old airtight

[brokeburner]

If i pack my old school stove chock full of wood let it charr bout 15 minutes then shut it down to where it wont overfire. It has a ton of smoke comin outof the chimney. Is that something you should expect in an old pre epa stove. If i dont choke it down that much it will overfire. IM burnin dry white oak tops half split half 6-8 inch rounds. Cleaned my chimney yesterday bout one gallon of fluffy creosote no glaze. Just tryin to get halfway decent burn times out of it get bout 4-6 hours and get a relight.

 

[brokeburner]

Wy cant you fill it more that 2/3. im tryin to get a pic on here give me an hour

 

[Todd]

What stove? What do you consider an overfire temp? Maybe a pipe damper would help, you could give it more air for a cleaner burn and slow the draft down some on the pipe?

 

[brokeburner]

I consider overfire over 750 stove top temp. I do have a damper built in to stove i use damper and intake in tandem damper never more than half closed.

 

[Todd]

Once she starts to glow dull red somewhere that's considered an overfire, and I think steel will start to glow at over 900? So you might have a little room to play with there. Maybe try closing that damper more than 1/2 and give it more air?

 

[bsruther]

I have a sealed non-EPA Buck stove and when I load it up, it takes me about 45 minutes of tweaking the air flow before I can leave it alone. If I shut the air flow down too quickly, I get constant smoke belch until the load is burned up. I get a good char on the wood and then start shutting the air down starting at half closed and closing it a little every 15 mins or so until it's completely closed. I rarely mess with the damper.
At the beginning of the burn season, I had to run outside a lot and look at the chimney until I figured out what worked for me.

 

[jabush]

It would help to know the make/model of your stove as far as advice on efficient burning, but the bottom line is that the old "Classics" will smoke when you load them up like that. I reserve the "packed to the gills" firebox for the overnight burn. You have to prepare for it...build the coal bed throughout the evening so that when you load her up, the firebox is good and HOT. Bring the load up to temp slowly without opening the air all the way. With my stove, I let the stack temp creep up to around 800 degrees or so while backing the air down(to maintain this temp). After 20-30 minutes, the stovetop is approaching 700 degrees and I go ahead and close my bottom two air regulators and open the top regulator 1.5 turns. The stovetop temp continues to rise a little and the stack temp slowly falls to the 400 degree range and hangs there. At this point I'm getting some secondary burn but it's not complete and the stove is smoking. It's also producing a hell of a lot of heat That's about as good as I can do. I know I'm putting some smoke into the air but frankly...I'd rather it go out the top of the chimney than build up inside. The key is keeping the stack temps up so the smoke won't condense.
FWIW...I brush my stack every 6-8 weeks during the burning season. I also use a scoop of Rutland Creosote Remover (on a hot coal bed) once per week. This helps dry out the buildup and everything "sweeps" right out. My liner looks brand new after I sweep.

If i pack my old school stove chock full of wood let it charr bout 15 minutes then shut it down to where it wont overfire. It has a ton of smoke comin outof the chimney. Is that something you should expect in an old pre epa stove. If i dont choke it down that much it will overfire. IM burnin dry white oak tops half split half 6-8 inch rounds. Cleaned my chimney yesterday bout one gallon of fluffy creosote no glaze. Just tryin to get halfway decent burn times out of it get bout 4-6 hours and get a relight.

 

[brokeburner]

Yeah that sounds about right if you kill it to soon or all at once it will smolder till coals non epa stoves still get secondary burn right just not like epa stoves because the fire eats up all the oxygen is this right. Oh yeah i have a oooollldd better n bens insert its more like a hearth stove though cause nothins in the fireplace except the pipe it bolts right to a huge cover plate

 

[brokeburner]

How old is your buck

 

[bsruther]

How old is your buck

I love my old buck, it came with the house. I had to take it out this past summer and redo the flue connection and install a block off plate, but it's a great stove. I wish there was a was a way I could put secondary burn tubes in it to get more out of my wood.
It's 6* outside right now and it's 75* in the kitchen.

 

[brokeburner]

Im about to try and retrofit some secondary burn tubes in my old insert i have plenty of stainless tubing available so well see what happens