my little experiment

[Backwoods Savage]

Backwoods Savage: "Case in point was early this morning when I got up and put wood in. First, the cat. is off and draft set full. This morning I left it that way for 20 minutes before engaging the cat (yes, that time varies from load to load). When engaging the cat, I turned the stove down to 1 but was not happy with it so put it a 1.5 for another 10 minutes or thereabouts before turning it down to .25."

Dennis, when you say you left the draft set full for 30 minutes, does that mean you left it open all the way to 4 for 20 minutes? I never tried this, but seems like too much air . . . but maybe that is a good trick.

Didn't mean to steal your thunder Dennis, but if I were to leave my air wide open on #4 in bypass mode I can easily peg my probe thermometer to 2000 degrees in my pipe in as little as 10 minutes. I think he may start out there til it gets going then turn it down. During reload I like to keep the flue temps under 1000, it seems to heat up the stove faster, so If I have a decent coal bed all it takes is starting out at #2 and adjusting down to #1 when it gets close to 1000, sometimes it takes a little more or less depending on the coal bed.

No problem at all Todd. Usually that would happen to me also but as stated, every so often it is the reverse. I simply roll with the punches. If it requires more air, then air it gets. I'll add that this does not happen very often.

You might take into consideration that our chimney is actually a little on the short side and we have a SS chimney going up the outside of the house. So weather can have some effect on it. We've just learned over the years that how the weather is has a definite effect on the fire. It is actually a very minor thing as 99% of the time there is no problem. If there is, then I just will not hesitate to do what is necessary and it has nothing to do with what stove we are using at the time.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I just thought I'd add here what I have just done a bit ago. As you know we are having some pretty cold weather so we need heat. I had put 4 splits (junk wood) into the stove and after everything was set I left the draft set at 1. After about 15 minutes I was getting cool so looked. The stove top was 400 degrees. I then set the draft to .5 and 15 minutes later looked to find 525. I just went over and looked and the stove top is at 550. I don't feel cool any more.