neil,
from my experience ,3 yrs worth, you are not doing badly, at all. probably doing brtter than me in fact. When i light up a cold stove, it takes around 20 to 30 minutes for the stove to get hot (500 deg. stove top temp) & for the secondary burn to kick in. After that ,the stove is
very little or no smoke for the rest of the burn. When I put in new wood on fiercly red hot burning embers, like I did tonight because I just couldn't seem to get the house up over 68 deg, it takes 5 to 10 min to stop smoking.
Some tips:
Don't overload your stove. Leave some room for air & you will have less smoke.
Always keep your primary air at least 1/8th open or more as conditions dictate.
Keep some flame on them logs so you don't get smothered fire smoke.
Use smaller splits because they burn fast & hot. A fast & hot fire don't smoke so much.
A good habit to get into is the use of a stack or flue thermometer & another thermometer, for the stove top,( preferably the same make & model as the first thermo, because this makes it easier to ckeck thermo accuracy by placing them both in the same spot for testing thermo accuracy).
A good secondary burn will show 200 to 450 deg on the stack thermostat with 500 to 750 deg
stove top temp & little or no smoke up the chimney.
These degrees vary all over the place with species & moisture content of wood & age of cure
of wood & stove settings of bothe primary & secondary air & make & model of secondary burn stove, but the main point is the degree spread between the stack & the stove top.
You know you have good secondary burn when the stove top temp is higher than the flue pipe temp.
The higher the stove top temp over the flue temp ,the better the secondary burn but you should no let the flue temp get down below 250 or 300 deg so that you don't make creasote
in the chimney, If you see the flue temp going into the creosote creation range, open up primary air a little & if your load is not spent (burnt out) flue temps will increase accordingly.
300 to 450 is a nice range for you flue to be cruising at with a stove top of 500 to 650 for steel stoves. Cast iron stoves need to be run a bit cooler because cast iron melts at a lower temp.
The temp gagues will give you a better idea of how your stove is burning.
My stove has a solid steel door with no window, so I have to rely on the stack & stove top thermos to tell me what is going on.
Hope this helps & see how this matches up with what others here have 2 say about it.
! Watching the fire is the reward!
