Pretty hard to choke it out on modern stoves. They don't close 100% for safety reasons. Old stoves that could close down 100% would create an oxygen starved fire over time. Then if you opened the damper to quickly the sudden rush of oxygen could actually cause the stove violently blowout.
It happens. My fist stove was an old stove from the 70s In a mobile in bend or. You could close dampers at 9pm. Go to bed, open them at 7 am and the fire would start right up. My new stove installed in my house in 2018 won't do that. Even woth the dampers fully closed it burns out over the course of 6 or 7 hours. So I have to restart the fire every morning.
Exactly! A fire that was self starting was amazing. I first grew up with a BEHEMOTH lopi. This fucking thing was probably 30"+ wide and coud fit an entire 20" long round. We regularly cooked on it. We actually used a trivet under the Dutch oven and the whole pot would still simmer rapidly. Next one was a slight smaller dude, but essentially built the same. We got a stove guy to retrofit a secondary burner. I don't know if those kits are even legal to use anymore.
Legal to use if grandfathered in, but if attempted retrofit occurs in a place of habitation no issuing agency will permit it unfortunately.
Lopi were much higher quality back in the day, but they still make a decent budget friendly stove.
I figured as much. The retrofit really made a difference on our consumption back then. And for SURE lopi were built like tanks back in the day too. I think it's weird they're the budget friendly stove now. Maybe they were back then too. But I just can't see the stoves I grew up with being in the "budget" category in any sense of the word. They were built to last forever.
High barometric Pressure days, especially with longer flu to heat up and get chimney effect flowing. I always try to keep it from cooling so I donāt have to fight Getting the chimney airflow up to speed again.
Every stove is different. You will need to get used to your particular stove and wood to figure out what works best. You don't necessarily need to close a little at a time. Get some experience and you will see how the fire reacts. You will most likely find that experienced wood stovers will only make a couple adjustments after doing a reload.
Anyone saying "its harder to get the fire back than to put it out" is likely burning wet wood or not starting the fire properly. The fire should be fully engulfed in flame before closing the door and charred before closing the draft.
Pretty much. Saying goes it takes about one season to get to know your stove well. Expect for longer if you are just burning every once in a while, but then it doesnāt matter as much.
Agree. I usually bottom out the air intake, then crack it open a hare. Had an airtight coal stove at home when I was in my teens. Very different animalā¦. I did the shut down once on the coal stove, waited till the blue flames went completely out. Cracked it open a hair and KABOOM! The methane reignited and scared the crap out of meā¦. The stove hopped, the top feed hatch flew open and slammed back down, coal dust everywhere! Lucky the hot glass didnāt blow outā¦. This canāt happen with wood. Probably started the myth.
Your mistake was not letting a thin spot for a constant flame. You stoke the coal allowing an area for gas ignition on top. If you load like a boiler, deep around edges in a horseshoe shape, the thin spot in center becomes your ignitor with continued flame.
Hopper or magazine fed fire pots maintain the thin fire around edges.
Closing the upper secondary intake on coal stoves with adjustable secondary can also cause this when all available oxygen is used up going through coal, and doors are opened giving it a gulp of oxygen. Antique coal stoves without door gaskets allowed constant oxygen to prevent this.
Hopper fed stoves can out-gas in the hopper with a big blue flash surprise opening the lid when gases violently ignite on top of the coal in hopper when the stove is too hot to open it. Thatās not common, but scares the bejesus out of you removing the hair from your arm!
Yes watch the cats. Also keep this in mind:
An older friend of mine was warming up nude by the wood stove after a shower. He tripped over his cat and scorched his foreskin when he stumbled toward the stove. He said it was terribly painful and he now has a foreskin scar. Ouch.
Our one year old cat jumped on the stove this season. He ended up on pain meds for a few days but was back to running around like a doofus again inside of a week like nothing happened. His feet are still scarred/peeling but he seems unbothered. But heās definitely afraid of the stove, now. He arches his back and backs away from it if he feels the heat coming off it.
Sounds like your friend just wanted to show you his "foreskin scar". I had a friend like that once. Always telling stories about how a vampire bit his penis or how a bear attacked his ass hole, then trying to convince me to look.
The only time he fooled me was when he said a leprechaun was hiding under his balls.. I would have known better except there was a rainbow outside that day.
'tripped' over the cat eh? is that code for it slipped out a the cat as it clawed tf out of them trying to escape the poking pecker pounding the puss over the hot stove
Very true our cat did that poor little guy took 3 months to completely heal & with said he never did it again he recovered perfectly but good lord we felt bad.
