Flame Height - Newbie Question

[SlimGedi]

Hello everyone!

Newbie here - just got my first pellet stove (Lopi Yankee). I already looked through many of the posts on this board and found a lot of useful information. Thanks!

I still have one question though - how high should the flame be during routine operation? At the moment, I'm running it on the second lowest setting (of six total) and the flame is anywhere from 1-2 inches to 10-12 inches (varies a bit over time and the restrictor setting, I'm trying to keep it in the middle ).

What is the "optimum" height for a flame? Should this be higher when the stove is running on higher levels? Should the flames ever reach the tubes at the top? Should it really look like the stove on Lopi's website ((broken link removed)) when in operation???

 

[sydney1963]

Mine does that also, I think it is pretty normal.

 

[imacman]

Welcome to the forum Slim. I have an Astoria, and on the second from the bottom setting I would say mine runs from 2" up to 6-8" sometimes. Yes, on occasion it will just touch the heat exchanger tubes, but not too often.

When the stove is clean, I have the air control rod out to the #2 marking....never had to go past that. Just go by what they say in the manual...just enough air to keep the fire lively, but not so much that the burning pellets get blown out of the firepot.

I don't know that there is any "optimum" flame height.