New here... Proper way to operate stove?

[Nater]

This is my first post but have got so much information so far by just reading. I am somewhat new to burning wood, although I did have a wood stove growing up.

Some background info - I have an old wood stove that came with the house when we bought it. The previous owners lived there 10 years and rarely used it, and it was there when they bought the house. So the stove is at least 12 years old, probably twice that or more. This is the second winter we have lived there, and the first winter we heated with only oil. We kept our thermostats at 60 and were going through about 200 gallons a month (OUCH!). Last fall we got a new 6" insulated SS liner installed. We have been burning wood since September and our house has been a constant 70+ and just bought oil since last summer (we use it for hot water). So we have pretty much covered the cost of the liner already.

We have burned through about 2 1/2 cords of wood and most of the wood was questionable at best. Long story but I do have a reliable source for wood now, and he is only about a mile down the street. Since coming on to this site a few days ago when I started having problems, I've been reading a lot (probably too much ) and learning a lot. And I can admit that I was doing it all wrong. I was letting the fire burn too slowly and ended up creating too much creosote in my chimney, so much that it plugged up my chimney cap! I cleaned the cap enough to have a fire the past couple days and plan on doing a full cleaning this weekend. Hopefully before it starts snowing.

So now I have been burning my stove much hotter, and using only a little of the questionable wood mixed in with good dry wood. My question is how should the back damper be set? I've been reading about everyone with the new EPA stoves don't have one but my stove has one built in. Should I just leave it open all the time and only use the primary air control? When I get a good fire going, I can see the fire going through the stove pipe and up the liner, is this dangerous?

I've included a picture of the stove from when we bought the house before the liner was installed. I know it's a beast.

Thanks for the help.

 

[NH_Wood]

Welcome to Hearth.com! A beast is right! I think I could sleep in there. As for the damper, is it a pipe damper, or a secondary control for draft on the stove? It would seem that if you can control the fire with primary control only, then the secondary damper is not needed. But, if your fire really roars with primary low and secondary damper wide open, you'll have to close it some until the fire is better controlled. Others who have burned older stoves will likely have better advice. You should definitely give that flue a good cleaning ASAP (snow coming this weekend I hear!). Cheers!

 

[Nater]

Welcome to Hearth.com! A beast is right! I think I could sleep in there. As for the damper, is it a pipe damper, or a secondary control for draft on the stove? It would seem that if you can control the fire with primary control only, then the secondary damper is not needed. But, if your fire really roars with primary low and secondary damper wide open, you'll have to close it some until the fire is better controlled. Others who have burned older stoves will likely have better advice. You should definitely give that flue a good cleaning ASAP (snow coming this weekend I hear!). Cheers!

It is a pipe damper. The front is removable to use it like a fireplace but I sealed up the removable steel plate with furnace cement because it was impossible to have a controlled fire. So the primary air on the door can be closed completely which will pretty much put out the fire. So it's not dangerous if some of the fire enters the liner?

I found an identical stove on craigslist a few minutes ago, it is a Nightingale Vista if anyone was wondering. Couldn't find any info on Google about it though. I've included the picture of an identical stove which you can see the stove better.

I have the day off tomorrow and I think the snow isn't expected until tomorrow evening, so it's my top priority as I already got about a gallon of creosote from opening the cleanout.