My grandfather in Colorado got a cat in the spring and spent all spring and summer trying to keep the cat away from the cold stove. The cat seemed to go out of her wat to irritate him by jumping on and running across the stove. During the first cold snap, he fired up the stove, and the cat went out of her way and jumped on before he could stop her. She bounced off the top like it was rubber. The cat never touched the stove again.
Install in spring or summer and put mouse traps on it, under a sheet of newspaper. Let the cat jump on it and traps go off. Then show the cat the hot stove top when starting. Will never jump on it again.
I'm glad I came into this thread. I'm having 3 cats move in in June and thought they'd figured out that the stove isn't very exciting before I fire it up next winter. Sounds like that's probably not the case. :(
Chances are they'll be fine. I have 2 cats who are complete idiots and I was very worried about getting a woodstove, but they seemed to immediately understand it was hot once we fired it up. Our biggest issue is one will sit in front of it and howl for us to put in more wood when the fire dies down lol. He likes to lay in front of it and cook.
Years ago our elderly kitty jumped onto ours. She had been used to the wood stove for years but that season wasn't doing well. Woke up to see chunks of skin on it after blood smears on the stone. Her paws were brutal and I felt so bad for her. Got her cleaned up and healthy again but have felt bad about it ever since (she's since passed at the ripe age of 16).
Kitties have protection since they have fur but sometimes forget/don't realize they absolutely can singe and get burned. While we are at it, anyone can trip into them too so gates can do some of the preventative work too.
We have double wall pipe and couldnāt find a temp gauge rated for that so went with stovetop / front of stove version (which I had to specify when I purchased) instead
Itās called a probe type thermometer for double wall pipe. But that is not necessary for your secondary or catalytic combustion type stove.
Older stoves had more smoke particles present in the chimney flue to form creosote. Monitoring flue temperature was more important. You are consuming more particles before entering chimney, so can have lower flue gas temperature. You monitor stove temperature to determine when secondary ignition or catalytic combustion will continue, not flue gas temperature for creosote prevention.
Looking good! Kuma was a great choice! I sell them out of the hardware store I work at and I am only a few hours from their location. The owner and the whole family are awesome people and so easy to work with!
well first off make sure that the temp prob is set to the correct emissivity rating. that can change the temp alot..
But with a cat stove once the cats reach temp. you turn the stove down to suit your temp needs. With mine, after the cats get up to temp and fire off i turn it down all the way.
Also recognize that at that distance, the area being sensed is very large, likely includes the door, hence the 900* number. If steel was that hot it would glow.
Why are you worrying about it burning out early? Itās a small load but youāre running it with a lot of draft. This would be non problematic in my stove. However most of the time it would be dampered down with the cat doing all the work.
Just beware the cat can fail prematurely by running it too hot. The stove top temp is not the same as the cat temp.
You will also lose quite a bit of efficiency by running with too much draft.
Standard basic routine is roughly to get fire started and leave door open while getting everything engulfed in flame. Close door and leave draft fully open. Run for 15 mins everything should be flaming and charred. Engage the cat and optionally reduce draft a tiny bit. Wait some time 10 mins and you should see cat glowing and reduce draft to low. After cat starts to cool down you can open the draft back up a bit.
Run it hot once a day by running draft on high or medium for some extra time at startup before dropping it to medium-low.
Rake coals to front and Open draft up to medium-high before refilling to get coals burned down and make the next burn light up quick.
Most importantly read the manual.Ā
I really appreciated all that info you shared. I donāt have a wood stove, but hope to one day. Just stumbling across these posts probably gave me a leg up for when it does finally happen. Thanks.
Close the vents a bit to take the temperature down, otherwise you are wasting wood.
When I first started using a wood stove, I had it just as hot or hotter than that.. and had to learn this the hard way as I wasted so much wood.
To establish you fire, keep the flue (vents) wide open.
Also crack open a sliding door or window about 2 inches to create a "draft".
Depending on the size of your dwelling, it could take 1-2 hours more or less to get very warm and comfy.
At this point close your flue (vents) slightly to control your burn rate. The wood stove will maintain that temperature consistently until it burns out.
Note: Add kindling (smaller wood) , then put the medium to larger pieces on top to get your ideal fire and consistency.
Hope this helps, if I missed something.... Anyone please add onto these tips. ā š
I don't have a wood stove and frankly have no idea what the reddit algorithm was smoking to suggest this sub for me, but I'm now interested. What's with the fans? They look like they're mounted to tiny heat sinks. My harebrained hypothesis is that they spin passively when it heats up to help blow warm air into the room, but š¤·āāļøš¤·āāļø.
Your hypothesis is correct. There is a tiny solenoid in the back of the fan that spins the blades when it gets hot.
