Flue temps, secondaries and a couple more ?'s

[Butcher]

Being new to an EPA stove I got some more questions. As far as creasote, I always used to try and keep the flue temp towards the high side of the spectrum. Is keeping good secondaries more important for a clean chimney with these stoves? Right now I'm playing a balancing act of keeping the flue temp high but tryin to keep good secondaries too.
As for secondaries. Are they just the northern lights as you all call them, the flames shooting out of the burn tubes or both? I seem to get a mix. Flames shooting mainly outta the rear tube and the floaters towards the front and sides of the stove. Thanks for any imput you may have.

Oh, and I gotta brag alittle bit too. LP truck just left. First fill in 3 months. Heat, hot water and cooking. Total amount of LP used in the last 3 months-35.2 gallons. Yippee!

 

[oldspark]

How high is high, most sites recomend 300 degrees or so minimum and the flue temp gauge has about 250 or so for the correct low temp flue wise. Afer the gases have burnt off very little creosote is formed.

 

[pen]

Don't try too hard to maximize secondaries unless you are looking to impress someone who is new to this style stove.

Just burn the thing so that you aren't billowing smoke from the chimney and that your temps are too low and the stove will do the rest.

pen

 

[Butcher]

How high is high, most sites recomend 300 degrees or so minimum and the flue temp gauge has about 250 or so for the correct low temp flue wise. Afer the gases have burnt off very little creosote is formed.

I'm tryin to keep the flue up around 400° for the better part of a burn cycle. But that just what the rutland thermo says. I'll know more and feel more comfortable tomorrow when my IR gun gets here. I wish Jotul was alittle more specific in their operating instructions. They just say to adjust primary air for desired heat output.

 

[Butcher]

Just burn the thing so that you aren't billowing smoke from the chimney and that your temps are too low and the stove will do the rest.

pen

Thats kinda what I been tryin to do. Bein kinda old school, I dont like it when I dont see any far commin offa the wood. As for impressing anyone well, I'm along was from being impressive. LOL.

 

[oldspark]

How high is high, most sites recomend 300 degrees or so minimum and the flue temp gauge has about 250 or so for the correct low temp flue wise. Afer the gases have burnt off very little creosote is formed.

I'm tryin to keep the flue up around 400° for the better part of a burn cycle. But that just what the rutland thermo says. I'll know more and feel more comfortable tomorrow when my IR gun gets here. I wish Jotul was alittle more specific in their operating instructions. They just say to adjust primary air for desired heat output.

Does not have to be that quite that high but you are OK I would think, one site states you are not sending too much heat up the chimney unless you are over 450.

 

[remkel]

I think the dancing secondaries are prettier.

I do not always get the flames coming out of every secondary tube- usually it varies from one tube, to one side of a few tubes, to just the back, to just the front. I gauge how well the stove is burning by looking at the stack- no smoke makes me smile.

 

[firefighterjake]

Being new to an EPA stove I got some more questions. As far as creasote, I always used to try and keep the flue temp towards the high side of the spectrum. Is keeping good secondaries more important for a clean chimney with these stoves? Right now I'm playing a balancing act of keeping the flue temp high but tryin to keep good secondaries too.
As for secondaries. Are they just the northern lights as you all call them, the flames shooting out of the burn tubes or both? I seem to get a mix. Flames shooting mainly outta the rear tube and the floaters towards the front and sides of the stove. Thanks for any imput you may have.

Oh, and I gotta brag alittle bit too. LP truck just left. First fill in 3 months. Heat, hot water and cooking. Total amount of LP used in the last 3 months-35.2 gallons. Yippee!

I try to keep all my temps in the Goldilocks Zone -- not too hot and not too cold . . . on the belief that the thermos are notorious for not being spot on and could be a little on the high side or low side.

While secondaries are not an end-all, be-all as Brother Bart has said on many occasions, generally having a secondary going is a good thing in my mind since it means some of the waste combustible gas that would have been going up the chimney is being burned off . . . personally I would rather have a little lower flue temp and secondaries going . . . just for the simple fact that a higher flue temp means I'm letting more heat "escape" when I could be using it to heat my house.

Secondaries for me generally means the northern lights (flickering "explosions" of light and flame at the top of the firebox) . . . but more often I see the Bowels of Hell (aka Portal to Hell) which is a whole bunch of flames billowing out of the top of the firebox . . . some folks have reported seeing an almost BBQ grill blue flames spouting out of the burn tubes (but I've never seen this yet.) The Northern Lights tend to be slow, hazy flames . . . the Portal to Hell looks like a very, very angry dragon is in your woodstove.

 

[Blue Vomit]

Secondaries usually start out blowing hard from the burn tubes for me. As I back down the air, the secondaries transition more to the lazy blue northern lights variety. I notice a lot more lazy blue flames from the locust I have been burning lately.
Good job on stickin it to the LP man Butcher.

