Settings for start up besides completely open draft and spin draft? (how long to leave the door open, or have you found something else that works better?)

3. How hot to get furnace before damper down?

4. Where is damper set for optimal burn time, and minimal smoke out chimney?

 

[Badfish740]

Just installed a 28-3500 and I understand there is a learning curve to this furnace as probably to any. Could anyone who owns this furnace comment on the startup, and burn settings you have found to work for cleanest and longest burn times? Obviously assuming you have dry wood. I've got a mix of oak, maple, and elm with a 20'+ mason chimney in the middle of the house.

1. How do you start up? Top down fire, or traditional bottom up, add more, fill up?

2. Settings for start up besides completely open draft and spin draft? (how long to leave the door open, or have you found something else that works better?)

3. How hot to get furnace before damper down?

4. Where is damper set for optimal burn time, and minimal smoke out chimney?

I'll temper my comments with the fact that I've only been burning mine for about a week, but I'll tell you what I've been doing. I have a good strong draft as it sounds like you probably do-bottom up fires work just fine for me. I have an extremely large supply of pinecones, so I typically make a bed of newspaper covering the entire floor of the firebox, and then create a bed of pinecones on top of that. I light the paper and once the pinecones start to catch I add some good dry pallet wood. Then I'll leave the door open just a crack (and the spin draft all the way open) and either sit back and watch the fire or go upstairs and do something for 15 minutes. Once 10-15 minutes have passed the pallet wood is going well enough to add some medium sized splits. I add the splits and do the same thing (door cracked, leave it for 15 minutes-only this time I tend to stick close by so as not to forget the door is open!)-once this cycle is completed the blower has kicked on and it's ready for some big splits.

I still haven't gotten a flue thermostat (it's in the mail) so I play it by ear in terms of when to add the big stuff. As I said, I wait until the blower kicks on and then some. Once I get the bigger splits in I'll leave the top and bottom drafts fully open for at least 10 minutes before I crank it down. During the day I'll keep it closed only about 1/4 of the way since I'm around to feed it and my neighbors are kind of close so I don't want lots of smoke. For overnight burns I'll put it to half and then go just a hair more toward closed. Lately I've been experimenting with just barely (and I do mean barely) leaving the spin draft open at night. Last night I loaded up the firebox with a mix of oak and sugar maple at 10:00 PM with the settings I mentioned and the house at 70 degrees (outside temperature 38 degrees)-I woke up to a house at 67 degrees and a nice bed of hot coals in the firebox. I think if I had better quality wood (all locust, hickory, etc...) I could probably leave the draft open a bit more and wake up with a warmer house in the morning. Hope that helps.