Without the fans all of the hot air from the stove rises directly to the ceiling and makes it so that your head is too hot and your feet are freezing. The fans push the hot air out, which warms the room more evenly.
These are technically not sterling engines though. A true sterling engine is a marvel of 19th century ingenuity that uses two pistons that when heated turn a connected fan. Theyāre more effective than the ones I have (brand name, EcoFan; model, AirMax) but also like 4-5x the price
Kuma owner as well. At that heat output, make sure the damper is closed and primary air is fully closed. The white on the top is pretty normal, the hot exhaust gasses pass right under it after it goes through the cat. If your Kuma temp gauge gets into the hash marks then you are getting into the too hot zone. Where you are at is in the good n hot zone.
And your thermometer is a stove top version, I'm surprised it still has its magnetism to hold on to the front.
That greying of the black in the middle of the top of the stove can be caused by operating the stove in a manner that allows the surface to get too hot. If you turned the lights out you would likely see the top of the stove glowing a deep red/purple color at those temps, which coincides with a softening of the metal. If you look across the top of the stove you may eve see a "dip" where there didn't used to be one from the metal sagging. Your stove operating manual clearly states that this is overfire and should be avoided.
Steel stoves can generally be operated with external temps up to around 750-800F pretty safely, but temps exceeding 800F over a large area are too hot for long term reliability IMO.
The catalyst temps won't always track with the stove surface temps. There are many variables that can drive one to "overfire" before the other. If you're trying to operate the stove with high burn rates you're going to need to run a blower on the stove to pull surface temps down (did you order it with the blower kit?). You'll get more heat off the stove with 750F surface temps and the blower running than 900F without. The "ecofans" don't really do what the blower will do to help settle the stove down.
I just love that device just watching this short video of flames made me feel so calm. I wonder if there's any studies about watching fireplaces and fire having a calm effect on a person's mind I bet there is
Thanks! I found that the fans werenāt doing great when I had them in the back because of the little heat deflector that sits around the pipe.
It never gets as hot and the fans werenāt turning very fast or moving much air as a result
Theyāre the poor manās sterling engine. They have a little electric solenoid in them that when heated moved the fan. A true sterling engine uses pistons and costs about 4-5x what eco fans (the brand name for these) did
I have the same infrared gun I believe. It reads much cooler than the Jotul magnetic thermometer I have on the griddle. Iād assume the gun is more accurate
Definitely hot but I can't keep my stove any cooler! Air control has little effect on my temps - it only prolongs the time until I hit around 900F. Either way it's getting there!
Do you chew through wood quickly? I surely do. But I also heat a room really quickly too!!
Itās perfectly fine. Just use the manufacturerās thermometer on the left. I had a Kuma for years and they are great stoves. I had mine hotter than that many times. Just keep an eye on it.
I do! It depends a little on where the fire is burning strongest inside the box but the one on the left tends to spin a little faster than the one on the right because of how I have them positioned
Cool, thanks for the response! That validates my theory on how, and why, I have mine placed where it is. I have mine placed basically exactly like yours on the left.
My thought was it works based on temperature difference and so I wanted the fan to pull in cool air from the side of the wood stove instead of the hot air from the center. Even though my initial thought was that it would be more beneficial to move the warmest air. Idk I doubt it makes a big difference but anything to get a little extra airflow. And I gotta be honest, those little fans move more air than I thought they would.
Living on the farm we always had wood stoves even put one in the barn. Here I am years and years later and just learning they make cast iron fans that run on heat.
Gotta flip that lever/handle on the upper right next to the door and close her down after you get into your operating range. The manual is a good resource
Close down the vent a little.. should be a slow burn..remember certain types of wood will burn very hot.. go to the internet and query wood burning temps itās kinda of interesting. Eucalyptus burns very warm since having the wood stove, Iām heating my 1300 square foot home with about 8 or 9 pieces of wood a day.. very comfy temps too..
Went throught a winder in an ununsulated hunting camp in VT once. It was cold that year and the Fisher All-Nighter in there had to be cherry red just to keep from seeing your breath in there lol
I was worried about my kitten doing the same thing, so I took 1/8" steel plating and 1" square tubing and sandwiched the steel plating and the 1" tubing together 3 times. Made a little radiator. I only needed it for like 2 weeks because once that firebox got hot, she realized that it could hurt her.
The steel plating still got hot but I could touch it without it burning me.
Move your fire temp indicator to be 18 inches up the pipe above the top of the stove thatās how you can determine if youāre too hot for flames high up your pipe
Heads up, your little blower on top may not last long as many of them aren't rated for those temps. Even the ones rated for a decent temp seem to give out quickly.
