I've been giving my stove a good workout the past few days; experimenting with loads , ns, ew, combinations etc My stove seems to prefer a ns load.
I inherited some wood when we bough the house but it was sized for the old VC acclaim, which burned e/w. I've got some spruce that I cut back in may that I cut short to load ns. I've checked with my MM , its below 20% moisture.
Last reload last night; I reloaded around 320 f stove top ( IR meter ) put 2 short splits of spruce ns, a piece of maple across the back to fill in the gap the spruce left and a few 3-4 in splits ew on top of the spruce. lots of air space.
Anyway all went well but my stove top went up around 715; not a huge deal; I cut the air down to about 1/4 open and it eventually cruised for an hour around 660 ish, great flames, great heat; but I know from the probe that I'm sending a ton of heat up the stack. AND I'm just chewing through wood
* edit* It was a bit windy yesterday.
I guess my long winded question(s) are
Did the spruce burn too quickly and bring the temps up ?
Should I reload on a cooler bed?
Shut the air down quicker?
My manual says best time/heat ratio occurs @ 550 f ( I assume stove top )
Appreciate any thoughts
I inherited some wood when we bough the house but it was sized for the old VC acclaim, which burned e/w. I've got some spruce that I cut back in may that I cut short to load ns. I've checked with my MM , its below 20% moisture.
Last reload last night; I reloaded around 320 f stove top ( IR meter ) put 2 short splits of spruce ns, a piece of maple across the back to fill in the gap the spruce left and a few 3-4 in splits ew on top of the spruce. lots of air space.
Anyway all went well but my stove top went up around 715; not a huge deal; I cut the air down to about 1/4 open and it eventually cruised for an hour around 660 ish, great flames, great heat; but I know from the probe that I'm sending a ton of heat up the stack. AND I'm just chewing through wood
* edit* It was a bit windy yesterday.
I guess my long winded question(s) are
Did the spruce burn too quickly and bring the temps up ?
Should I reload on a cooler bed?
Shut the air down quicker?
My manual says best time/heat ratio occurs @ 550 f ( I assume stove top )
Appreciate any thoughts