Vapor fire cold starts.

[Micdrew]

Hello everyone, I’m the new owner of kuuma vapor fire and I’ve been more then impressed with it so far, the weather here in Maryland has been pretty mild, this week for example the highs have been getting into the 50s and lows in the low to mid 30s. I’ve been firing up at night due to the lower temps, I load the stove to about. 3/4 full with maple around 9-10pm and by 6am the next morning I have enough coals to reload on typically around 4 maybe 5 splits of maple to get me through the morning, I then let the fire go out due to the fact that my house is holding the heat for so long with outside temps in the 50s. After the sun goes down I do a cold start, and do the same thing the following day i know it’s better to keep the thing humming but with these temps I’d cook us out of the house. Are all these cold starts bad for creosote build up? Are there any other issues I should be worried about with doing a cold start everyday until the temps drop?

 

[Bad LP]

I stopped burning weekends when I go up only because I feel the cold starts (from 65* water) was wasting too much wood. 3-4 full carts of wood to feed the boiler runs the insert for maybe 2 weekends in these milder temps.

 

[brenndatomu]

If your wood is dry then you shouldn't get creosote...you will get a little more soot and flyash in the HX and chimney though...that just means a mid season HX cleaning for me.
One thing you can try is once the fire is burnt down and the computer has been open on "3" for a while, then you can just shut it off until the next load...I find that to help there to be more of a chance of having some hot coals to load on next time.
The other thing is use your "lesser" firewoods in this weather...no sense using the higher BTU stuff in mild weather...heck I have been burning mostly Box Elder this year, and have a whole bunch more on deck for if the weather doesn't wanna act like winter...used a bunch of it last winter too...I wouldn't fool with it so much but I get paid to deal with these weed trees at work, might as well use 'em...it dries quick and burns hot n clean so...does tend to be twisty/gnarly wood though...

 

[trx250r87]

Hello everyone, I’m the new owner of kuuma vapor fire and I’ve been more then impressed with it so far, the weather here in Maryland has been pretty mild, this week for example the highs have been getting into the 50s and lows in the low to mid 30s. I’ve been firing up at night due to the lower temps, I load the stove to about. 3/4 full with maple around 9-10pm and by 6am the next morning I have enough coals to reload on typically around 4 maybe 5 splits of maple to get me through the morning, I then let the fire go out due to the fact that my house is holding the heat for so long with outside temps in the 50s. After the sun goes down I do a cold start, and do the same thing the following day i know it’s better to keep the thing humming but with these temps I’d cook us out of the house. Are all these cold starts bad for creosote build up? Are there any other issues I should be worried about with doing a cold start everyday until the temps drop?

I'm sure you're in the same boat as everyone else, burning partial loads and more cold starts this time of year. My guess is that there could be a slightly higher chance of creosote build up but as long as you are burning dry wood you should be OK.

Congrats on the new Cadillac!

Eric

 

[Micdrew]

If your wood is dry then you shouldn't get creosote...you will get a little more soot and flyash in the HX and chimney though...that just means a mid season HX cleaning for me.
One thing you can try is once the fire is burnt down and the computer has been open on "3" for a while, then you can just shut it off until the next load...I find that to help there to be more of a chance of having some hot coals to load on next time.
The other thing is use your "lesser" firewoods in this weather...no sense using the higher BTU stuff in mild weather...heck I have been burning mostly Box Elder this year, and have a whole bunch more on deck for if the weather doesn't wanna act like winter...used a bunch of it last winter too...I wouldn't fool with it so much but I get paid to deal with these weed trees at work, might as well use 'em...it dries quick and burns hot n clean so...does tend to be twisty/gnarly wood though...

Great, all I have is maple and oak but will be taking down 2 big poplars in the next few weeks so I’ll have that for next year.

 

[woodey]

Great, all I have is maple and oak but will be taking down 2 big poplars in the next few weeks so I’ll have that for next year.

I also have a few poplars I am going to drop this winter and have ready for next fall. I have no creosote issues with frequent cold starts with the Vapor Fire. Love oak but give it 2-3 years to dry.

 

[JRHAWK9]

Yeah, like others have stated, no worries about creosote. I do a ton of cold starts early and late in the heating season AND I am sending cold outside air up the chimney due to having an OAK attached to my barometric damper at all times. If there would be creosote to be had, I would definitely have it. Just wait till you open up your HX and see nothing but white flyash and see the same thing again when you go to clean your chimney. You may have some flaky soot in and around your BD, but that's about it.

This is what my chimney looked like after the very first year of burning. I also burned some 25-28% MC wood that year too! Now, granted, I did not do the amount of cold starts that first year that I do now seeing I didn't have things tweaked the way I do now.



This is what your HX will look like:



I let this morning's small 23lb load go out because it got up to 36° today outside. I just now did a matchless relight and loaded for the night as it's down to 18° outside and even though the house is 70°, with no heat coming out of the registers, it feels cooler than what it actually is. One gets used to that consistent, even heat coming out of the registers.

 

[Micdrew]

What’s the best way to clean that heat exchanger? Just a vacuum with a brush attachment?

 

[JRHAWK9]

What’s the best way to clean that heat exchanger? Just a vacuum with a brush attachment?

I have long skinny arms, so I just use a Scotch-Brite pad and wipe down all the surfaces inside of the HX with it, including all the tubes. When I do the deep clean at the end of the burning season I also remove my stovepipe and use the same Scotch-Brite pad and wipe down what I can through the collar at the back of the furnace. I then use the tool that came with the furnace to access what I could not get by hand, which is just on the back wall in between the tubes. Once I have everything wiped down I use a vacuum to suck up all the flyash you wiped off which has now fell down on the horizontal surfaces, both through the front access hole as well as through the collar at the rear. It's not hard to do, but it's definitely not as quick and easy as it is on the SBI furnaces.

 

[Micdrew]

I have long skinny arms, so I just use a Scotch-Brite pad and wipe down all the surfaces inside of the HX with it, including all the tubes. When I do the deep clean at the end of the burning season I also remove my stovepipe and use the same Scotch-Brite pad and wipe down what I can through the collar at the back of the furnace. I then use the tool that came with the furnace to access what I could not get by hand, which is just on the back wall in between the tubes. Once I have everything wiped down I use a vacuum to suck up all the flyash you wiped off which has now fell down on the horizontal surfaces, both through the front access hole as well as through the collar at the rear. It's not hard to do, but it's definitely not as quick and easy as it is on the SBI furnaces.

Long skinny arms? That makes two of us. Merry Christmas.

 

[brenndatomu]

I have long arms, but not so skinny...I actually really struggled to get in too much past my elbow with the factory HX access hole...so I enlarged it to be closer to the size that the newer models are...that helped a lot. (The cover is quite a bit larger than the hole on the older models (pre...2018-19 ish??) never could understand why it was made that way in the first place??? (cover a good bit larger than the hole)

definitely not as quick and easy as it is on the SBI furnaces.

Speaking from first hand experience...no doubt!
I was reminded of that again this week as I went to look at something for my sister on the SBI Tundra 1 furnace she has at her place...