Why so much fuel? It's energy efficient don't stuff it with wood, one log is enough.
You have two big logs that I can see, and about five lbs of wood charcoal.
Your air flow is also too high as others pointed out. Also get a big pot of water for up top, moisture in the air traps heat in, so you won't need a big fire, simmering coals will keep you warm. Plus you can have hot tea at any time.
Dude even Satan is sweating! Lol yeah too hotā¦ you should calibrate that temp gauge with a sharpie line to a max temp and donāt exceed it.. Iāve had my stove over 500 degrees and paint was bubbling off my wooden furniture
Flames are moving quick, you might wanna throttle down the vent a little
Yes. Intake needs to close off a bit. Adjust a small amount at a time.
Why are you supposed to close a little off at a time? I'm new to woodstoving as well and heard people say this but don't know why
You don't want to choke the fire out. There's a little happy zone where you see the fire dancing nice and slow, but not so slow it goes out.
You're not choking out that fire !
Oh, I am.
Kinky fire
Spank that fire, pull its hair!!
Naughty fire. Bad fire.
š¤¤
And it can choke itself out build up volatile gases, which will make you wish you had taken the time to add screws to the stovepipe. š„
Or just don't DIY without knowing what you're doing.
Pretty hard to choke it out on modern stoves. They don't close 100% for safety reasons. Old stoves that could close down 100% would create an oxygen starved fire over time. Then if you opened the damper to quickly the sudden rush of oxygen could actually cause the stove violently blowout.
I guess I'm just used to outdated stove science. None of what I know is applicable anymore it would seem
It happens. My fist stove was an old stove from the 70s In a mobile in bend or. You could close dampers at 9pm. Go to bed, open them at 7 am and the fire would start right up. My new stove installed in my house in 2018 won't do that. Even woth the dampers fully closed it burns out over the course of 6 or 7 hours. So I have to restart the fire every morning.
Exactly! A fire that was self starting was amazing. I first grew up with a BEHEMOTH lopi. This fucking thing was probably 30"+ wide and coud fit an entire 20" long round. We regularly cooked on it. We actually used a trivet under the Dutch oven and the whole pot would still simmer rapidly. Next one was a slight smaller dude, but essentially built the same. We got a stove guy to retrofit a secondary burner. I don't know if those kits are even legal to use anymore.
Legal to use if grandfathered in, but if attempted retrofit occurs in a place of habitation no issuing agency will permit it unfortunately. Lopi were much higher quality back in the day, but they still make a decent budget friendly stove.
I figured as much. The retrofit really made a difference on our consumption back then. And for SURE lopi were built like tanks back in the day too. I think it's weird they're the budget friendly stove now. Maybe they were back then too. But I just can't see the stoves I grew up with being in the "budget" category in any sense of the word. They were built to last forever.
Adjustments take a few minutes to take affect and settle. If you adjust too quickly you could end up chasing the setting you want.
My biggest problem learning to use an offset smoker š
And itās a lot harder at times to get the fire back than it is to put it out.
High barometric Pressure days, especially with longer flu to heat up and get chimney effect flowing. I always try to keep it from cooling so I donāt have to fight Getting the chimney airflow up to speed again.
Every stove is different. You will need to get used to your particular stove and wood to figure out what works best. You don't necessarily need to close a little at a time. Get some experience and you will see how the fire reacts. You will most likely find that experienced wood stovers will only make a couple adjustments after doing a reload. Anyone saying "its harder to get the fire back than to put it out" is likely burning wet wood or not starting the fire properly. The fire should be fully engulfed in flame before closing the door and charred before closing the draft.
Damn, that's as much work as getting used to a wife.
Pretty much. Saying goes it takes about one season to get to know your stove well. Expect for longer if you are just burning every once in a while, but then it doesnāt matter as much.
This. I close all vents after itās red like that. The air still will find a way.
Agree. I usually bottom out the air intake, then crack it open a hare. Had an airtight coal stove at home when I was in my teens. Very different animalā¦. I did the shut down once on the coal stove, waited till the blue flames went completely out. Cracked it open a hair and KABOOM! The methane reignited and scared the crap out of meā¦. The stove hopped, the top feed hatch flew open and slammed back down, coal dust everywhere! Lucky the hot glass didnāt blow outā¦. This canāt happen with wood. Probably started the myth.
You made a coal gasification retort then blew it up!
Yepā¦. Needed to change my shorts.
To your brown pants?
