Unattended burning

[michigan123]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I recently ordered a quadrafire 5100i insert to supplement my propane heating bill. I'm doing the install myself and am planning on doing it all the right way (all clearances met, full insulated ss liner, block off plate, etc.). I have been told from all of the dealers that these stoves are safe to leave unattended as long as it's installed correctly, you burn correctly, and you maintain a clean chimney. We'll I'm a worrier so I wanted to get the opinions of those who burn regularly. Does everyone feel safe throwing a few big pieces of oak in the firebox before they leave for work knowing that you might not be home for 8 hours?


One other unrelated question for those who have dealt with quad dealers in the past…

I ordered a quadra-fire 5100i from a dealer in SE Michigan 7 weeks ago. They originally told me that the insert would be shipped in 3 to 4 weeks and the last time I called them they got short with me for bugging them. The said to be patient and they will call me when it comes in. This is the first insert that I have purchased. Does it normally take this long for Quad to ship their units to their dealers, or does it sound like the dealer dragging his feet on this one?

 

[SlyFerret]

I'm planning to apply for my permit tomorrow morning to install my new stove. Once it's up, I'll be burning evenings and weekends for a while while I get the hang of the stoves operation and the way the burn cycles progress. Once I feel comfortable that I know what to expect, where to set the air control, and how to stack the logs, then I'll start looking at burning the stove when nobody is around. I'm not really a worrier, but I want to make sure I know how to operate my stove properly before I start letting it burn while nobody is around.

Lots of these folks around here burn 24/7. Once you know what you're doing, there shouldn't be a problem with it, as the dealer said, as long as it's installed properly.

-SF

 

[JimWalshin845]

We burn 24/7 and no worries, but we do clean the stove and flue regularly
and burn well seasoned wood.

As per waiting for your stove.... have you ever ordered a car that wasn't sitting on the lot?

It will also give you time to amend your hearth, line the flue and start collecting wood.

Welcome aboard!

 

[njtomatoguy]

I load up my stove and leave. I trust my stove more than I trust my furnace.

Bob

 

[begreen]

:question: :gulp: best that furnace looked at soon

 

[swestall]

Once the stove is in secondary burn, I leave and things are fine. I also sleep well overnight with the secondary burn going. As stated by others, you have to be use to it and know when you are burning clean and you have to routinely check your chimney..

 

[njtomatoguy]

Begreen-
I had it professionally rebuilt-runs like a champ and is completely safe now. The first few years in this house are another story. New burner, wireing to t-stat, gas control valve, shutoff valve, blower.
Now the furnace is in it's best operational mode. OFF . I only fire it up when it's very cold!!

 

[jbrown56]

Hi, I've been burning wood for 26 years, 24/7. After the kids went to school my wife went back to work and have always been comfortable leaving the stove running. You really have to just trust your equipment.

Jim

 

[kevin fitzsimmons]

Once the stove is in secondary burn, I leave and things are fine. I also sleep well overnight with the secondary burn going. As stated by others, you have to be use to it and know when you are burning clean and you have to routinely check your chimney..

So, based on my experience with neverburn, you can rarely leave the stove alone or sleep well at night. With he neverbrun i was putting on some serious miles between the front door and the vantage point to look at the stack. Man i love my new PE

 

[Gibbonboy]

Maybe someone could market the "stack cam", a wireless video camera that you could set up to watch your chimney, could put a 7" LCD monitor near the stove. I've considered doing just that to watch the temp on the furnace from my desk, without the trip downstairs (and back up).

 

[SlyFerret]

Radio Shack sells a little wireless surveillance camera for outdoor use that is fairly inexpensive. The receivers for them will actually support up to 4 different cameras. As long as you can get power to where you setup your camera, you can hook the receiver up to any TV and keep any eye on anything within 300 feet or so.

-SF

 

[woodconvert]

"We’ll I’m a worrier so I wanted to get the opinions of those who burn regularly. Does everyone feel safe throwing a few big pieces of oak in the firebox before they leave for work knowing that you might not be home for 8 hours?"

Been there. It takes time, learning the operating characteristics of the stove, knowing the fuel, how it burns, etc. It took me awhile but I don't even think about it anymore (well....if it's real cold I think about getting out of what i'm doing to go load it back up).

 

[Gibbonboy]

I have a wireless cam that I use for my driveway, don't have to get up and see if I want to answer the door. We have 25 network cameras at work, I can tap into them from work or home and see what's going on in my server rooms.

I lost more sleep with the old oil furnace that we had than with any solid-fuel stove we've had. The coal stoker took some getting used to. I grew up with wood heat, so once I got the knack of adjusting the burn properly, I sleep like a baby. A properly installed and maintained appliance, vented into a chimney with an insulated liner goes a long way toward peace of mind. Now it's just part of my routine in the morning- run down and open everything up when I first get up, get a coffee, then throw enough wood for the day on, depends on temp. Just before I'm ready to head out, I go down and adjust the draft and dampers down to the level I estimate will burn clean, and go. When I get home there's (usually) a nice bed of coals to stir and reload. During the evening I'll "play" if I'm home, which I think gets me more attuned to how my furnace burns in a given situation. Bedtime is more or less like the morning time, load, wait, turn down, go.

I still sometimes worry about forgetting to shutdown properly before I leave, but I haven't had my stove TOO hot yet!

 

[ansehnlich1]

Hey I packed my Jotul Oslo this morning at 5:30 am. My wife said it was cruisin' at 10:00 am without problem when she went to work. It's now 2:30 pm, and I'll be home around 4 pm. I know there'll be coals left in there, the stove will be between 100 and 200 degrees, I'll rake them coals around a bit, dump the ashes, and fire 'er up again.

No problem.

