smoke, burning hot

[jimgee01]

bought a new isle royale in november. have had a few small fires with no problems. winter finally arrived in the foothills of CO, so stoked it up a notch. the fire really took off. checked everything and found ash catcher door not sealed. was able to control nicely after that through the day. reloaded at 4 to 5 hour intervals. last night i loaded up with 4" pine and big chunks of elm for the overnight run. about midnight (not a new year's partier) was awakened by smoke smell. when i got up, the thing was running at 750-ish. i thought this was excessive and freaked. i now find out that the IR will handle 700+ but it is still disconcerting to me, particularly when the controls were shut DOWN, all day, all night. and where was the smoke coming from?

i actually sprayed it with water from a misting bottle to get it to slow down. that worked and it burned ok for the rest of the night. it's working ok now, but with a small load.

heating 1800 square feet, 20 feet of double walled flue, professionally installed, should be great but i'm not happy with it today. did get to see in the new year for the first time in a decade, but the sobering effect of watching it come in while sweating the heat and the smoke was hardly a party.

please comment, particularly on the smoke issue.

j

 

[oldspark]

Was it just the smell of a stove hitting 750 for the first time, if so no biggy, some times my summit takes off after I think it has settled in but usually it is not a problem as far as getting too hot.

 

[leeave96]

Sounds to me like you hit the majic temperature to get some paint smell/smoke.

I don't have a secondary burn tube stove like you, but from what I read, sometimes if you cut the primary air back to much, your secondary air can make the stovetop climb pretty high.

Perhaps some of the IR folks can chime-in & while you are waiting, there is a ton of posts on the IR - a great stove.

Good luck,
Bill

 

[jimgee01]

might have been paint, finish smell but sure seemed like wood to me. it was the first time it hit 700+. what concerns me is that shutting it down doesn't shut it down. i've heated with wood for 2+ decades and with some not too fancy stoves, but closing down the air supply always cooled the fire. dont really know about 2ndary air vs primary air. shouldn't i be able to bring the temp down from 700? problem is, the air was at its lowest setting from the get-go.

 

[fallsfire36]

How clean is your flue? Is it new too? Smoke smell is usually the result from a blockage. If you had any kind of chimney fire (regardless of how small)...it could definitely heat things up too. Just a thought.

 

[jeff_t]

There is no adjustment to the secondary air. It's that way because the EPA says so. You start with the primary air open, and as the stove gets up to temp, you back the primary down incrementally and it starts pulling in air thru the secondary inlet to start burning off gases at the top of the burn chamber that would otherwise go up the chimney. There is also a limit as to how far you can shut down primary air, so you can't choke the fire too much. That is how the stove is designed, to pass EPA testing.

If that was your first big load in the stove, maybe you should do it again while you're up, so you can watch what is going on. Sounds like it was behaving like it should, except for the smoke smell. I don't know what QF says is overfire temp, but 750 doesn't sound too far out there to me. Gonna take some time to learn how it works.

 

[jimgee01]

very elucidating, jeff. now i know how and why. question is, do i want to live with it. not my idea of a good situation. that fire was out of control, really. i don't want a 750+ behemothe in my living room while i'm trying to sleep. to me, it's dangerous. as for the flue, it is not new but was cleaned just prior to the ir installation. don't think there was a chimney fire. really appreciate all the responses. i'm learning a lot.

j

 

[maxed_out]

jim, could you tell us a little more about how you handle the controls? I have been burning the same stove since about november as well and have no trouble with regulating flammage and heat. Something may be afoot if you get too much air.

 

[begreen]

The smell was most likely paint baking and dust burning off. When a fresh charge of easily ignitable wood it added to hot coals, it will outgas rapidly. The stove is doing its job by burning off this excess wood gas before it hits the flue. It can take it, really.

To avoid higher temps, use large splits, turn down the air sooner and be sure to let the coals burn down before reloading.

 

[jimgee01]

start fire with both controllers wide open. close starter control after 10 or 15 minutes. close down secondary more than half. last night, put in a load of wood on strong coals so that the fire would last all night, secondary control 90% closed. everything seemed to be going fine but in an hour or 75 minutes, the fire was roaring, really hot and what smelled like wood smoke was in the air, woke up my lady who woke me up. the secondary control was practically all the way shut. today, cleaned the firebox, emptied that ash catcher (it was not full) and the fire has behaved ever since. tonight, i'm not loading it up but will add more often. do not have larger splits. am using smaller trees cut for forest fire abatement. mostly pine, real dry, last year's batch so it is pretty volatile. also have some good chunks of elm, very dry, that i'll be using tonight. have house guests. hope it doesn't smoke tonight.

j

 

[begreen]

I wonder if the ash pan door was not closing tightly due to a piece of charcoal in the gasket? Tonight, let the coals burn down some more before reloading. Let the wood get burning good then close down the air control all the way.

 

[fallsfire36]

I agree with BeGreen too. if you don't get a good gasket seal on the door, the stove can definitely get away from you becuase you are not regulating all the air intake.

 

[jimgee01]

i definitely had the door problem the day before, but i closed it and latched it properly and it worked ok during the day after that. i cleaned out the firebox and the ash container yesterday morning and the thing has worked fine all day today. i have put in much less fuel and run the thing really cool, 300-350, today. it's running around 500 now with a single pretty big split. that's all good and well, but i want to load it up at night so i won't have to get up 2 or 3 times during the night. right now, i don't trust it not to go wild with an overnight load of wood. the other stoves i have owned did not cause this problem. i loaded 'em up and went to bed. when i got up the next morning, i had enough coals to re-start. for now, i'm gonna feed it when it needs it. i have to get up and go pee anyway.

j

 

[northwinds]

i definitely had the door problem the day before, but i closed it and latched it properly and it worked ok during the day after that. i cleaned out the firebox and the ash container yesterday morning and the thing has worked fine all day today. i have put in much less fuel and run the thing really cool, 300-350, today. it's running around 500 now with a single pretty big split. that's all good and well, but i want to load it up at night so i won't have to get up 2 or 3 times during the night. right now, i don't trust it not to go wild with an overnight load of wood. the other stoves i have owned did not cause this problem. i loaded 'em up and went to bed. when i got up the next morning, i had enough coals to re-start. for now, i'm gonna feed it when it needs it. i have to get up and go pee anyway.

j

The Isle Royale is also a stove that you can load up, stabilize, and then go to bed, but there is a learning curve. BG had
good advice when he said: "To avoid higher temps, use large splits, turn down the air sooner and be sure to let the coals
burn down before reloading." Raking the remaining coals to a single line in the front will cause your next load to burn from
the front to back instead of immediately involving the entire wood load.

During current weather in the teens and twenties, I'm running three large loads a day in 24 hours. Cruising temps at 600 to
650, eight hour cycles. I start turning the air down at 500 to 550 and move to 2/3 closed. At 625, I move to 80-90%
closed, and I'm stable.

I have noticed a difference with softwood. Temps rise faster, but I just move to turn the air a little earlier and can turn it
further down.

 

[maxed_out]

Jim, how you doing with this now?

The only way I can duplicate your deal is to leave something open...ashpan or front door. My guess I'd think you might have had a really sappy piece of wood or some type of door slightly ajar. Since you posted this I've tried to get mine to runaway but cannot unless I open something up. Hows all the gaskets?

Please let us know.