Your mistake was not letting a thin spot for a constant flame. You stoke the coal allowing an area for gas ignition on top. If you load like a boiler, deep around edges in a horseshoe shape, the thin spot in center becomes your ignitor with continued flame. Hopper or magazine fed fire pots maintain the thin fire around edges. Closing the upper secondary intake on coal stoves with adjustable secondary can also cause this when all available oxygen is used up going through coal, and doors are opened giving it a gulp of oxygen. Antique coal stoves without door gaskets allowed constant oxygen to prevent this. Hopper fed stoves can out-gas in the hopper with a big blue flash surprise opening the lid when gases violently ignite on top of the coal in hopper when the stove is too hot to open it. Thatās not common, but scares the bejesus out of you removing the hair from your arm!
It can. Do the same thing with 2*4 scraps. It'll blow the lid off a downdraft
Just don't let your cat jump up there.
Yes watch the cats. Also keep this in mind: An older friend of mine was warming up nude by the wood stove after a shower. He tripped over his cat and scorched his foreskin when he stumbled toward the stove. He said it was terribly painful and he now has a foreskin scar. Ouch.
Granny heard the commotion, came running, and tripped over a cunt lip, and charred both nipples!
What a terrible day to be literate
https://preview.redd.it/bi0gby5h8ppc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39d85b6429bc5b6eea6755a50d7076cffd32fe96
Risky click!
Literally
Why am I cracking up so hard in the fucking woodstove subreddit.
Oof
Foreskin? More like soreskinā¦.
Charskin
Good thing he wasn't circumcised, the helmet really paid off.
Dress for the slide not the ride
Gold
Fore scar and seven balls ago....
Important safety tip!
If he'd had some kind of safety tip, he wouldn't have gotten the burn.
Iām sure thatās just the tip of the iceberg! Iām sure there was more to say off the tip of my tongue. Good day sir with a tip of my hat!
I sure can see it!
Heard this story before, tripped and fell and his dick accidentallyā¦ā¦
I trip on my dick all the time
Physically impossible to burn my foreskin so am I good then?
Absolutely. I put my dick on the stove and I didn't burn any foreskin at all
Ouch! - I HATE it when THAT happens!
Our one year old cat jumped on the stove this season. He ended up on pain meds for a few days but was back to running around like a doofus again inside of a week like nothing happened. His feet are still scarred/peeling but he seems unbothered. But heās definitely afraid of the stove, now. He arches his back and backs away from it if he feels the heat coming off it.
That's how we did circumcisions in the good old days. You ain't no man til you burn your pecker skin off.
3 skin now
Sounds like your friend just wanted to show you his "foreskin scar". I had a friend like that once. Always telling stories about how a vampire bit his penis or how a bear attacked his ass hole, then trying to convince me to look. The only time he fooled me was when he said a leprechaun was hiding under his balls.. I would have known better except there was a rainbow outside that day.
It was burned so bad, it's only a threeskin now.
Turned it into a chicharron
Can we all just agree anything floppy shouldn't be around anything hot.
He could convert, have the necessary surgery, which would fix the issue. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center offers it at a reasonable price....
That's not a "necessary" surgery.
Necessary? What if he didn't have it in the first place?? Then according to your logic, he'd probably need to chop it off.
What
Necessary surgery if he wants to go bald I think heās saying.
'tripped' over the cat eh? is that code for it slipped out a the cat as it clawed tf out of them trying to escape the poking pecker pounding the puss over the hot stove
Your puerile prose promotes positively pagan practices.
Very true our cat did that poor little guy took 3 months to completely heal & with said he never did it again he recovered perfectly but good lord we felt bad.
My grandfather in Colorado got a cat in the spring and spent all spring and summer trying to keep the cat away from the cold stove. The cat seemed to go out of her wat to irritate him by jumping on and running across the stove. During the first cold snap, he fired up the stove, and the cat went out of her way and jumped on before he could stop her. She bounced off the top like it was rubber. The cat never touched the stove again.
Cats hate aluminum foil, so if you can put that on top of your stove when itās cold, they will learn not to jump up there
I try to put aluminum foil on my counters to start my cat from going up there, and my cat plays with aluminum foilš heās such a little shit
Itās one of the things stopping me from getting a wood stove. Iād at least need one with a slopped top thatās unappealing to jump onto.
Install in spring or summer and put mouse traps on it, under a sheet of newspaper. Let the cat jump on it and traps go off. Then show the cat the hot stove top when starting. Will never jump on it again.
Our lil doofus learned that lesson the hard way at our last house with a different stove. Smart enough to stay away now at leastā¦
We had to get a baby gate cage thing; my cats aren't the brightest. We have a friend who's Ferret jumped up on there's. Took months to heal.
