Update - cant get my wood stove insert above 300 degrees

[kflorence]

I am back with an update on my wood stove insert not heating up. The installer came yesterday ( 2 of them). I pretty much watched them the entire time. When they removed the surround there was a block off plate and insulation blanket is what they called it. This is all new to me so not sure what they looked like. The block off plate was 2 pieces, one on each side of the flue pipe. They just reached up, pull out the metal block of plates and pulled out the insulation. For some reason I would have thought the block off plates would be bolted on somehow. The insulation was in a few large peices (3-4), I guess together they consist of a blanket?! They installed the liner. I watched the clock and it took them about 1 1/2 hours total from start to finish. Again, the clock off plates were just put into place reaching up and fitting them in. lNow a few of their comments. When I asked the importance of a block off plate for air supply he said not really, the block off plate was really to protect the insulation from catching on fire. Not that the insulation would but just an extra protection. At this point I started to doubt his ability or if he was even aware of the importance of a correct install. Based on the comments from this site the block off plate is very important. I told him that with the surround in place I could feel a draft and if I put a match their the flame sucks in. How come? With the block off plate and insulation why would it do this? He said "Hmm". Not quite the answer I was looking for.

Now the other guy starts to light up the wood stove. As he was filling it with paper and kindling he made a comment that this was a "convection oven" and it really wont get high, high heat, maybe 350 degrees. I said this is a wood stove, not a convection oven that I am aware of. He said the heat circulates. I told him for 350 I would run the furnace, why even buy a wood stove. I said the manual even says optimum heat is 450 - 550. I showed him the stove thermometer and that would be not even in the range of optimum heat. Too close to creosote according to the manual. I got another "Hmm" from this guy. Within 20 minutes he got it up to 575 degrees and to say the least I was very happy. He was a little surprised though, clown! This was with just kindling though. He looked at my stack of wood from home depot and said it was not seasoned wood, it was too heavy. I read that weighing it was not enough though due to different woods. He did comment that the draft was much much better, very little smoke.

They left and I started to throw in the home depot wood and the temp started to drop to around 450 degrees. I took a ride over to my sister's home and got some of her wood for confirmation. She has seasoned wood from at least 2 years ago so I am 100% that it is seasoned. I tossed it in and it caught right away, beautiful full fire, big yellow flames. Temp was at 475 though. Was not able to get it back up to 575. All night. Not sure if it is because of the crappy wood from earlier. Napoleon emailed me a few days ago and said the optimum heat should be 450 -550, so I guess i am in the range. A little jealous that some of you can get 600-700.

Now my latest question. My ash bed is too big. Started the first fire at 2:30pm, by 8pm there was a good 5+ inches of ash so I am unable to put in more than 2-3 small logs in. Everyone says to get the heat it needs wood but I was unable to really stuff with wood for a nice heat because the ash bed was too high. 3 small logs and the wood it touching the top of the stove. How does everyone fill the stove at night for a slow burn with a bed full of ash. When I say ash I mean a full, glaring red bed of hot coals 5-6 inches deep. I thought the ash was suppose to burn off so you can keep putting in wood? I put the last log in at 10pm. This morning at 9am there was a little over 3 inches of ash. Still a little hot. I dont want to start a new fire until the ash cools off completely so I can remove it from the stove. If I leave in and start a fire I would think the ash bed would be extremely too high to get a suffient amount of wood in. Am I doing the operation correct? Is this normal for the ash bed?
Thank you.

 

[karri0n]

Glad to see you got your liner and everything has worked out! Unfortunately, it sounds like your installer is a noob sausage and doesn't know about the product he's installing


I'm not sure if your insert has an ash pan or not. From your description, it sounds like it does not. Some people really dislike the ash pan on their stove, but I love mine, so it's a matter of personal preference. Your best bet will be to wait until the fire dies down and is mostly ash, with some coals left over so you can get it started. The coals will be at the back of the firebox after a nice long burn. Sweep the ashes from the front into a dustpan/ash shovel, and put these in your ash bucket. You will want to put the ash bucket outside, because live coals can continue to emit carbon monoxide for days if they are surrounded by insulating ash. Then, use an ash rake/coal rake to sweep the coals forward and use these to start up the next load.

 

[begreen]

You are correct and did your homework well. The insulation should be kaowool and not combustible. The block off plate should be sealed with silicone around the edges and stove cemented around the flue pipe

Different wood will coal differently. It sounds like you might be reducing the air a bit too quickly and a bit too much once the fire is going good. It doesn't get shut all the way down on all stoves. Experiment a bit with burning and the air control partially open. If you end up with a large coal bed (not ash), open up the air all the way or at least 50% to burn it up. But throw on some more wood before it all turns to ash.

