How to get long lasting low output fire from Drolet Heat Commander

[Citationls]

Hello,
After lots of research and planning, I recently installed a Drolet Heat Commander into my basement to heat my two story house. Ducting currently goes to only the first floor which is perfect because I like to keep the second floor about 10 degrees cooler than the first floor.
I love the Heat Commander and it is working perfectly. However, it seems to put out too much heat with the fires I've been building. Outside temp has been upper 30s (F) during the day and lower 20s at night. I set the thermostat to 71 and it ends up being in the upper 70s in the house during the day. I understand the Heat Commander blower turns on at a set temp regardless of thermostat temp to remove heat from the stove. I have been burning oak and ash. I have little bit of maple (lower btu) but not much.
When I load the Heat Commander, I have been putting most of the wood near the back wall of the stove to slow the burn. I have been filling the stove about 2/3 of the way full while still leaving the 4 inch clearance to the loading door like the manual states. Wood is packed tightly so it burns slower. Burn times between reloading are about 8 hours.
I would like to be able to load the stove to get an 8 hour burn time without overheating the house. I am adding one of two 6 inch takeoffs (ducts) to the basement this weekend to try to relocate some of the heat so the 1st floor won't heat up so fast.
Does anyone know of any methods of getting long burn times out of the Heat Commander without having super hot fires? I don't want the fire to smolder/cause creosote build up either.
Thanks in advance!

 

[JRHAWK9]

You can't burn it any slower and keep it clean burning. You just need to adjust your loading sizes appropriately. It's the nature of the beast with today's efficient wood furnaces. Most all of us are in the same boat when it's warmer out, we can't keep a fire going all day or the house will get too warm.

 

[stoveliker]

Same with most stoves. Burn smaller hot fires to manage heating in a home that's a bit small for the appliance and weather.

 

[brenndatomu]

You can't burn it any slower and keep it clean burning. You just need to adjust your loading sizes appropriately. It's the nature of the beast with today's efficient wood furnaces. Most all of us are in the same boat when it's warmer out, we can't keep a fire going all day or the house will get too warm.

This ^ ^ ^
Its all about learning load management for your house, which is probably gonna be different than my house.
Experiment with different wood species too...I really like "junk" firewood for the warmer parts of the winter (which has been the majority of the winter here in NEO the last few years) stuff like pine, poplar, soft maple, boxelder, basswood, etc.

 

[Citationls]

Thanks for all the responses! It sounds like I'll have to have smaller fires which means more frequent reloading. I'd love to burn lower output wood but don't have much around my woods other than oak and white pine. I don't really feel like dealing with the sappy mess from the white pine so that's out.
Also, I added a duct to the basement to redirect some of the heat down there and that seems to help with keeping the 1st floor from overheating as quickly.

 

[brenndatomu]

Also, I added a duct to the basement to redirect some of the heat down there and that seems to help with keeping the 1st floor from overheating as quickly.

I put an 8" spring-close-power-open damper right on the plenum of my VF100, its hooked to its own tstat and set to "cool" mode...that way when my max desired temp is reached, it opens up and dumps some heat to the basement...which is certainly not lost, as I have a HPWH that can use it to make more hot water...plus warmer floors is always a plus too!

 

[Wood1Dennis]

I think you just have to build smaller fires, let it burn down more. As others have said it is kind of the nature of the beast. This winter has been so warm I have been using a lot more kindling than usual because I have to kindle fire more often from less coals.
One thing you can try that helps in warm weather. Let more ash build up in the furnace. The ash will hold hot coals longer. Then when the house cools, stir up the coals out of the ashes, let them get hot and depending on how many coals you have it will be easier to start a fire again. I generally keep more ashes in the furnace during warm weather.

 

[Citationls]

I put an 8" spring-close-power-open damper right on the plenum of my VF100, its hooked to its own tstat and set to "cool" mode...that way when my max desired temp is reached, it opens up and dumps some heat to the basement

That's a great idea! Did you run any duct work past the damper or just slap the damper right on the plenum and call it good? I would like to avoid installing another thermostat (already have two) but it isn't the end of the world if I have to.

One thing you can try that helps in warm weather. Let more ash build up in the furnace. The ash will hold hot coals longer.

As for letting ash buildup, I'm not getting enough leftover ash to do this. I've had the furnace going for a week and have very little ash in the firebox. Maybe once/if it does build up I can give it a whirl.

 

[brenndatomu]

Did you run any duct work past the damper or just slap the damper right on the plenum and call it good

No duct on that one, just slapped the damper right onto a take off fitting

 

[trx250r87]

What about burning larger diameter rounds rather than small pieces?

 

[John Mihevic]

That's what I do. I just put a 9.5" diameter ash round into my 43 yr. old Tarm MB55 (it's the one you guys call the "smoke dragon"). What, I have found in the milder weather, I only need one large piece of wood (what ever will go through my 10"X12" loading door) will work. The beauty of the large piece of wood is the Samson draft regulator has to stay open to get my required heat output (now it is not a "smoke dragon"). Of course the designs of all furnaces/boilers are different. The MB55 has cast iron grates where the air flow from the damper goes directly under the fire with superb water temp control. The Samson will easily control the water temp within 5 degrees of Set Point.

I realize I have a boiler that is now outlawed by the EPA. My reason for doing this post is that maybe it will help someone in using their wood burning appliance. There are s-o-o many different designs. The best performance for any individual installation, is for the owner to understand the "burning wood design" of his appliance that he has installed.

 

[salecker]

I have used the bigger piece way to control my flue temps in my Econoburn
I have since did some modifications to control it.
But the bigger piece works, and if it's a round it works better

 

[JRHAWK9]

For me, it's all about lbs of wood. It doesn't matter if it's 30lbs of cut up pallet pieces or three splits totaling 30 lbs. I get the same heat out of it, therefore I just simply load based on heat load. IE. It was 16° this morning when I got up at 6am, but it's supposed to get up to 44° today, so I just loaded 25lbs on very minimal coals and that will take care of it until I get home at 5:15pm. I will then decide if I need to re-load or not based on house temp.

 

[Citationls]

Ok, definitely going to add some form of damper to dump more heat into the basement when it gets too warm. I'll try using larger pieces of wood too. I can't really leave oak rounds larger than 3 inches unsplit where I live, they end up rotting even if covered in a ventilated area.

I'm also trying to experiment with much I can let the ashes burn down to while still having a clean burn/not getting the glass dirty. Rearranging the coals seems to help them burn hot enough while not having to reload the stove. It seems like in a perfect world the bottom of the stove would be V shaped so that, as the coals burn, they would drop down into the center where the air supply is. This would eliminate the need to poke/rearrange the coals when the fire has burned down.