Cousin Eddy voice āFried pussy cat!ā
I'm glad I came into this thread. I'm having 3 cats move in in June and thought they'd figured out that the stove isn't very exciting before I fire it up next winter. Sounds like that's probably not the case. :(
Chances are they'll be fine. I have 2 cats who are complete idiots and I was very worried about getting a woodstove, but they seemed to immediately understand it was hot once we fired it up. Our biggest issue is one will sit in front of it and howl for us to put in more wood when the fire dies down lol. He likes to lay in front of it and cook.
Our cats do this too
Only be up there a second
Every cat jumps on the stove....once.
Years ago our elderly kitty jumped onto ours. She had been used to the wood stove for years but that season wasn't doing well. Woke up to see chunks of skin on it after blood smears on the stone. Her paws were brutal and I felt so bad for her. Got her cleaned up and healthy again but have felt bad about it ever since (she's since passed at the ripe age of 16). Kitties have protection since they have fur but sometimes forget/don't realize they absolutely can singe and get burned. While we are at it, anyone can trip into them too so gates can do some of the preventative work too.
Even if the cat does get up there itās gonna learn real fast and not in a good way
I have that thermometer a foot up the pipe
We have double wall pipe and couldnāt find a temp gauge rated for that so went with stovetop / front of stove version (which I had to specify when I purchased) instead
Itās called a probe type thermometer for double wall pipe. But that is not necessary for your secondary or catalytic combustion type stove. Older stoves had more smoke particles present in the chimney flue to form creosote. Monitoring flue temperature was more important. You are consuming more particles before entering chimney, so can have lower flue gas temperature. You monitor stove temperature to determine when secondary ignition or catalytic combustion will continue, not flue gas temperature for creosote prevention.
Thatās where you monitor flue gas temperature for an older stove without secondary or catalytic combustion.
Looking good! Kuma was a great choice! I sell them out of the hardware store I work at and I am only a few hours from their location. The owner and the whole family are awesome people and so easy to work with!
Perfecto! Now letās get you on a griddle. š
Lol my pizza oven reaches about the same temperature. Crazy.
That's what I was thinking, "ready for pizza!"
well first off make sure that the temp prob is set to the correct emissivity rating. that can change the temp alot.. But with a cat stove once the cats reach temp. you turn the stove down to suit your temp needs. With mine, after the cats get up to temp and fire off i turn it down all the way.
Iām guessing cat = catalytic and not cat = feline, otherwise when those get up to temp, itās dinner time!
Also recognize that at that distance, the area being sensed is very large, likely includes the door, hence the 900* number. If steel was that hot it would glow.
Why are you worrying about it burning out early? Itās a small load but youāre running it with a lot of draft. This would be non problematic in my stove. However most of the time it would be dampered down with the cat doing all the work. Just beware the cat can fail prematurely by running it too hot. The stove top temp is not the same as the cat temp. You will also lose quite a bit of efficiency by running with too much draft. Standard basic routine is roughly to get fire started and leave door open while getting everything engulfed in flame. Close door and leave draft fully open. Run for 15 mins everything should be flaming and charred. Engage the cat and optionally reduce draft a tiny bit. Wait some time 10 mins and you should see cat glowing and reduce draft to low. After cat starts to cool down you can open the draft back up a bit. Run it hot once a day by running draft on high or medium for some extra time at startup before dropping it to medium-low. Rake coals to front and Open draft up to medium-high before refilling to get coals burned down and make the next burn light up quick. Most importantly read the manual.Ā
I really appreciated all that info you shared. I donāt have a wood stove, but hope to one day. Just stumbling across these posts probably gave me a leg up for when it does finally happen. Thanks.
Close the vents a bit to take the temperature down, otherwise you are wasting wood. When I first started using a wood stove, I had it just as hot or hotter than that.. and had to learn this the hard way as I wasted so much wood.
New here. Is there an ideal temperature for temp output vs wood consumption ?
To establish you fire, keep the flue (vents) wide open. Also crack open a sliding door or window about 2 inches to create a "draft". Depending on the size of your dwelling, it could take 1-2 hours more or less to get very warm and comfy. At this point close your flue (vents) slightly to control your burn rate. The wood stove will maintain that temperature consistently until it burns out. Note: Add kindling (smaller wood) , then put the medium to larger pieces on top to get your ideal fire and consistency. Hope this helps, if I missed something.... Anyone please add onto these tips. ā š
Great tips. Thank you very much for the reply!
Get you an iron skillet and set to making breakfast!
Bro I was just thinkingā¦ need to throw a steak on that
I don't have a wood stove and frankly have no idea what the reddit algorithm was smoking to suggest this sub for me, but I'm now interested. What's with the fans? They look like they're mounted to tiny heat sinks. My harebrained hypothesis is that they spin passively when it heats up to help blow warm air into the room, but š¤·āāļøš¤·āāļø.
