Good temps fire goes out?

[jbean]

My husband asked me to post this. We will have a fire going. The thermometer will read about 500. We close down the air and we will have nice flames for about 5 minutes and then the fire goes out. We open the air up a bit and the fire starts up again. It doesn't happen all the time, but enough that he wants to ask. We had the chimney inspected recently for another issue and it was all clear. Before we close it down we see good secondary burns. So I am not sure why it goes out, which then worries him that it is smoldering and thats bad too. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[adrpga498]

I close my stove down in 2 incremental steps. When you reach 500* try closing the air intake by 50%. wait about 20 minutes and close it another 25%. This works well for me.

So after 45 minutes your running the stove with only 25% air intake. All fires will lose "flames" in time by the way. On average loads I may go 3 to 4 hours with small flames then I'll reload when I feel the need for more heat. This could be another 2 hours or more with just red hot embers. Good luck with turning down air in increments.

 

[overnight burn]

Try keeping at full throttle for a little while longer and then lessen the air. Your just shutting it down too soon. Remember what the temp was when you shut it down. There will be a certain temperature that will allow you to be able toshut down the air. Be careful not to let it go to long on full throttle because no matter how much you shut down, the fire will still burn. Do it in small increments.

 

[Charles1981]

How much do you know about your wood?

Species (hardwood/softwood)? Moisture Content? How long has it been cut, split, and stacked? Where do you keep it (shed, outside, off ground, covered, uncovered).

does this happen 25% of loads, 50%... ect?

And definitely try to slowly close down the stove...not all or nothing.

 

[Warm_in_NH]

Agree with the above. I also notice the quality of the wood I load with directly dictates the air/fire ratio. With good dry wood and a bed of coals I can shut the air down right after a reload and I can shut it down fast. Wet wood needs a lot more air to keep burning and at times I can never fully close the air with a load of hissing logs in there (I think I'm past the junk wood finally).

My gf was fighting with her stove this year to the point I was worried about a clogged pipe, just really hard to keep a fire going unless we were cranking it. I suspected the pipe or the wood. We took the cleaner option first and bought a couple bundles of kiln dried wood at the local box store. HUGE difference, ran like a champ, it was the wet wood. We spent some time re splitting her wood into much smaller pieces and it was already improving.

Just my .02 worth. Good luck.

 

[Charles1981]

Good point, when the stove is running do you ever hear hissing from the wood?

 

[Nick Mystic]

You have to learn what your stove likes. My Jotul F 600, for example, will let me get a good fire going and get good strong secondaries as I start to shut it down. Usually, I can go straight to 50% and let it settle for 5 or 10 minutes. Then I go to 25% open and see how it goes. If the flames hold and the secondaries look good I can then drop to between 10% and 15% and keep a good strong burn. Sometimes if the firebox is fully engaged I can shut completely down and keep a fire going for the rest of the night. Other times, I can see the fire is holding at 15%, but I can tell it's not strong enough to shut completely down. When I do the complete shut down I lose my flames within 5 minutes or so and I have to open the primary back up again. So, I've learned sometimes I just have to go with 15% and let it burn at that level. Maybe you need to experiment with some low end settings and see if you find one that works for you.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Most likely your wood is inferior.....

 

[overnight burn]

I agree. The moisture content of the wood makes a tremendous difference. Dry wood will stay burning with less air almost 100% better than wet wood.

 

[velvetfoot]

Have to close it down in steps.