Secondary burns. What is the best way to get this to happen? Adjust the air or what? I have a Hearthstone Mansfield. Thanks for the input.
secondary burns
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Put dry wood in stove. Get it up to five hundred to five hundred and fifty stove top temperature" Lower the intake air to around 25% and pray that the temp doesn't head for the moon.
Now, the real story. Secondary combustion is occurring in the stove through most of the burn. Even without stuff looking like natural gas fires blowing out of the burn tubes in a non-cat stove the flames licking up at the baffle are mixing with the secondary air to ignite stray gases that didn't burn down at the wood.
To elaborate a little bit...
The stove temperature will need to be high enough to support secondary combustion, on my stove this doesn't start until the stove top temp is at least 350.
If you don't have seasoned wood, it will be harder to get the fire going, and the firebox temp high enough for the secondaries to kick on. With green wood, secondaries usually aren't stable. At least, they aren't in my stove with poor quality fuel.
The other trick is to adjust the air. Because of the way my stove works (and I imagine this is true for just about any non-cat EPA stove), as the air is cut back, it changes the way the air flows through the stove. When the air lever is cut back to half, the secondaries actually burn stronger than when the air is wide open. This is because the stove is designed to deliver air to the right places when the lever is pushed in and the air is cut back.
I try to adjust the air for a good balance, with some flames down on the wood itself, and good strong secondaries above. For me, this means nice dancing rolling clouds of fire in the top of the firebox.
I've used my stove enough now to have a good feel for where the air should be and how hot the stove should be at each stage. The more you use the stove, the more you get used to it.
Hope this helps!
-SF
The stove temperature will need to be high enough to support secondary combustion, on my stove this doesn't start until the stove top temp is at least 350.
If you don't have seasoned wood, it will be harder to get the fire going, and the firebox temp high enough for the secondaries to kick on. With green wood, secondaries usually aren't stable. At least, they aren't in my stove with poor quality fuel.
The other trick is to adjust the air. Because of the way my stove works (and I imagine this is true for just about any non-cat EPA stove), as the air is cut back, it changes the way the air flows through the stove. When the air lever is cut back to half, the secondaries actually burn stronger than when the air is wide open. This is because the stove is designed to deliver air to the right places when the lever is pushed in and the air is cut back.
I try to adjust the air for a good balance, with some flames down on the wood itself, and good strong secondaries above. For me, this means nice dancing rolling clouds of fire in the top of the firebox.
I've used my stove enough now to have a good feel for where the air should be and how hot the stove should be at each stage. The more you use the stove, the more you get used to it.
Hope this helps!
-SF
BURNER21 said:
Secondary burns on our Lopi work the best when the stove top temps are above 400 with a good bed of coals and closing down the air to the sweet spot.
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