We got our new Hearthstone Heritage installed a few weeks back. Well we are now in the cold weather and I guess we have fantastic draft. Issue. My hubby loaded the stove last night and closed the damper in the pipe and left the damper open a smidgen in the front. He was awaken to the smell of really warm stove...you all know the smell....went downstairs and the stove top was up to 600 degrees. Today he loaded it again and closed both dampers down all the way. Later I checked the stove and the top was up to 550 degrees. We are afraid this high heat is going to damage the stove. Any suggestions to keep the temp lower or is this Okay??
Help...Woodstove bloggers...our Heritage is burning too high...
- Thread starter geka
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According to the manual, the burn rate should not EXCEED 600F for any time. 550F no problem, 600F - pushing it. If you have the primary air control at its lowest settings and you are experiencing the high temps, you may be a candidate for a stack damper.
If by stack damper you mean the damper in the stove pipe we put one in when we installled the stove. We sure are glad we did or who knows what the temps would be. Hubby had that closed also as well as the damper you close in the front of the stove.
geka said:
Then you either have air leaks or rocket fuel for wood or a 70ft tall stack.
Are you sure that the controls are working properly? Do you see the flame actively change when adjusting the primary air and/or stack damper? You should.
This is also HIGHLY unlikely, but is there any possibility that your house is positively pressurized?
Yup see the change in the burn when the dampers are adjusted. We do use well seasoned wood and I know we get an excellent draft. We checked for leaks initally by trying to pull a dollar bill through closed doors and they were all nice and tight. Where else would we look for leaks? Sometimes when we close things up all the way we feel like we are going to kill the fire and other times things are ablazing. It is just kind of scarey that after we have closed things down for the night that a few hours later the stove is so incredibly hot. Have to say that this stove is doing a fantastic job in our home and it is an old late 17th century farmhouse with about 2800 square feet.
I assume that you close down the air before you reach the 550-600 mark? You probably should be clamping the stove down at 450F or so because the soap stone will have a tendency to whiplash into higher temps (catching up to the rest of the stove temp).
Edit: you may even wish to try to close it down at the 350-400 mark. It takes awhile for a box full of flames to settle down (which in turn can increase stove temp for a while, even after the air reduction).
Edit: you may even wish to try to close it down at the 350-400 mark. It takes awhile for a box full of flames to settle down (which in turn can increase stove temp for a while, even after the air reduction).
Thanks. I have been passing this on to hubby and he just told me that he has been closing the stack damper all the way and then backing it off a little bit because he feared he would be killing the fire. Do you think that if he closed it all the way that would solve this issue?
geka said:
Hell, if I gots a too hot fire, I would clamp that sucker down to the hilt. Try it, you'll like it. Do it in stages so that you don't create an instant oxygen starvation situation. That can be bad.
Do you have the ability to measure stack temps?? And if so, is it above or below the damper?
Gotta go now, but hopefully some of the really smart guys on here will show up and give more advice/suggestions.
Gotta go now, but hopefully some of the really smart guys on here will show up and give more advice/suggestions.
hey I like how you put it so we will in stages damp that sucker down! Thanks for all your inpu. Hubby is listening. We dealt with a VC Defiant for 22 years and this soapstone is a different animal.
Frightening! I hope you've got a CO alarm there. The manual says: Draught valves (stack dampers) must never completely shut of the smoke movement. A passage of at least 20% must always remain free.geka said:
If the stove is too hot you should be limiting it by completely shutting the primary. The manual also says it is not generally necessary to install a draft valve in a correct installation. How tall is the chimney?
IN regard to the size of our chimney we have 7 feet of single wall pipe and 15 feet of masonry...actually the masonry is a round 6 inch flue made with permaflu around 22 years ago. In regard to the stack damper I was incorrect in that hubby had left that open a smidgen and closed the one in front all the way and we had the overheat.
He then at 2:30am because the stove was so hot closed the stack damper all the say and the stove settled down. We do have a remote smoke/fire alarm system so that we get woken up in our bedroom. I will have to ask about the CO though.
He then at 2:30am because the stove was so hot closed the stack damper all the say and the stove settled down. We do have a remote smoke/fire alarm system so that we get woken up in our bedroom. I will have to ask about the CO though.
I've seen 550F on the center stone a couple of times on our Heritage, but never 600. It generally runs at 500F at peak burn. I usually shut down half way at 600F on the flue gas thermometer, and then nearly all the way as soon as I see that the secondary burn is indeed in full swing. It doesn't take very long for that to happen (650-ish) and it won't kill the fire unless you have a wet stick in there somewhere. With a hot bed of coals and a fresh load of night chunks, I always shut all the way down in order to burn slow and hot, because it can get very hot, very fast otherwise. I've seen 1100 on the flue gas thermometer when we had a leaking door gasket.
We have a full two story with an interior metal chimney- very good draft. I've thought about putting in a flue pipe damper for those times when things seem too hot, because there really is no other way to slow it down. Sounds like you might want to use it more liberally.
We have a full two story with an interior metal chimney- very good draft. I've thought about putting in a flue pipe damper for those times when things seem too hot, because there really is no other way to slow it down. Sounds like you might want to use it more liberally.
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