Heat house faster

[check212]

I've read in a review for my insert that if a stove is ran wide open it will heat the house faster, and if the door is allowed to remain open will heat the house even faster (I probably wouldn't do this). I thought this seemed wasteful and counterintuitive. I can get the stove just as hot with secondaries and the flue closed. I asked a friend about it and he agreed it happens.

Is this because the larger fire requires more air, and the cold air is converted faster to warm air once it's either sent up the flue, or made hotter through radiation and convection of the insert? Meaning that even though it's more wasting more BTU's the waste helps to get rid of the cold air faster?

 

[firefighterjake]

You are correct . . . secondaries = more heat. Leaving the air control open makes for a very large fire and leaving the door open gives you the radiant heat effect . . . but neither will truly give you the real heat you need for your home. Both ways result in a lot of heated air going up the chimney.

 

[Wood Duck]

Burning the stove with the door open might make outside of the stove hotter, faster, and that would increase the amount of heat that moves from the stove into the room. Plus, as firefighterjake said the open door probably allows radiant heat to go directly from the fire into the room. This isn't the most efficient use of the BTUs in the wood, but it might be a quicker way to heat the room. Secondaries result in more of the energy in the wood becoming heat in the stove, but a big, hot fire without secondaries could outheat a more controlled fire with secondaries.