 

[Butcher]

The Northern Lights tend to be slow, hazy flames . . . the Portal to Hell looks like a very, very angry dragon is in your woodstove.

OK, You put into words what I was tryin to say I guess. I get that for the most part of the first hour of the burn cycle. Then I get the blue flames floating from the top of the stove and sinking down to the bottom and rising back up again if that makes any sence. I guess a better discription of that would be that its kinda like lookin at a lava lamp but with some flame still comming offa the farwood. Heck, I dunno, as far as lettin heat go up the chimney, I almost got to or I could fry chicken on the seat cushions 15 feet away from this stove. I just never had a stove that would put out this kinda heat before so I'm still just stickin my toe into the water so to speak. Thanks.

 

[Butcher]

Secondaries usually start out blowing hard from the burn tubes for me. As I back down the air, the secondaries transition more to the lazy blue northern lights variety. I notice a lot more lazy blue flames from the locust I have been burning lately.
Good job on stickin it to the LP man Butcher.

I think your right about the wood variety having to do with the burn a guy gets. This years wood is so varied that it's hard to get a handle on things. I usually keep the stuff somewhat sorted but this past sommer I moved all my wood from up by the old barn to the old hog house slab and even though I tried to keep it so's I could grab all the same stuff when I needed it I didnt do that good of a job. Cant imagine why though. After running a landscape crew all day and a wheelbarrow full of rock and dirt then comming home to move 6 to 8 cords of farwood at night in 100° heat 1 wheelbarrow load at a time kinda makes a man careless. As for the LP man, well, on a normal year here in these parts we usually go thru 500 to 600 gallons a year. But thats with below freezing to below 0 temps for 3 to 4 months of the year. We normally keep the thermostat set at 62 when we're home and turn it down to 58 when we aint. The wife and I aint quite sure what to make of the 70 to 80° temps we got goin on now with no furnace runnin.

 

[oldspark]

So if you want your stove as hot as you can get it, (I know this will vary from person to person) where do you end up setting your praimary air vs a low setting for when it is not so cold or overnight?

 

[Butcher]

So if you want your stove as hot as you can get it, (I know this will vary from person to person) where do you end up setting your praimary air vs a low setting for when it is not so cold or overnight?

Not sure if this question was directed at me oldspark but I'll answer anyhoo.
Since I've only had Black Sabbath for 3 months now I'm still tryin to get a handle on that. I have come to the conclusion that the stove will do whatever it wants to. Kinda like me I guess. I dont load the thing to the gills with wood anyways cuz I'm still learnin and abit gunshy. It gets kinda warm in the basement after the second load of the day (the stove will take the temp of the 24x48 basement from 60° to 80° in about 2 hours.) but the heat radiates up the stairwell and thru the floors so that after 3 loads the upstairs is almost 70° and the way this house is constructed the basement never gets over 80 and all the extra heat is absorbed to the ground floor and stays there for most of the time. As a matter of fact, since I been keeping a close eye on things like temps and such I have actually seen my upstairs temps go up as the stove and downstairs temps go down. But back to yer origonal question on controlling the heat output. Iffn it gets to hot by the stove I either turn a fan on or open the eggress window. I look at it this way. I've built several Harleys over the years, and when I do I want them suckers to RUN and do what I want them to. I payed good money for this stove and iffn it aint puttin out heat then I might as well take a sledge hammer to it and carry it up outta the basement in chunks.
After reading on this site and the 3 months of running this stove I have come to the conclusion that there really is no way to controll the heat output sept for not puttin to much wood in the box. But heck, what do i know. I'm still learnin I guess.
Oh yeah, I got to ramblin didnt I? as far as primary air I have just turned it down to what I think is 10%. The little lever on this thing aint calibrated and it's hard to tell where your at with it. Just shut it all the way to the left and bump it up till I feel it catch and then give it a scooth more.

 

[oldspark]

Butcher-good answer, I have had my stove for 1 1/2 years and I do not know one thing more than you. If my stove wasn't so expensive I might have taken a sledge hammer to mine a while back. Maybe I should be hitting myself in the head.

 

[Butcher]

Maybe I should be hitting myself in the head.

Shoot, thats how I test the dryness of my wood. Just thunk it against my fore head. Never quite sure where the hollow sound is comming from tho.

 

[Wood Duck]

I'll chime in with a late answer and say that I think any flame located away from the wood is secondary burn, whether it is dancing blue northern lights or angry shooting flames from the secondary tubes or bbq grill style blue flame from the secondary tubes. I get all kinds of secondaries, and I think the one thing they have in common is that they are burning something physically separated from the firewood, which must be gases and smoke. I don't have a flue temperature gauge, so I aim for good secondaries and reasonable stovetop temperature. My wood stove is definitely not a furnace with a thermostat - it is either burning or not. I can make it hot or not-as-hot, but the temperature varies through the burn cycle. In my house we make up any deifference between stove output and the amount of heat we need with the electric baseboard heaters.