 

[bbeals]

kflorence,

I would suggest an ash bucket with a sealing lid, this will allow the ashes to cool quickly so you can empty the bucket and be ready for the next days emptying. I pull out about 3/4 of the ash every morning (doing my best to leave only the hot coals in the stove), then I put in some kindling with a couple of small splits and within 5 minutes, we are rolling again.

 

[labrador]

BI guy, My 550 does not seem to heat the way I expect it to. Do you have a block off plate at the bottom of the flue with insulation above that? Like others on the 550 thread, I have to open the door about 1" to get a good draft to start a really good fire using dry wood. I hope to do it myself, putting a piece of aluminum in the flue as a block off plate. Be Green- what is kaowool and where can I purchase it? Where and how is it installed? Thanks for a unbelievably informative website.

 

[80s Burnout]

Kflorence. You can probably use the poking tool to "bang" the coals apart and mash them down a bit to create more room for the wood. Give it a try.
Glad your temps are up. As per your other thread regarding where to get wood, try some BioBricks or Envi Blocks and I bet you hit 600 degrees.

 

[bbeals]

BI guy, My 550 does not seem to heat the way I expect it to. Do you have a block off plate at the bottom of the flue with insulation above that? Like others on the 550 thread, I have to open the door about 1" to get a good draft to start a really good fire using dry wood. I hope to do it myself, putting a piece of aluminum in the flue as a block off plate. Be Green- what is kaowool and where can I purchase it? Where and how is it installed? Thanks for a unbelievably informative website.

Hey Labrador,

No block off plate on our install. Contemplating putting one in and insulating liner, but I really do not have a draft or heat issue. It runs pretty steady between 500-550*, although I have seen it as high as 650* (makes me a bit nervous here and above though).

Do you have a full SS liner installed? Also, if you doubt your wood at all, try a bundle of that kiln dried stuff you can get at HD or Lowes.

 

[labrador]

BI guy, I have a ss flex liner 15 feet to top of the chimney. I may try to install a block off plate in half of the flue where the damper is. Temperature seems to run 300-400 degrees. I do have 2 year old wood that burns very well in my other stove a VC vigilant. Thanks for the help , hope I can resolve the problem.

 

[Jay777]

That sounds like too much ash to me. Though I'm a noob at this. I burned for about 48 hours straight over the weekend (not full the whole time, obviously), and it added about an inch of ash.. maybe an inch and a half. Certainly not five inches.. that would be covering part of the door! What could make so much ash?

Also, my limited experience says that big yellow flames aren't where you get maximum heat.. I got a secondary burn going for the first time (yay!) by putting five splits on top of a large coal bed, and then closing off the damper. The temp went up by about 100 degrees in short order, to about 400 on my stovetop thermometer (previous record about 325, and not for very long). I just left it like that overnight (with the damper closed), and 7 hours later there were still a few glowing coals to start the next fire.

 

[kflorence]

That sounds like too much ash to me. Though I'm a noob at this. I burned for about 48 hours straight over the weekend (not full the whole time, obviously), and it added about an inch of ash.. maybe an inch and a half. Certainly not five inches.. that would be covering part of the door! What could make so much ash?

Also, my limited experience says that big yellow flames aren't where you get maximum heat.. I got a secondary burn going for the first time (yay!) by putting five splits on top of a large coal bed, and then closing off the damper. The temp went up by about 100 degrees in short order, to about 400 on my stovetop thermometer (previous record about 325, and not for very long). I just left it like that overnight (with the damper closed), and 7 hours later there were still a few glowing coals to start the next fire.

I agree with you about the ash. If you open the door the hot coals just starts to tumble out the door. It seems like way too much. Can barely fit in 2-3 small splits. No way would large logs stuffed in would fit in. I know at this point it is the user (me & husband) trying to keep the temp up. We trough a few small logs in, get to a nice fire, want to damper down but the temp is around 375-400. If I damper down too much will drop to 300 again. I think I need to just learn the stop and its quirks to get it to burn just right. No sure what secondary burn is but will figure it out.

 

[Dix]

K, think about letting the coals burn down, and "shrinking" to ash, then starting from some coals *Note - at this point your house keeping skills can come in, and when the ash is there instead of coals, clean some out ;-) - End Note*

 

[bokehman]

my limited experience says that big yellow flames aren't where you get maximum heat.

Yellow flames are completely normal. What colour were you expecting?

