Secondary burn times?

[bfunk13]

I've been getting some good secondary burns the last few nights.
I can keep the secondary going for about 15-20 minutes.
This is a full burn covering most of the top half of stove.
I can get a couple hours with a small burn but just a small flicker at the top of the stove.
What kind of times do you guys get out of a secondary?
I am not burning a full load yet, i suppose that has something to do with burn times?
Sure is cool to watch though!

Thanks Brad

 

[fishinpa]

I'm still a newb myself but I hope that once I have FULLY seasoned wood I'd get 5 to 7 hrs of gasification.

I'll watch for more posts on this one to tell me if my 'hopes' are ridiculous or not.

 

[BrotherBart]

I'm still a newb myself but I hope that once I have FULLY seasoned wood I'd get 5 to 7 hrs of gasification.

I'll watch for more posts on this one to tell me if my 'hopes' are ridiculous or not.

Ain't gonna happen. The escaping volatile gases part of the show is a third of the burn cycle at the very best. If that explosive light show goes on for more than thirty minutes I start to worry that I dropped my butane lighter in the stove when I lit the kindling.

Gentle rolling blue flames on top for hour after hour is wood burning nirvana.

 

[cmonSTART]

My best guess is somewhere between 4 and 7 hours for me. Honestly I don't know for sure because I'm always gone or asleep when I'm doing a long burn. My short and hot burns I'll go 3 to 4 hours on a small load.

 

[North of 60]

I've been getting some good secondary burns the last few nights.
I can keep the secondary going for about 15-20 minutes.
This is a full burn covering most of the top half of stove.
I can get a couple hours with a small burn but just a small flicker at the top of the stove.
What kind of times do you guys get out of a secondary?
I am not burning a full load yet, i suppose that has something to do with burn times?
Sure is cool to watch though!

Thanks Brad

Brad you have secondaries all the time once your cat is lit. They are happening inside your cat burning up your smoke. Thats why it glows after the fist part of a load on your turndown as thats when the most smoke is created causing your stove temp to go up for the first few hours until it stabilizes. You will se secondaries as mentioned when your stat is set in the 1.5-2 range setting. Or a real good roll from wide open to 1.5 setting. This is because your cat is so hot at this time along with the metal from your stove top to precombust before it goes through the cat. Non cats EPA have actual burn tubes that supply that secondary air for that light show. If you look up inside your stove you will see your preheat tubes upper left and right made out of 2.5" pipe. Thats what is super heating your combustion air that feeds the cat for the secondaries when set @ minimum and feeds the lower portion of your stove on higher settings. Our stoves will not do what most others talk about as they require hotter stove top temps to achieve this to get a cleaner burn. We can run at a lower temp as the cat is igniting the smoke for us at a lower temp, thus the clean longer burn cycle with less heat being produced. Hope this helps.
N of 60

 

[bfunk13]

Thanks North!
Yes it did help alot. I should have mentioned in original post about running a CAT.
I guess i didn't realize non cat stoves produced secondary burns.
Shows what i know. It makes sence what you said about pre combustion.
I never thought of it that way.
Still love the stove, and am having fun with it.

Thanks again for the help.
Brad

 

[John_M]

bfunk,

When reading my Pacific Energy manual about 6 months ago I believe there was a statement indicating that under perfect conditions one might expect a secondary burn to be visible for about 1/3 of the total burn time. This reinforces BB's statement.

Seldom do I spend much time in front of the stove watching the burn so I have no idea how long this wonderful process lasts.

John_M

 

[begreen]

As noted above, I see the same. It also varies a lot with the density of the wood being burned, the quantity and how tightly packed the stove is. With loose packed alder we might get a bit more than an hour secondary burning. With locust, it could be well over two hours and will be distinctly blue. Looks like gas flames.