Wet wood and overfires

[Cynnergy]

So, recently at the cabin, we've run out of dry wood from my dad's stash and are on to the stuff that is wet (we had a bit of miscommunication as to how much he was cutting for us when he was getting his wood last year). So far, it hasn't been too bad, as we've been mixing in pine flooring offcuts in with any loads that are hard to get started. We're only there on weekends, so we'll be checking the chimney soon. We do manage to mostly get clean burns (no smoke) if we're careful.

I am a bit worried about what happened a little while ago though - we had loaded up the stove with mostly doug fir (with a few alder splits in) for an overnight burn, got it going well, and turned the air down all the way. I watched it for about 15 min and the temp seemed to stabilize at about 500F so I went to bed at about 11pm. I woke up at 1am because I was too hot and I went to check the stove - it was at 725F, fully closed down, 2+ hours into the burn. I have no idea what the temp was at midnight - for all I know, it could have overfired after burning the water out and gone up to who knows what temp.

Any suggestions? How long should I watch it before going to bed?

 

[BrowningBAR]

Do the same thing during the day and watch to see what it does. 725 isn't a big deal. "stabalizing" a non-cat stove to burn at 500 usually doesn't work. It will either crash and smolder or continue to climb until it peaks at it's normal 650-750 (for a steel stove).

 

[begreen]

Try packing the wood a bit tighter and use thicker splits for the overnight burn. Fill in the gaps with small splits. Also, loading the stove E/W will usually provide a slower burn than loading it N/S.