stove does not seem to damper

[acesover]

i loaded my stove (napoleon 1400) up tonight north south with alot of wood on a nice bed of coals. then i damped it down once it got going alittle no its still damped all the way and the fires roaring. the stove top temp went to 750 so i wanted to check the temp uper right corner and the temp there is 500. manual says best is between 500-600 do not exceed 700. do you thingk im overfiring what should i do? i heard stoves with ash pans let some air in that effects the damper. what do you guys thingk could there be something wrong with the stove? how do i stop a run away fire?

 

[Nic36]

My stove has an ash pan and an ash dump chute that is recessed into the stove floor. I have cleaned all the ashes from the stove twice and have noticed both times that I am much less able to damper down and control the stove when I have done this. I don't know how yours is set up, but I plan to leave some ashes packed down in the ash chute. I think this will at least stop excess air from coming in that way.

I'll probably leave more ashes in the pan too. This should maybe help some as well.

 

[begreen]

It could be you are just experiencing a strong secondary combustion after loading dry wood on a hot coal bed. Modern stoves don't cut off the air supply 100%. FWIW, I think you are ok. Napoleon stoves like to burn hot from what I've read here. 750, while exciting, is not overfiring. The next time, let the coal bed burn down further before reloading. The use larger splits perhaps? Or try loading E/W for a longer burn.

But to be sure, check the door and ashpan door gaskets with the dollar bill test.

 

[acesover]

thanks for the fast response guys stove has calmed down and is burning nicely but it definetly felt like it was outof control before.

 

[begreen]

I think you were seeing a secondary burn spike. Next time try using larger splits for the reload and maybe closing the air supply down a few minutes earlier

Now relax. Wood burning is an art and you have made an important step grasshopper. It takes time to learn a new stove and it's burning characteristics + the wood's own burning characteristics. By the end of winter you'll be a new pro.