I am still new to wood burning. I had a post on here last april-ish about my wood stove getting to hot with a small amount of wood. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/new-vc-encore-and-new-to-wood-burning.187047/ . Since then over the summer the company that installed it came out and fixed it. I had found out that the air door on the back side of the stove was stuck open. They said that the cable for the thermostat was pinched upon installation. It was new stove. So fast forward to yesterday. I fired it up since it was 35 and I wanted to get familiar with it more since I only burned it 2 or 3 times. Yesterday I got a fire going and got a coal bed and the stove top thermometer got to 350-400 no hotter. Thermostat was on high. The cat was not installed. It seemed like I had a hard time keeping the fire going once I shut the damper. It was like this for about 5 to 6 hours. Every time I go to close the damper it would snuff out the fire. Flames would die down, soot on the glass, temp would drop. I open the damper and it would fire back up. I was burning oak and cherry that ranged from 12-18% moisture. 12 to 15 inch long 4-5 wide and split. Does that seem normal?
Today I put the cat in. Got a fire going, established a coal bed, brought it up to 500F and let it stabilized for 20 minutes. Closed the damper, thermostat on high for about 20 minutes then down to half then to about one third. It ran great for a few hours. Stable stove top temps of about 450-500F. I had one third to half a load of the same wood in it. once it burned down to about one quarter the stove got hot. The griddle thermometer got up to 650F, I turned the thermostat to low to see if it would help and it kept climbing for about 40 minutes until it got to 700-750+F. I opened the damper and it took a while to cool down and it dropped to 450-500F. closed the damper and let it smolder but it stayed at a solid 400F for about 2 hours. Glowing logs little to no flames inside and no smoke out of the chimney. I have no idea what caused the spike in temperature. Could it be an air leak. Also to note while the stove started to get hot I did notice a small gap between back ceramic plate. I could see fire behind it. Ill post a picture.
Does anyone have any clue or ideas of what could have caused this? I have a video also but im not sure whats the best way to post it.
Today I put the cat in. Got a fire going, established a coal bed, brought it up to 500F and let it stabilized for 20 minutes. Closed the damper, thermostat on high for about 20 minutes then down to half then to about one third. It ran great for a few hours. Stable stove top temps of about 450-500F. I had one third to half a load of the same wood in it. once it burned down to about one quarter the stove got hot. The griddle thermometer got up to 650F, I turned the thermostat to low to see if it would help and it kept climbing for about 40 minutes until it got to 700-750+F. I opened the damper and it took a while to cool down and it dropped to 450-500F. closed the damper and let it smolder but it stayed at a solid 400F for about 2 hours. Glowing logs little to no flames inside and no smoke out of the chimney. I have no idea what caused the spike in temperature. Could it be an air leak. Also to note while the stove started to get hot I did notice a small gap between back ceramic plate. I could see fire behind it. Ill post a picture.
Does anyone have any clue or ideas of what could have caused this? I have a video also but im not sure whats the best way to post it.
