Well, after a few small fires I finally worked up to a medium sized one that was hot enough to engage the cat. Yeah - I'm going at it slow, but the weather is too warm to have a hot stove anyway and this is more fun right now. Anyway, it was an interesting experience.
I loaded up the stove with 4 medium size oak splits under the pile of punked wood I've been using for kindling piles and some smaller stuff on top of that then a bit of SC and flattened egg carton on top to light it all off nice and quick. Yes - every one of my fires has been top-down.
It burned - max stove top temp I hit was around 350, I had the air set just below 1 and let it cook there. I wanted to keep a little flame in the box - actually was worried when it all was gone at one point thinking I had choked the air back too far but have since read posts here that say it is ok not to have active flame in the box.
Now for the commentary:
I continue to be amazed at how easy it is to get this stove burning clean. Granted part of this is due to good dry wood and the top-down fire I'm sure, but some credit must be given to the stove too. Pipe temp never really got very high during the burn (I'll keep close notes next time, this was a relax and enjoy the moment burn). Compared to the old VC this is a dramatic difference. Wood consumption - The old stove would have eaten this load up just trying to get a bed of coal ready to put the next load on and THEN I might have been able to get the everburn to engage, thus this load would have been the primer that was consumed in the first 30-45 minutes of the day. With the Fireview I was getting heat thrown off the stove once the cat was engaged (about an hour into the burn?) and although it wasn't a lot of heat, it was nice to stand near the stove. Back to the pipe temps - with the VC during the clean burn stage (everburn) the pipe temps would have been in the 400-450 range (surface of single wall - double it for internal?) during the bulk of the burn; once the cat was engaged here the pipe temp went down from the 260ish to something around 200.
The best surprise (to me anyway) - we left the house for the afternoon and when we returned this evening the stove was still warm. I checked in the box and pushed the coals into a pile to see if there was much life in them. Leaving the cat disengaged and air fully open the coals bounced to life and in a few minutes there was a beautiful pile of bright coals that I'm quite certain I could have placed a split on and had a fire going right quick. So - check of the clock and it had been more than 10 hours since I lit the fire. That is simply amazing to me compared to what I was used to - I would have had a fully stuffed stove going when we left and returned to a stove that I would need to light a match to re-start before.
On the disappointment side - I didn't yet get to see the great fire show that I'm looking forward to. I figure that's because I didn't have enough wood in there to heat things up enough and/or enough fuel burning to see that. Perhaps that is a matter of air settings? I brought air down to #2 shortly after the kindling was burning, let it cruise there until cat light time - I went with the IR reading for temps there, didn't wait for the therm sitting there to register the 250, perhaps I was just too eager? then moved air down to #1. I actually moved it lower but was nervous when all flames disappeared and it went almost black in there - seemed too early in burn cycle for that to happen so nudged it back up. I'd love to hear comments from others on this. Manual said to expect change in flames, not for the flames to go away!
All in all it was a fun day - and yes, it still is smelling up the house so I was glad to leave the windows open and take the family out for the afternoon.
I loaded up the stove with 4 medium size oak splits under the pile of punked wood I've been using for kindling piles and some smaller stuff on top of that then a bit of SC and flattened egg carton on top to light it all off nice and quick. Yes - every one of my fires has been top-down.
It burned - max stove top temp I hit was around 350, I had the air set just below 1 and let it cook there. I wanted to keep a little flame in the box - actually was worried when it all was gone at one point thinking I had choked the air back too far but have since read posts here that say it is ok not to have active flame in the box.
Now for the commentary:
I continue to be amazed at how easy it is to get this stove burning clean. Granted part of this is due to good dry wood and the top-down fire I'm sure, but some credit must be given to the stove too. Pipe temp never really got very high during the burn (I'll keep close notes next time, this was a relax and enjoy the moment burn). Compared to the old VC this is a dramatic difference. Wood consumption - The old stove would have eaten this load up just trying to get a bed of coal ready to put the next load on and THEN I might have been able to get the everburn to engage, thus this load would have been the primer that was consumed in the first 30-45 minutes of the day. With the Fireview I was getting heat thrown off the stove once the cat was engaged (about an hour into the burn?) and although it wasn't a lot of heat, it was nice to stand near the stove. Back to the pipe temps - with the VC during the clean burn stage (everburn) the pipe temps would have been in the 400-450 range (surface of single wall - double it for internal?) during the bulk of the burn; once the cat was engaged here the pipe temp went down from the 260ish to something around 200.
The best surprise (to me anyway) - we left the house for the afternoon and when we returned this evening the stove was still warm. I checked in the box and pushed the coals into a pile to see if there was much life in them. Leaving the cat disengaged and air fully open the coals bounced to life and in a few minutes there was a beautiful pile of bright coals that I'm quite certain I could have placed a split on and had a fire going right quick. So - check of the clock and it had been more than 10 hours since I lit the fire. That is simply amazing to me compared to what I was used to - I would have had a fully stuffed stove going when we left and returned to a stove that I would need to light a match to re-start before.
On the disappointment side - I didn't yet get to see the great fire show that I'm looking forward to. I figure that's because I didn't have enough wood in there to heat things up enough and/or enough fuel burning to see that. Perhaps that is a matter of air settings? I brought air down to #2 shortly after the kindling was burning, let it cruise there until cat light time - I went with the IR reading for temps there, didn't wait for the therm sitting there to register the 250, perhaps I was just too eager? then moved air down to #1. I actually moved it lower but was nervous when all flames disappeared and it went almost black in there - seemed too early in burn cycle for that to happen so nudged it back up. I'd love to hear comments from others on this. Manual said to expect change in flames, not for the flames to go away!
All in all it was a fun day - and yes, it still is smelling up the house so I was glad to leave the windows open and take the family out for the afternoon.
Although I must admit I didn't look during initial startup, only after cat was engaged - I need to pop out there earlier in the burn next time.
