Working out the kinks!?@!

[Overkill]

Hi everyone. First of all new to forum. Have been reading post for last couple of months great info. So here is my issue.
I have a hearthstone heritage. Its really hard to get my stove temp over 400F. My stack temp never goes over 350F.
Burning fir with a moisture content of 20 to 21% exceptable I think?
13ft metalbestos chimney strait up and out.
I tried higher pipe by adding 36" more pipe made temps lower. The only time I got the temps above 450F is when I sortened the chimney to 3ft above the aspalt singles.
The manual states that on primary wide open the stove should burn at 450 to 500 degrees.
My living room door is 4ft away from stove. opening and closing door makes no difference on burn rate. Do I need an O.A.K.
But when I crak my side door the stove rages.
I guess my biggest questions are what are normal flue temps and do I have a draft problem.

 

[Todd]

Welcome to the forum. A couple questions, when you took your moisture readings was it inside a fresh split piece? How large are the splits your putting in the stove? What does the fire look like, is there secondary combustion near the tubes?

 

[Overkill]

Ok, I check my moisture by taking the fatest split i can find and spitting that down the center, and then taking a reading in the center of those.
As far as the fire, you can see the reburn sometime when the stove temp gets above 350F

 

[Overkill]

Oh yey the splits im using are 18" X 5 to bigger.

 

[Todd]

Splits sound a little large to me. Some big ones like that are good but these new stoves need smaller diameter splits like 2-4" and an occasional large one in the back for the long burn. Try starting your fire with smaller diameter splits til you have a good coal bed established.

 

[Overkill]

I will try to get fire really hot with 2 to 3" splits. Also going to pick up a load of wood from a friend to make sure it is not a fuel issue. I will let you know later. thanks for the info. Seems wierd that the stove doesn't like large wood, I feel like i'm putting kindleing on it.

 

[BrotherBart]

Starting up a stove is a two load proposition. The first load is smaller splits that you are burning to establish a good hot coal bed for step two. Step two is loading the larger splits on top of the hot coal bed. That is what will get you the hotter longer fire. But wait until that stove is down around three to four hundred degrees before you lay that stack of big splits on top of those hot coals or it will get real exciting around there for an hour or so.

When the stove top temp starts coming back up with the large split load start backing the air down in two or three steps until you are down to about 25% of the primary air control.

It'll get hot.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Welcome to the forum Overkill.

You have some good advice above. I'll add that 90% of the time for new burners (and many more seasoned burners too) it is the fuel they are trying to burn. I do not use a moisture meter nor do I trust them. I simply cut and split my wood well ahead of time and give it years to season. That way there is no problem with creosote and we certainly do not have any problems getting the stove up to a decent temperature.

I hope that wood you get from your friend is good.

Good luck to you.

 

[Overkill]

Well thankyou everyone. I turns out you were right brotherbart I just needed to learn how to burn. Stove works great. Turns out that my buddys wood was seasoned 2 years and the moisure content was 14%. Not to much different than mine, but drier none the less. I'm preatty trusting of my moisture meter it gets used in my occupation frequently. Expensive unit, glad I didn't pay for it. Well thankyou again I will enjoy burning this year and trying different woods.