My eyes get red shortly after I start using my woodstove. Is this due to the cold, dry air, or smoke, or radiation from the fire? If radiation, what's the cheapest thing I can wear to keep my eyes from cooking? I always wear glasses with plastic lenses, but that's obviously not enough.
eye problems
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prezes13
Minister of Fire
Do you spend a lot of time sitting close to the stove? I noticed that if I sit right next to mine I get that problem. In my case the radiant heat is the culprit. But you could be allergic to smoke, which there should be none of properly run stove. Might be dry air too.
I'm totally allergic to evergreen types of trees. Saw dust, pollen, smoke, doesn't matter, drives me nuts - I try not to burn the stuff if possible, the one exception I've found though is fir. Still bothers me, just not quite as bad as pine or cedar.
Since my nose is not affected, I'd like to pursue the radiation theory. Are there glasses or goggles to block it?
Got an automatic welding hood? That would resolve that question.
Well that is why you have to many coals there is not way you should be loading every hour. How much wood are you loading every hour?
BuckyBeaver524
Member
I would think if you're opening the stove door every hour, it could well be smoke. Even if there is not a strong smoke smell in the house, I would guess there is some small amount of smoke spillage, even with a good draft. Your eyes may be very sensitive to the low smoke levels.
see http://woodheat.org/charcoal.html . I don't have an ashpan and the firebox is super small. An hour is how long it takes for "one smallish split" to finish burning.
Afraid not, but maybe I could borrow one from someone for a test. What if it worked? What is the welding glass made of?
Yeah loading one split at a time will cause really short burn times and tons of coals. Load the box up and burn it like it is meant to be burnt and things will work much better. Honestly I think there is allot of bad info on that site but that technique is not a bad one but it is meant to be done every once in a while and only between full loads to help burn down coals. If you are only loading one piece at a time you are making the problem worse.
Squisher
Minister of Fire
Cut a few armloads of your wood down to 12" or so and load it up n/s (front to back) and see if your burn times improve. Get a humidifier. Even if my hygrometer shows good humidity I still run mine. Wood stoves create dry air and I get dry eyes and stuffy if I don't run a humidifier.
I'm sure the stove is not a foot deep. Sometimes I do have pieces small enough to load n/s.
I find that loading it full doesn't reduce the coals any, and I have to choke the air back to prevent overfiring.
Like I said, more than one piece at a time will cause an overfire unless I choke the air back.
Are you burning in cycles? You are correct that one piece of wood on a hot bed can overfire bit you have to learn to load up from a cold stove, shut the air down at the correct time, and when you get close to burning out crank the air back open and let the coals burn out just to the point of having enough for a re-light. Your likely undersized on your stove but you got to work with what you got. Stove specs say it's 15 some odd inches front to back but just measure and see what size you need.
Exactly how the stove was meant to be burnt. If you're burning that thing wide open, don't expect it to last very long.
Realistically, unless you add a small split of pine or other low ash, low coal wood, your only adding coals from the split added, to replace the ones it burned down.
I don't get why everyone used that site as gospel. Quite frankly, I see a lot of outdated, crappy advise there. May work with a smoke dragon, but lets face it, they are disappearing like the dinosaurs.
If you burn correctly, and patiently, you won't have a massive mountain of coals issue.
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What temperatures are you talking about when you say an over fire? What is the burning procedure you are using? You say you have to choke the air back to prevent over firing. Well yes you should be doing that that is how they work. Once my stove gets up to temp the air is shut all the way. And sometimes the stack damper is shut part way to.
osagebow
Minister of Fire
Terpenes in the pine could be an allergen, I get a bit of a rash handling my sap heavy pines. Could be the ash and or smoke in general. I also get stuffy when we get some back puffing or i re-load too early and let smoke out.
I hope this was a joke! I've some funny images going through my head now! Wowee! What fun, sitting around with a welding mask on LOL.
Joke seems like a strong word. I think going for overkill might be a better way to put it. It would do the trick though. Again it'd have to be an auto hood though.
OP I think they are polycarbonate. The sparks hit the "glass" and bounce back off, whereas if they were true glass they would fuse to the glass. The polycarbonate also blocks all UV light, which is what prevents flash burns.
OP I think they are polycarbonate. The sparks hit the "glass" and bounce back off, whereas if they were true glass they would fuse to the glass. The polycarbonate also blocks all UV light, which is what prevents flash burns.
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