How long for paint smell to dissipate?

[Rusnakes]

Greeting all,

We have just started up our Kitchen Queen 380 and I was curious to know how long we could expect the fumes to continue to roll off the stove. The KQ manual is short on details for a first burn (unlike our Jotul, which prescribes the entire breaking-in process in great detail), so I'm unsure how long the fumes will continue (or if we need to do something in particular to help the process along). It isn't wicked cool outside tonight (just 54 degrees F right now), so we are likely getting a bit of smoke smell in the room, too...hard to say with the fumes.

Any thoughts would be great! We are planning to keep a normal fire going overnight and let the stove continue to off-gas (hoping it will be better in the a.m.).

 

[sutphenj]

My f55 off gased during the entire break in time as I gradually increased the temps each day. I suspect the 380 will be much the same. I would expect some fumes after each new temp you reach with her.

Cool combo with the two stoves.....don't hear much chatter on here regarding cook stoves. Is the 380 a backup or do you plan to use it quite a bit? I've only had the f55 a short time and we have had only mild temps...but boy can crank out some heat.

 

[Rusnakes]

We plan to use the 380 as a primary cooking option for the cold season (about 6 months here in Michigan; we still have a regular stove and oven, too). It is situated on the back side of the house facing inward, so we hope it will cover a good full zone in the house. The F55 is in the front room (parlor?) of the house, facing toward the upstairs/bedrooms. We are hoping it heats that side of the house well. It isn't a huge house (2100 sqft), but it is built on the long side (1832 original homestead with an addition from 1919 on the back).

The KQ is hopefully going to also provide a hot water source for us to supplement during the winter months. We are planning to put in a solar hot water system (but the sun is in short supply here in December and January for sure!).

The F55 is actually behaving quite nicely for the break-in period...what a nice stove. We are going to do the last break-in burn (up to 400 degrees) tomorrow morning. The smell has really been negligible compared to the KQ. The KQ isn't terrible, but it is a persistent stink that burns the eyes a bit and has my allergies all whacked out. We ran a 200 degree burn in the KQ for about two hours, then moved up to a 300+ burn, and now are doing a 400-ish burn. We didn't do the cool downs between like the F55 (the manual basically said, "clean it and burn") because it isn't a cast iron stove, but now I wonder if that would have helped with the smell.

 

[begreen]

Paint start baking in at +500ºF. Crank it up and bake a pizza.

 

[Rusnakes]

Thanks for the info, begreen. I think we hit temps on the KQ in excess of 500 last night, so the smell is gone from that now (nice even heating, too...nice stove). We are doing our last break-in for the F55 right now and it got a bit over 400 and WOW did the top start baking and steaming. So, yes...I can see we have a stinkfest ahead of us for our first full-out burn on the F55.

 

[begreen]

Load the F55 up full and take it up to 650-700F. Open a nearby window and put a fan blowing out through it. That'll be the end of the paint smoke.

 

[Zack R]

I noticed that for the paint smell to fully go away it took a few days of progressively hotter fires, letting it cool all the way back down between each one. I left the windows open and the fans on since the smell was so bad.

 

[Rusnakes]

We did the "final" break-in 400-degree burn today with the F55 and it took a long while to cool all the way back down to room temp. We'll take her up to regular temps tomorrow, since it is so warm here today and running two stoves may burn us out of the house (sitting here with the kitchen area at 81 degrees right now).