Running with the door open......is it OK..?

[jkazak]

I am wondering if anyone else regularly opens the door on their stove to really let some heat out.

I've been doing it when it's super cold outside and the wood is just coals so as not to smoke up the house.

Then when it cools a bit re-load.

Is this OK...?

 

[velvetfoot]

I did that last night.

 

[Hickorynut]

I do that occasionally with my insert. When the coals are pretty deep and I need to clean the glass door also. Alot of heat comes out, sure wish the insert would blow out that much heat in the normal operation with the door closed and the fan going.

 

[bholler]

well I think you might actually be loosing more heat up the chimney than you are gaining from having the door open. if you do it when it is just coals I doubt you would over heat the stove or chimney but it could happen. I don't thinkit is a very good practice to do it all the time. for the reasons that hickory gave and occasionally i dont se an issue

 

[stoveguy2esw]

please read this!

as long as its monitored!

remember coals put off CO as well and they do not smoke, keep a watchful eye on this as it burns them down ,. make sure the flue doesn't reverse from cold air intrusion (remember when you open the door you give the flue a crapload of air, this will cool the flue (especially when its bitter cold outside) if flue temps drop too much you could start spilling CO into the room

its not called "the silent killer" for nothing!

lets be safe folks. the practice is ok as long as you wish to hang out and keep an eye on things, but BE THERE!

 

[bholler]

that is a very good thought to stove guy id didn't even think about that but it is a real possibility to

 

[Ashful]

Keep in mind that, while you're probably throwing some nice radiant heat into the room with the stove by having the door open, your requirement for make-up air is dramatically increased. So, you may be drawing more outside air into the house thru leaky doors and windows in far-off rooms, thus making those rooms much colder.

 

[eclecticcottage]

I am wondering if anyone else regularly opens the door on their stove to really let some heat out.

I've been doing it when it's super cold outside and the wood is just coals so as not to smoke up the house.

Then when it cools a bit re-load.

Is this OK...?

yup, for the same reason-burn down the coals faster in this freezing cold!

 

[stoveguy2esw]

that is a very good thought to stove guy id didn't even think about that but it is a real possibility to

when you do what I do for a living you think about the "hidden" things. my greatest fear is to not cover all the bases and have an injury happen as a result.

FIRE is not your friend. its a beast you harness to keep your family warm. don't turn your back on the beast, lest he get loose and cause harm. use fire, as its a wonderful tool, but respect fire as its also a wild thing unforgiving of those who do not use it safely! the highest percentage of those who are injured or killed by fire were because of their failure to use proper precautions or techniques in either burning or maintaining the appliance chosen and its flue system. its the single most important thing when it comes to harnessing the flame to supply heat.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Yes it feels good when you are close to it but when you burn with the door open you are in effect trying to burn like a fireplace and we know how inefficient those are because they suck so much of the house air into the fire and up the chimney. Stoves are designed to be burned with the doors closed and I see no need to try to change how it operates. This, of course is in addition to the warning that stoveguy2esw has given.

 

[velvetfoot]

Let me clarify my original post, I crack the door open to get more air to burn down the coals.

Theoretically, couldn't the draft reverse with the door closed as well? It's not like the smoke couldn't come out through the air intake with the door closed.

For me, the reality is that I've got the door cracked open to burn down the coals as quick as I can (which isn't that fast) so I can reload because it's cold outside, and I'm not gonna wait that long.

We also have boocoo co detectors.

 

[BurningBrutus]

Dont do it, well at least from my experience, let me tell you what happened to me. I wanted to burn down the coal as well so i can do a big reload. I have a fan in the room that i pointed to one side of my insert, door was open, i was hoping for a circulating affect were fan would blow to the left side and come back out to the right releasing heat into to room as well a burn down coals. well after a hour of doing this, my CO detector went off. I quickly opened all the doors in my house to let fresh air in, obviously closed my insert door. I feel this proves that co was released into my house. Thankfully no one was hurt lol I know the fan probably sped up the process, but im assuming after maybe 2 or 3 hours the same thing would have happened without the fan.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

Let me clarify my original post, I crack the door open to get more air to burn down the coals.

Theoretically, couldn't the draft reverse with the door closed as well? It's not like the smoke couldn't come out through the air intake with the door closed.

For me, the reality is that I've got the door cracked open to burn down the coals as quick as I can (which isn't that fast) so I can reload because it's cold outside, and I'm not gonna wait that long.

We also have boocoo co detectors.

hey bro, I wasn't intending to "bang on ya" I just used the discussion to make a point, cracking the door would be better than opening wide as it wouldn't overcome the flue in most any cases.

and yes theoretically the flue could reverse with a closed door , but its less likely as the amount of airflow is reduced so the heat retention in the air moving through would be higher so more heat would be available to the flue though at lesser volume (the paradigm would be different)

I just wanted to ensure that a practice which "could" be misinterpreted was carried out in a safe way.

BTW glad you mentioned CO detectors as they should be a "must have" as I said above , don't "trust" fire, respect it as you use it. take the precautions. don't become a statistic.

 

[WiscWoody]

The only time I crack the door open a fraction of a inch is to get a fire started or restarted and as soon as it can maintain itself I close it up. II have 22' of stack so i get a lot of draft when the door opens.

 

[Paulywalnut]

Where my stove vents to the stovepipe is in the top front of the stove. I wouldn't think much heat would come into the room.
My stove cranks some good heat with the door shut.

 

[velvetfoot]

It's the whole burning down the coals thing.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

when I was burning wood I used to take a rake that I had fashioned from a "grub hoe" to rake the larger coals forward then reach over those coals with the scoop to remove the ash and small coals from the firebox, dump them in my ash bucket seal it and take it out to its spot on the concrete outside. the "kept" coals were usually golf ball sized or bigger.

 

[PlayWithFire]

Does anyone have a technique (loading or burning), to minimize the coals? The temp drop once the flames are gone really 5uck5.

HI300