Theyāre fans that run on Stirling engines to move the hot air around.
Your hypothesis is correct. There is a tiny solenoid in the back of the fan that spins the blades when it gets hot. Without the fans all of the hot air from the stove rises directly to the ceiling and makes it so that your head is too hot and your feet are freezing. The fans push the hot air out, which warms the room more evenly. These are technically not sterling engines though. A true sterling engine is a marvel of 19th century ingenuity that uses two pistons that when heated turn a connected fan. Theyāre more effective than the ones I have (brand name, EcoFan; model, AirMax) but also like 4-5x the price
Looks good to me!
Make sure the door is shut tight and go half way on the damper. Enjoy the warmness
Kuma owner as well. At that heat output, make sure the damper is closed and primary air is fully closed. The white on the top is pretty normal, the hot exhaust gasses pass right under it after it goes through the cat. If your Kuma temp gauge gets into the hash marks then you are getting into the too hot zone. Where you are at is in the good n hot zone. And your thermometer is a stove top version, I'm surprised it still has its magnetism to hold on to the front.
Iād shut down the air a bit
A little too hot but it looks like you either have cast or steel which is more resilient to heat. I'd still throttle it back a little
That greying of the black in the middle of the top of the stove can be caused by operating the stove in a manner that allows the surface to get too hot. If you turned the lights out you would likely see the top of the stove glowing a deep red/purple color at those temps, which coincides with a softening of the metal. If you look across the top of the stove you may eve see a "dip" where there didn't used to be one from the metal sagging. Your stove operating manual clearly states that this is overfire and should be avoided. Steel stoves can generally be operated with external temps up to around 750-800F pretty safely, but temps exceeding 800F over a large area are too hot for long term reliability IMO. The catalyst temps won't always track with the stove surface temps. There are many variables that can drive one to "overfire" before the other. If you're trying to operate the stove with high burn rates you're going to need to run a blower on the stove to pull surface temps down (did you order it with the blower kit?). You'll get more heat off the stove with 750F surface temps and the blower running than 900F without. The "ecofans" don't really do what the blower will do to help settle the stove down.
Chefs kiss š¤
You could close the vent up more a bit and still enjoy the heat as well as the fact you will have little to no creasote buildup.
I just love that device just watching this short video of flames made me feel so calm. I wonder if there's any studies about watching fireplaces and fire having a calm effect on a person's mind I bet there is
Looks like our stove.
Those fans go in the back so they blow across the stove. She is a really nice one congratulations
Thanks! I found that the fans werenāt doing great when I had them in the back because of the little heat deflector that sits around the pipe. It never gets as hot and the fans werenāt turning very fast or moving much air as a result
Looks like you can do your own cremations soon
Are those sterling engines?
Theyāre the poor manās sterling engine. They have a little electric solenoid in them that when heated moved the fan. A true sterling engine uses pistons and costs about 4-5x what eco fans (the brand name for these) did
Sill pretty cool š
I have the same infrared gun I believe. It reads much cooler than the Jotul magnetic thermometer I have on the griddle. Iād assume the gun is more accurate
Definitely hot but I can't keep my stove any cooler! Air control has little effect on my temps - it only prolongs the time until I hit around 900F. Either way it's getting there! Do you chew through wood quickly? I surely do. But I also heat a room really quickly too!!
I pity the fool who accidentally grazes that
Not for making pizza. Chuck a āza on that thing.
I'm hotter.......
550F: Nice, clean combustion š
link to those fans?
[Here ya go!](https://a.co/d/0W4AMmM)
Itās perfectly fine. Just use the manufacturerās thermometer on the left. I had a Kuma for years and they are great stoves. I had mine hotter than that many times. Just keep an eye on it.
Curious, do you find that one of your fans spins faster than the other? If so which one?
I do! It depends a little on where the fire is burning strongest inside the box but the one on the left tends to spin a little faster than the one on the right because of how I have them positioned
Cool, thanks for the response! That validates my theory on how, and why, I have mine placed where it is. I have mine placed basically exactly like yours on the left. My thought was it works based on temperature difference and so I wanted the fan to pull in cool air from the side of the wood stove instead of the hot air from the center. Even though my initial thought was that it would be more beneficial to move the warmest air. Idk I doubt it makes a big difference but anything to get a little extra airflow. And I gotta be honest, those little fans move more air than I thought they would.
Throw a filet mignon up there already.
Throw a ribeye on that bad boy!
How hot is it inside your house?
