Just got my stove installed, completed some break-in burns and i'm ready to go. My goal is to vastly reduce the amount of oil that I need to buy. I have about 2 cords of reasonably seasoned (not great) wood and an unlimited supply of pallets. My plan is to light the fire when I get home (6PM) and keep it going all night, then load up before I head off to work in the morning (6AM)...and repeat.
My setup is a Dutchwest 2477 with 15ft stack straight up. Temp gauge on stove top and a temp probe 18 inches up the stack.
Last nights fire went like this: Burned a mix of about 50/50 pallet wood and dry maple logs got a pretty decent bed of coals. During this time I closed up the stove and had what I think is secondary burn (wisps of blue flames dancing around out of nowhere etc...could be wrong about this tho) stove temp was 420 and stack temp was 600. When the coals were still pretty red I raked them to the back and loaded up with two 6+ inch splits and a 8 inch split for the night. I let the fresh logs get going for a while and then closed the thing up.
After a while both my temps dropped to 400 top and 450 stack. It looked to me like the fire was not doing so well so i opened the primary air control maybe 15% to heat things up a bit. About 2 hours later I was surprised to see that my logs were a decent pile of coals and were maybe 1 hour from being finished. Woke up this morning and everything was fully consumed.
My guess is that my burn time was 3.5 hours. Some things I think I can do better next time: use the side load door to fit more wood in the firebox, I bet I could have squeezed another log in there from the side door. Also I think maybe opening the air up was a mistake? I don't get the impression that the everburn mode was working when the stove was closed up for the night....fire seemed to smolder.
Wondering if someone with experience can offer advice, tips, etc. This forum is really amazing and has been super helpful in getting me going with my wood stove project...thanks all.
Chris
My setup is a Dutchwest 2477 with 15ft stack straight up. Temp gauge on stove top and a temp probe 18 inches up the stack.
Last nights fire went like this: Burned a mix of about 50/50 pallet wood and dry maple logs got a pretty decent bed of coals. During this time I closed up the stove and had what I think is secondary burn (wisps of blue flames dancing around out of nowhere etc...could be wrong about this tho) stove temp was 420 and stack temp was 600. When the coals were still pretty red I raked them to the back and loaded up with two 6+ inch splits and a 8 inch split for the night. I let the fresh logs get going for a while and then closed the thing up.
After a while both my temps dropped to 400 top and 450 stack. It looked to me like the fire was not doing so well so i opened the primary air control maybe 15% to heat things up a bit. About 2 hours later I was surprised to see that my logs were a decent pile of coals and were maybe 1 hour from being finished. Woke up this morning and everything was fully consumed.
My guess is that my burn time was 3.5 hours. Some things I think I can do better next time: use the side load door to fit more wood in the firebox, I bet I could have squeezed another log in there from the side door. Also I think maybe opening the air up was a mistake? I don't get the impression that the everburn mode was working when the stove was closed up for the night....fire seemed to smolder.
Wondering if someone with experience can offer advice, tips, etc. This forum is really amazing and has been super helpful in getting me going with my wood stove project...thanks all.
Chris
