WoodPro Ts2000 - too much air out of secondaries?

[allan5oh]

Specs:

Woodpro Ts2000 2.0 cu ft rated for 51k btu with rear blower
Three secondary tubes with orifices on each side
14 feet of straight flue, double wall into insulated chimney
Magic Heat that I hate
Burning mostly elm and some leftover dunnage hardwood, probably oak

The only way I can really get the secondaries to go is if I starve the fire. Big pile of glowing red embers, put a large piece of hardwood (6" diameter or so) right on top, close it then start pushing in the air control soon. Then I get large dancing blue/purple flames out of the secondary burn, but the bottom of the fire is mostly just glowing red. An absolute ton of heat, the thermostat quickly warmed up to +25C. Is it impossible to get secondaries going with a smaller fire? Is it really required? It seems as though there's a lot of air coming out of the tubes. With a smaller fire you will see the fire going around the air coming out of the tubes. It wants to light, you get occasional "pops" and dancing but never fires. Too much air or it's too cold.

Would it be a bad idea to restrict the middle tube somewhat? It's possible the air isn't heating up enough either. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have the middle one work with smaller fires and the outers to work with larger starved fires. Or somehow slightly restrict the whole secondary system. I think I have the air control figured out. Pushing in restricts primary but opens secondary.

Or is this something I shouldn't be playing with? We've had issues. It is at my parents and I finally convinced my dad to put an extra 3 foot chimney piece and it worked great, solved starting and spillage issues. But he was still cheating and using the ash plug to draw in air, plus he took out the front secondary burn tube because it caused an injury. The box really isn't high enough. You cannot stack anything. Maybe that's half the problem? The Magic Heat is on automatic and the draft is strong enough but I'm worried about creosote. If it was my house that thing would be in the scrap heap.

 

[zig]

Shot in the dark but I think the stack robber is most of your problem.

 

[allan5oh]

I was thinking that, but wouldn't a stronger draft pull more air through the secondaries? Or maybe there's other issues at stake. I literally cannot get any sort of sustained secondary burn if there's a red or orange flame in the box.

 

[begreen]

Loose the Magic heat and see how the stove performance improves. It's hurting draft.

 

[edyit]

as the others have mentioned the magic heat is hurting your daft. it cools the pipe by drawing the heat off it, this slows the velocity down and probably causes creosote build up as well. i'll say the same thing the above did, remove it.

 

[saskwoodburner]

I'm not familiar with the wood you're burning, as I mostly burn poplar, pine, and some willow, but they all seem to have different burn characteristics. And just throwing one round onto coals isn't going to get you an efficient secondary burn, you need 2-3 pieces to make them feed off each other.

Why do you think the fire is starved for air when you throttle back the air? If it doesn't have enough air, it won't burn. Take two 6" rounds and split in half, and stack them loosely crossed. What kind of fire do you have on the same bed of coals?

 

[Squirrel]

I definitely got too much through my secondary air holes when it's colder outside than a few degrees below freezing. (Morso 1410 and 20ft straight flue).
Carbon monoxide burns at 1,128F so if there is enough incoming air at less than that temperature it will cool things down too much to ignite.
Once the weather gets cold I close off half of the secondary inlet at the back of the stove. This gives me a hotter stove with a lot less airflow through it so the flue temp is always below the stove top temp by 100-150F.

 

[allan5oh]

The box is small it's hard to cross anything. Usually I put one piece in propped up by a smaller piece on one end. I did put a couple nails in the middle burner and it made a difference. One thing I noticed is the two rear burners only have orifices on one side, the front burner had it on both sides.

I have to get the stove top to 250+ before I can shut the door and over 300 before pushing in he knob. It seems as though I need a *lot* of heat or the fire smothers out. That's obviously the magic heat doing that. Hopefully I can convince my dad to take that stupid thing off.

 

[begreen]

Tell Dad to take it off temporarily as a test. The results should speak for themselves.

 

[allan5oh]

Tell Dad to take it off temporarily as a test. The results should speak for themselves.

That is a damn good idea. I'm going to record some temps before and after. I could also just pull out the electronics since the two settings are "on" and "auto". I don't want to unplug it because that could damage the electronics. I'd imagine even just having the thing off might affect draft.

Current "warm up" sequence from cold:

- Rear fan off, MH on auto
- load up with kindling and paper in a stack
- light it and keep door slightly open
- wait for it to get very mature then add medium wood
- Keep door slightly open
- Don't even think about closing the door until the stove top gets to 250 or more
- By this time the MH is coming on usually full time
- Close door, flames will slow down and stove temp will rise
- Now I turn the rear fan on
- If the stove temp gets well above 300 and the burn well established then I can push in the knob, anything else and it dies

Sometimes it seems as though I have to wait until the medium piece is close to coals and get another medium piece going before I can close the door. It can take up to an hour. Is this typical for an air tight EPA stove? Neither of us have much experience with them. I also question the quality of the wood but that can be eliminated as a variable because I do have access to some seasoned oak.

 

[begreen]

Remove the darn thing entirely. The electronics are not the issue. The MH is reducing draft by spreading it across several tubes and it's reducing draft by cooling the flue gases. The flue system on this stove is already of marginal height. Remove the MH and put a section of stove pipe in its place. Then run the stove for a few days like that. And then, sell the MH. It is not needed on a modern stove.