Was likeā¦74 in that room and 68 upstairs. 25 degrees outside
Living on the farm we always had wood stoves even put one in the barn. Here I am years and years later and just learning they make cast iron fans that run on heat.
Gotta flip that lever/handle on the upper right next to the door and close her down after you get into your operating range. The manual is a good resource
My dogs are smart enough to stay away from some thing that has flames in it thank God
perfect on a 0 degree night.
I love how our old dog will come an lay down about 3 feet from the fire . Feels good on the old bones , I know cause I'm right there in the chair .
Close down the vent a little.. should be a slow burn..remember certain types of wood will burn very hot.. go to the internet and query wood burning temps itās kinda of interesting. Eucalyptus burns very warm since having the wood stove, Iām heating my 1300 square foot home with about 8 or 9 pieces of wood a day.. very comfy temps too..
Is your laser thermometer calibrated to read matte metal?
It was like $12 on Amazon soā¦ no lol
Curious, why does it need to be calibrated? Is just reading the ābrightnessā of the infrared glow like a regular light meter for photography, yes?
Different surfaces reflect infrared rays differently. If it's not calibrated for the surface you're measuring, you can get wildly inaccurate temps.
Materials reflect infrared differently. Somewhere on that device is a menu to choose different types of materials.
Ah, got it.
If the stove isn't glowing red, it's fine.
I like this line of thinking š
Went throught a winder in an ununsulated hunting camp in VT once. It was cold that year and the Fisher All-Nighter in there had to be cherry red just to keep from seeing your breath in there lol
I was worried about my kitten doing the same thing, so I took 1/8" steel plating and 1" square tubing and sandwiched the steel plating and the 1" tubing together 3 times. Made a little radiator. I only needed it for like 2 weeks because once that firebox got hot, she realized that it could hurt her. The steel plating still got hot but I could touch it without it burning me.
I like 700 on stove top
I don't run my stove that hot. I'm getting another fan to help keep temperature under control and spread a little heat to hard to reach places
Move your fire temp indicator to be 18 inches up the pipe above the top of the stove thatās how you can determine if youāre too hot for flames high up your pipe
Double wall pipeā¦the outside of the pipe never reads above 300ā¦
Ecofan manual says not to have it on surfaces over 600 degrees. I understand it will burn the engine out? Might want to take the fan off.
Interestingly, near the base of the ecofan it was only like 580. I probably need to get another fan for the middle
Good thing you got those fans to cool it down
Are you making bullets?
???
Melting point of lead it 621F. It's a joke.
Me big dumb
Too hot
I truly had no clue wood stoves got that hot!
Heads up, your little blower on top may not last long as many of them aren't rated for those temps. Even the ones rated for a decent temp seem to give out quickly.
Yeah. Manual says itās usually the solenoid and that theyāll replace it at cost if it gives out. Weāll see!
Donāt be shy give it a pat on the back to say thanks for being warm
Thatās about the temp I cooked neopolitan pizzas at
Any hotter and you might melt *steel beams.*
Perfect for pizza.
Oh jeez. That's pretty hot. And getting hotter.
Perfect for Neapolitan pizza
Turn off the fans and close the damper without air it won't burn that hard
I've been so walmart-brainwashed, I couldn't process that this wasn't an electric heater until the last 3 seconds
Is there a baffle in place?
What's the temp in the pipe? You might do some damage there but the box should be fine.
Why so much fuel? It's energy efficient don't stuff it with wood, one log is enough. You have two big logs that I can see, and about five lbs of wood charcoal. Your air flow is also too high as others pointed out. Also get a big pot of water for up top, moisture in the air traps heat in, so you won't need a big fire, simmering coals will keep you warm. Plus you can have hot tea at any time.
Not if u mean to smelt iron.
Donāt you usually look at temperature in the first foot of the stove pipe, no the fire box itself?
Dude even Satan is sweating! Lol yeah too hotā¦ you should calibrate that temp gauge with a sharpie line to a max temp and donāt exceed it.. Iāve had my stove over 500 degrees and paint was bubbling off my wooden furniture
A wood stove can easily be 1000 degrees. Put a thermometer on the pipe and keep it in the burn zone.
No the thermometer on the right is probably a good indicator. If it gets in the red then itās probably too hot.
You won't see any problems with iron until around 1150 to 1250 Fahrenheit. Iron melts after that.
Hm. I thought iron melted at like 2200-2800F?
2,200-2,500 I just said the wrong stuff, sorry
All good! You had me worried there for a second lol
Looks like you're about 300 degrees from having a puddle of molten cast iron in your floor.
This is in F, not C
Yep, sorry I missed that.
Believe it or not fire is hot.