taking hearthstone heritage to 500

[begreen]

Hello begreen, I have always run up to about 950 degrees my first morning fire flu temp with a probe, to try to clean out anything from the p.m. burn. Hearthstone Equinox. I'm not worried about chimney fire I have a stainless steel liner insulated inside a 12-inch tile masonry chimney. Do you think that that's too hot and I am causing problems with my liner? my chimney is cleaned by me once per year and it's looking great but I sure don't want to be harming my liner. I've had this stove setup for about 5 years. thank you for all your experience
View attachment 235950

Other than a bit of a waste of fuel it's not harmful for a short spell, though I would take it down quite a bit, especially if the chimney liner is staying clean. The last sweep I took out well under a cup of dusty soot and that is running with a cooler peak flue temp. As long as the wood is well seasoned, try taking the flue temp up to 6-700F max and see how the chimney looks. If it stays clean then there is no reason to go hotter.

 

[orlkc]

I did manage to measure the draft. Not sure I had the setup right, but I read -0.12"wc with the flue around 600dF on a warm day (40 something outside at the time) with no wind. Measured about 18" above the stove (not sure where I should be measuring). I see that Hearthstone calls for between -0.06" and -0.10". Total chimney height of 16 or 17 feet, with straight up double wall then class a.

 

[orlkc]

I installed a flue damper, and that along with closing down the primary air sooner and in more steps definitely helped. Now I see max flue temps in the 600-750 range depending on how full the stove is. Seems as though the right order is to wait until the flue is fully up to temp before starting to close the flue damper, by which point the primary air level is already almost fully closed.

I did discover a bunch of gouges in the bottom of the baffle, though no holes or cracks yet. Time to have a spare on hand I guess for when I inevitably whack it again.

Returning to the original thread topic: I haven't seen stove top temperatures at 500 since installing the damper. 400-450 is more common, but that's plenty high to keep the stove side of the house warm.

 

[begreen]

Good to hear there is some progress. Try adding a couple 2x4x 16" cut offs to the next fire to see if that also helps.

 

[Fred Bear]

400 stove top 330 18 inches up . Fire has been going all night and day. Does this seem normal or would I benefit from a flue damper?

 

[Highbeam]

400 stove top 330 18 inches up . Fire has been going all night and day. Does this seem normal or would I benefit from a flue damper?

330 on the surface of single wall?

 

[begreen]

330 on the surface of single wall?

Single wall surface temps, so about 600F flue gas temp. That would be high for our stove with a 400F stove top, but for the Heritage?

 

[Highbeam]

Single wall surface temps, so about 600F flue gas temp. That would be high for our stove with a 400F stove top, but for the Heritage?

600 internal is right below the middle of the "normal range" on a condar flue gas meter and is where my old heritage would cruise after warm up with the air fully shut off and stove top temps of almost 500. So flue temps aren't odd but the stove top should be warmer. It does take hours to get the stove temp up.

It's become a pet peave of mine when people don't specify how they're measuring flue temperature. Not Fred's fault, it's common to forget, but it really does matter.

 

[begreen]

That's helpful to have a comparison to your temps. Yes it is important to know the thermometer type. He said he had single wall pipe earlier in the thread. Measuring with an IR meter I think.

 

[Fred Bear]

yes single wall and measuring with an IR thermometer. I'm trying to figure out if I am loosing to much heat up my flue and if I would benefit from a flue damper. Really have to work to get the stove top to 400 not to bad but it's not easy. Bottom air is closed maybe a 75-80%. Good dry wood.

 

[orlkc]

I see the highest temperatures when I have the primary air stepped down to eventually either fully closed or just 1/8 of an inch open, but that's true whether I have the flue damper fully open or not. I do need a warm reload rather than a cold reload to get up to the 450 stove top temperatures given how long it takes to warm up. I still have not yet tried the 2x4 suggestion that begreen made a while ago.