 

[jjhof0306]

Kflorence - I'm dealing with the same thing right now. We've been burning very aggressively the last two days trying to keep the house warm. We've built up quite a bed of coals in the stove. So, now I have the air open all the way and am burning one small dry split at a time. I rake a bunch of coals forward, throw on the split and close the door. It flames up very well, and keeps the draft strong so the coals will burn down a bit faster. I'm using small oak splits. I've learned here that softwoods, like pine, do an even better job because they burn hot and burn down to ash very quickly.

BTW, now that it's warmed up a bit outside (I'm in NH, too), just burning these small splits on the monster coal bed has the house up to 75*.

You'll find that once you get that coal bed down to a reasonable level, the stove will heat better because you can load more fuel to it.

I'm glad to hear it's a coal bed that's keeping your temps down - much easier to deal with than an improperly lined chimney!

BTW, the coal bed gets big for a couple of reasons. In our case, we've been keeping the stove stoked up to try to keep this very poorly insulated house warm. I've also noticed that if the wood is a bit wet, it burns slower and there are more coals. You'll hear the gospel of perfectly seasoned wood preached a lot here, and there is a lot of truth to it. But the reality is we don't all have perfectly seasoned wood, but we can keep ourselves reasonably warm, it just takes a bit more work and a good eye on the chimney to keep it clean!

Take care!

:coolsmile:

 

[gpcollen1]

oooooooooo it is soo apparent that nobody read s or searches a thing - that is so frustrating with the wealth of info already out here....

Oh help me, help me please....

sorry..long day...but seriously folks...cmon...

 

[jjhof0306]

oooooooooo it is soo apparent that nobody read s or searches a thing - that is so frustrating with the wealth of info already out here....

Oh help me, help me please....

sorry..long day...but seriously folks...cmon...

Present company clearly included, since this thread is a follow-up to a rather lengthy exchange from last week.

You're not required to respond. :coolmad:

 

[bbeals]

oooooooooo it is soo apparent that nobody read s or searches a thing - that is so frustrating with the wealth of info already out here....

Oh help me, help me please....

sorry..long day...but seriously folks...cmon...

If everything were searched it would be a knowledge base and not a forum. Most (me included) have questions and most (me included) enjoy helping out, even if the information is already available by searching. Besides, the next best thing to burning is hanging out on the heart.com.

 

[stovetechri]

a block off is used to contain a fire in a chimney or between floors from oxygen. im pretty sure

 

[kflorence]

Thanks for the info. We are getting use to this wonderful stove. Got the temp up 575 degrees, very warm. Working on the high volume of coals but very happy. Just need time to master the stove. Thank you for all your input once again. Sorry to the person who is frustrated with me asking questions. Last week this forum was very helpful, so I thought a few more questions would not hurt. I am sorry but I dont have the time to navigate this entire web site to find my answers. People seemed to really enjoy giving helpful recommendations. And I very much enjoy reading so many, sometimes different responses.

 

[kflorence]

Kflorence - I'm dealing with the same thing right now. We've been burning very aggressively the last two days trying to keep the house warm. We've built up quite a bed of coals in the stove. So, now I have the air open all the way and am burning one small dry split at a time. I rake a bunch of coals forward, throw on the split and close the door. It flames up very well, and keeps the draft strong so the coals will burn down a bit faster. I'm using small oak splits. I've learned here that softwoods, like pine, do an even better job because they burn hot and burn down to ash very quickly.

BTW, now that it's warmed up a bit outside (I'm in NH, too), just burning these small splits on the monster coal bed has the house up to 75*.

You'll find that once you get that coal bed down to a reasonable level, the stove will heat better because you can load more fuel to it.

I'm glad to hear it's a coal bed that's keeping your temps down - much easier to deal with than an improperly lined chimney!

BTW, the coal bed gets big for a couple of reasons. In our case, we've been keeping the stove stoked up to try to keep this very poorly insulated house warm. I've also noticed that if the wood is a bit wet, it burns slower and there are more coals. You'll hear the gospel of perfectly seasoned wood preached a lot here, and there is a lot of truth to it. But the reality is we don't all have perfectly seasoned wood, but we can keep ourselves reasonably warm, it just takes a bit more work and a good eye on the chimney to keep it clean!

Take care!

Thank you. I was hoping I was not the only one. We are getting the hang of it now, burning at 575, a little to much hot coals for my liking but in time will figure it all out. You take care as well.

:coolsmile:

 

[allhandsworking]

There is a difference between ash and coals. A dep bed of coals puts out a good amount of heat let it burn down some before adding wood! You will burn more efficently this way.

 

[BrotherBart]

Bet they figured that out since last December.