 

[harmerd]

With all this being said, keeping a check on the stack so that its clean, was what one person said. I am burning a Castine 400 straight up through a catherdal. I run it, once it hits secondary, in the 450-500 range as much as possible, then letting it run down to 250-300(as long as I get blue flames off the coals). Then I reload, open up damper, run it up to secondary, etc.

So how often during the season should the stack be checked if you keep things nice and hot?

 

[Cearbhaill]

I still sometimes worry about forgetting to shutdown properly before I leave, but I haven't had my stove TOO hot yet!

I was called away (I am caregiver to an invalid Mother In Law) right in the middle of my "wait" period this morning, and of course one thing led to another in dealing with her. By the time I finished and walked down the hallway I could smell "heat" coming up the basement stairs.
My 'front of the insert' thermometer was just past 800º- the highest it has ever been.

I kind of sort of knew from past experience that when I turn the air down all the way the temps continue to rise for a bit, so I didn't know whether to do that or to open the door and let the draft carry some of the heat away. I did a little of both and turned the fan on high and it came down, but those were an uneasy few minutes for me.

I read here somewhere that I need to know where my air inlets are so that I could cover them with foil in the event of an runaway fire, and I have searched my owners manual and still don't know how to do this.
If someone with PE Pacific knows could you please post the information?

I have no idea if 800+º is too high or not but my body certainly did not like that feeling- it felt definitely "not right".

 

[kevin fitzsimmons]

If the set up is the same as my pe super 27, the the primary's air inlet is at the from of the stove and can be accessed by removing a peice of sheet metal below the air control. When the air is at the lowest setting the primary air inlet is ~7/8 covered, the remainder can be covered with foil to shut down the primary air. the secondary air is at the back of the fire box, and is not as easily accessed. Tom posted some pics of the primary air control on a summit a while back. Same as the 27. All this said, i don't know if the inseat are anywhere near the same, or completely diff.

 

[swestall]

OH YEAH, my NEVERBURN..... It is a pain in the posterior to be sure. I now have it down to about 4 false starts and then I get the secondary burn engaged. Once I do, it stays there all night. But, I must admit to having some pretty late bed times since I got it. At this point, I am pretty much resigned to getting rid of it. The only question is whether or not I will go with a new unit, I like PE t.6, Hearthstone Equinox and Quad Isle Royale. Or, I might rebuild my old Defiant CAT stove which never gave me a problem. I've been keeping an eye on the creosote and burning a lot of hot fires to minimize it. I do continue to work with those folks on a VC solution to get the Neverburn togo toward a user friendly Everburn direction. BUT, I am not made of steel and am getting tired of constantly futzing with it.
So, overnight burn yes, but how long the night is will definately be determined by the reliability of the secondary burn mechanism. My wife likes the Equinox, I just need to figure out if it'll melt me out of the house! Anyone have any input on that question? The Defiant CAT was just right for this application. I am wondering if I run the Equinox at less than total output, if it will be great for me as well???

 

[Shipper50]

I too was nervous when I first started using a stove back in 88 and was always watching it to make sure it was OK. I just got used to it after a while and then burned 24/7 in the winter with no worries. You will get over the nervous part soon enough.

To comment on your other question, I would think if you were told 3-4 weeks and its been 7 then you have a right to call and ask. Also did you put any money down? I paid in full for my insert and install to save a few dollars and then got a call it would be another week due to scheduling problems. But next week they will be here.

I would tell the next guy you talk to, you belong to a board on the net and can bad mouth them to 100's of people and your money spends anywhere.

Shipper

 

[Chuck Pearson]

I bought a pre-fab fireplace from a dealer in Southeast Michigan (Jackson). The fireplace came close to when he had promised it but it was lacking a door and he just kept guessing and making up stories on when the door would arrive. After he blamed the delay on Hurricane Katrina, which had happened months prior, I gave up calling him and just waited.

 

[stick burner]

Had a Quad 5100i installed in the summer before the dealers got swamped with winter orders. Would hate to even call them now, right or wrong, they'd probably bite my head off. Have no fear of leaving my stove with a fire going. After a few burns and you get the basics down, you'll feel the same. It's a great stove and a joy to be around.

Stickburner

 

[glassmanjpf]

I have a Quad and didn't have any issues with the local dealer. Currently burning 24/7 and new to wood stoves (3 years). I must say I drove my co-workers crazy talking about the stove (still do) and was nervous about burning overnight. My solution I slept on the couch about 8 feet from the stove. Figured if the carbon monoxide, smoke detectors didn't go off and I didn't self combust all would be good. After a few weeks of that I was pretty comfortable. You'll be there soon.

 

[colsmith]

Since our stove is only about two years old and was installed professionally by people who knew what they were doing, we don't have any worries about unattended burning. Sometimes at night in bed I hear noises and worry briefly that something funny is going on with the stove. Then I remind myself that if the house was catching on fire I would smell smoke or something burning. I am wondering, though, how many years you have a stove before you start to worry that some part of it or the chimney will just plain wear out. I mean, they don't last forever, right?

 

[North of 60]

If the set up is the same as my pe super 27, the the primary's air inlet is at the from of the stove and can be accessed by removing a peice of sheet metal below the air control. When the air is at the lowest setting the primary air inlet is ~7/8 covered, the remainder can be covered with foil to shut down the primary air. the secondary air is at the back of the fire box, and is not as easily accessed. Tom posted some pics of the primary air control on a summit a while back. Same as the 27. All this said, i don't know if the inseat are anywhere near the same, or completely diff.

Hey Like the origional name. :coolhmm: The stoves gotta go though. :lol:
To answere the thread question. I load it set it and forget it.

 

[Lignums]

All the time dude, just look at the temp of the stove, how much wood you have in the stove, and you learn. Every night, weekend, 24/7.