 

[allan5oh]

Today went a lot better. Found a pallet and cut slots with the grain into the 1x4 wood, then cut across the grain giving me nice small kindling with no bark. Used about 12 of those pieces with paper I was able to hit over 400 degrees just on that very quickly, and was able to close the door in record time, in about 10 minutes as opposed to 90. Which is a good thing because boy that stuff likes to spit! It was an absolute inferno and really helped with getting everything going faster. I actually got some secondary burn with that stuff too. Tomorrow I'm going to try to close it even earlier. Still learning.

14 feet still isn't enough? I'll measure it tomorrow to make sure it is even that long. What would be optimal height? I've read anything over 15 feet is a waste. And yes I still want to get rid of that magic "chimney fire" heat. I'm also going to check out the inside of the flue especially above that blasted thing.

My dad is strictly worried about getting the most heat out of the wood. I don't think he quite appreciates that a modern stove puts more BTU into the stove with less wood, never mind less creosote. Putting on the magic heat messes with that.

 

[saskwoodburner]

14 feet still isn't enough? I'll measure it tomorrow to make sure it is even that long. What would be optimal height? I've read anything over 15 feet is a waste. And yes I still want to get rid of that magic "chimney fire" heat. I'm also going to check out the inside of the flue especially above that blasted thing.

The one thing I'll add to the discussion here, is mentioning chimney height in relation to where in the country you are, and the weather conditions. I see you're from "Winterpeg" as it's known, so I'm dealing with someone who has a near carbon copy of my own weather. check into your heat degree days, and you will see we are almost matching.

Now, I have a 10 foot chimney on my mobile home and have sluggish draft during warm weather (think 0 to +10 C), but no problems with dry wood and the colder it gets, the better it runs. In fact, I tinkered and slowed my stove down, as it was in my opinion overdrafting.

I'd like to think of draft in such a way that you want the optimum draft for your heating needs. If you have so much chimney that it drafts awesome at +10 C, what do you think it's going to do when you hit -40 c with a big wind?

I'd remove the magic heat box and simply try it without for a few days to see how it runs.

 

[allan5oh]

The one thing I'll add to the discussion here, is mentioning chimney height in relation to where in the country you are, and the weather conditions. I see you're from "Winterpeg" as it's known, so I'm dealing with someone who has a near carbon copy of my own weather. check into your heat degree days, and you will see we are almost matching.

Now, I have a 10 foot chimney on my mobile home and have sluggish draft during warm weather (think 0 to +10 C), but no problems with dry wood and the colder it gets, the better it runs. In fact, I tinkered and slowed my stove down, as it was in my opinion overdrafting.

I'd like to think of draft in such a way that you want the optimum draft for your heating needs. If you have so much chimney that it drafts awesome at +10 C, what do you think it's going to do when you hit -40 c with a big wind?

I'd remove the magic heat box and simply try it without for a few days to see how it runs.

My dad added a 3 foot piece about a week ago. It was warmer and we had smoke entering the house, it was a lazy draft. Added 3 feet and now colder and what a difference. Do you burn different wood when it's warmer out as opposed to cold? I'm pretty sure Winnipeg is a wee bit colder than southern Saskatchewan. But it's been a warm year, the river skating trail just opened today and that's about 3-4 weeks later than usual.

Like I said I will measure it out.

 

[saskwoodburner]

My dad added a 3 foot piece about a week ago. It was warmer and we had smoke entering the house, it was a lazy draft. Added 3 feet and now colder and what a difference. Do you burn different wood when it's warmer out as opposed to cold? I'm pretty sure Winnipeg is a wee bit colder than southern Saskatchewan. But it's been a warm year, the river skating trail just opened today and that's about 3-4 weeks later than usual.

Like I said I will measure it out.

I guess if you have smoke spillage, more height would be warranted then. I burn whatever I've cut, which is probably 85/10/5 % poplar/pine/willow, no matter what the weather. I need to find a line on some birch within reasonable driving distance, to see how much more heat it throws.

Our geographical area so to speak is probably middle of Saskatchewan (gateway to the north) if I'm not mistaken, but we're definitely not blessed with southern Sask weather. You'd have to go quite a ways north to start getting noticeably colder weather.

The same arctic weather systems that drop down and chill you guys, affect us as well. Check out Environment Canada for historical data, heat degree days for both our regions, and see what you come back with. You have us beat by 10 hdd this month.

(broken link removed to http://climate.weather.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?timeframe=2&Prov=SK%20%20&StationID=51878&dlyRange=2013-03-09|2016-01-20&Year=2016&Month=1&Day=20)

(broken link removed to http://climate.weather.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?timeframe=2&Prov=MB&StationID=27174&dlyRange=1996-10-01|2016-01-20&Year=2016&Month=1&Day=01)

 

[allan5oh]

This is the same stove, but it's not my video:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

I would say our secondary burn is not quite as good. But it does give off the same color of primary flame. With the secondaries it seems to push the flame away and around, with this one he's getting burn above the orifices. Sometimes it does light up like a natural gas furnace but you can tell it is coming out of those orifices much slower.

 

[begreen]

Replace the MH with a section of pipe. Then test for a week without it.