Thanks to those who responded to my first question on this forum. I am also a new one to this site and have learned volumes reading through articles etc. that I have found here. I don't feel so alone anymore in dealing with lousy dealers who don't know anything about the products they sell yet will do anything to make a sale after which they don't want anything to do with you especially if there is a problem......I now know I am not the only one trying to burn up coals more effectively. Realize I was blaming my Napoleon 1101 on that thinking it was the size of the fire box.
So now I am rethinking my earlier decision to replace my Napoleon with another insert sporting a larger fire box. I still would like front mounted blowers. For now I am trying to catch some of the dust that is drawn in by using screen material in front of the vents that pull air into the blower. Time will tell how well it is working.
I've read through the comments on the coal issue and tried some of what I read but don't feel like I have a handle on this at all. In the morning the fire is started up with kindling, fat wood and small splits of pine. Once that has warmed up the flue a piece of hard wood (or 2 depending on the size of wood) is added. I have a magnet type thermometer on the front of my insert and I try to get the temp up to 500 for at least 1/2 an hour. Once the wood has all caught I begin to close the damper down slowly working my way down to low which gives me a good hot internal temp that will last that amount of time. After about 1 1/2 hours or 2 hours the logs are at the stage where they crumble into chunks when touched and the internal temp drops and continues to drop.
One of my questions is - Should I leave the damper at low or should I open it to allow more air in to get more burn out of the coals? We are at home all day so I like to keep things warm at about 72-74 degrees so when the internal temp drops so does our room temp. If I try loading it up again with 3 or 4 logs things get pretty crowded with the coals and by 4 or 5 p.m. there isn't much room for new logs so I've ended up scooping them out and hating doing it because it feels like such a waste of fuel. If I wait too long and the internal temp drops below 300 degrees it is also harder for new wood to catch and sometimes it will smoke until it catches...not good for the environment. Anyway, when I don't open the damper the coals don't seem to burn down and they certainly don't maintain the room temp. When I do open the damper up they do burn up a bit more but the temp seems to drop faster. Kind of a no win proposition.
I have also tried starting a fire like I stated above but when it comes time for me to add more logs I have added only one log at a time. If I use red oak I can get a 500 degree temp for awhile again and the coals seem to burn more too this way so that at 4 or 5 p.m. I still have coals but not quite so many and I can still feed one log at a time. Problem with this method is when an added log doesn't get the temp. up. I imagine you get the drift of what I'm trying to say....Should I stop trying to figure this out and, hence stop driving myself crazy, just scoop the dang coals out or is there a solution for me and my Napoleon?
So now I am rethinking my earlier decision to replace my Napoleon with another insert sporting a larger fire box. I still would like front mounted blowers. For now I am trying to catch some of the dust that is drawn in by using screen material in front of the vents that pull air into the blower. Time will tell how well it is working.
I've read through the comments on the coal issue and tried some of what I read but don't feel like I have a handle on this at all. In the morning the fire is started up with kindling, fat wood and small splits of pine. Once that has warmed up the flue a piece of hard wood (or 2 depending on the size of wood) is added. I have a magnet type thermometer on the front of my insert and I try to get the temp up to 500 for at least 1/2 an hour. Once the wood has all caught I begin to close the damper down slowly working my way down to low which gives me a good hot internal temp that will last that amount of time. After about 1 1/2 hours or 2 hours the logs are at the stage where they crumble into chunks when touched and the internal temp drops and continues to drop.
One of my questions is - Should I leave the damper at low or should I open it to allow more air in to get more burn out of the coals? We are at home all day so I like to keep things warm at about 72-74 degrees so when the internal temp drops so does our room temp. If I try loading it up again with 3 or 4 logs things get pretty crowded with the coals and by 4 or 5 p.m. there isn't much room for new logs so I've ended up scooping them out and hating doing it because it feels like such a waste of fuel. If I wait too long and the internal temp drops below 300 degrees it is also harder for new wood to catch and sometimes it will smoke until it catches...not good for the environment. Anyway, when I don't open the damper the coals don't seem to burn down and they certainly don't maintain the room temp. When I do open the damper up they do burn up a bit more but the temp seems to drop faster. Kind of a no win proposition.
I have also tried starting a fire like I stated above but when it comes time for me to add more logs I have added only one log at a time. If I use red oak I can get a 500 degree temp for awhile again and the coals seem to burn more too this way so that at 4 or 5 p.m. I still have coals but not quite so many and I can still feed one log at a time. Problem with this method is when an added log doesn't get the temp. up. I imagine you get the drift of what I'm trying to say....Should I stop trying to figure this out and, hence stop driving myself crazy, just scoop the dang coals out or is there a solution for me and my Napoleon?
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