I use the ceramic heater trick and like mentioned above, about 5 to 10 minutes does it for me too.
pistonslap said:btw, i did the firestarter trick that day to heat my chimney that day. i didn't see any smoke but my smoke detector went off after about 10 mins.
jmd425 said:I have the small ver of your insert and I have the same issues. I just crack the slider and use a super cedar and everything is fine. Great inserts they really pump out the heat. 2200 sf house and I cut my oil useage by 2 tanks a season and thats with the small Regency insert!
pistonslap said:I did the ceramic heater trick today too, worked well. The only problem is that it's -2 outside and I can't keep up without overheating my ductwork. I don't have the clearances I need. I will redo my ductwork in the spring, but for now if it's below 10 I have to burn too hot to keep up.
wood_insert_regency said:pistonslap said:I did the ceramic heater trick today too, worked well. The only problem is that it's -2 outside and I can't keep up without overheating my ductwork. I don't have the clearances I need. I will redo my ductwork in the spring, but for now if it's below 10 I have to burn too hot to keep up.
Yeah.. now I'm thinking that the ceramic heater trick may be the best of all... 'cause the heater really does generate ZERO smoke while its establishing an updraft for you.
Tonight I tried the burning starterlogg chunk trick and it's just *too* cold outside to fight the downdraft.. so while the chunk burned well it was ok, but as those things burn down, they *do* start to smoke a bit in the later stages of burning and yeah I got some paraffin smoke smell pumping out my intake vents, darnit...
I have an electric forced-air space heater that I'm thinking of trying in lieu of a ceramic heater -- the electric space heater has a strong fan and puts out pretty good heat on "high"... so I may try that next time... for now I have to recover from the paraffin smoke smell... *cough*...