Good description of secondary burn?

If you can fit a larger model and are looking for longer burn times, you might be spot on with what you are saying.

Never hurts to see if a quality catalytic stove will fit like a BK. They get good burn times.

 

for starters , how far are you closing the draft control down? one of the really kool things about a non-cat is the lower the primary air the hotter the stove can tend to run. as the more active the seondaries can get. as for loading , obviously you want to get full loades, if possible the splits should be arranges so they expose as little surface area as possible. pack them tight together. also if you are bunring 24-7 you may be building quite a mountain of coals in the box. would want to shovel out as much as you can without losing the coal bed every couple days at least so that you will have room to pack a max amount of wood in and still leave room for secondaries.

 

This^^^^

With my 13NC, a "normal" day load is 3 good sized splits. That'll give me 3-6 hours of usable heat depending on the type of wood being used. My normal "night time" load is 4 good sized splits. That'll give me a bit more time on usable heat, but not much. In the morning, the stove is warm to the touch and I have coals to start a reload, but the house has cooled down.

I agree about trying to fit the wood splits with minimal air space around them.............both for lengthening the burn time, and for getting more wood in the box. It's only a 1.8cu.ft. box and you need to maximize space in there with the wood, coals and ash. I also remove ashes about every 4th or 5th day on average.............some woods produce more ash than others.

I don't pack the stove to the tubes..................too much risk of the load shifting and falling against the glass and the possibility of damaging the baffle board when loading. This little stove heats my 1100sq.ft. (not open floor plan) ranch style house in northern Illinois quite easily if I'm there to feed her every 5-6 hours.

 

I put this one up the other nite.....the heritage really has some impressive secondaries...i can get all the tubes rollin and "ghost fingers" all over the place

 

Heres one from this mornin'n

 

wildwest here is my stove just cruising along like usual in the middle of a burn.

 

Can someone tell me what a good technique would be on the Englander? I have dry wood, good draft and have tried different air adjustments however the secondaries are short lived.

 

Thanks for the reply WildWest. I look forward to hearing from Mike. I have some really dry locust and cherry that I want to put to the test.

 

Kat, I get best 2ndaries by letting the stove get to at least 400, then taking the air down about 3/4.
After a few minutes, I'll close the air almost completely and after a minute or less, the floaters are going crazy.
This will usually last a couple hours if I have the air set well. VERY small movements in the slide can make big changes in the stove.
ETA: I can load right up to the tubes.

 

I have the NC-30. It heats very well but I notice that she is wood hungry.

 

ww, you have the little brother insert version.

 

Maybe you need a nap?

 

HI Kat,
the gang above are pretty much spot on with their descriptions. one thing with the 30 is you can load end on or sideways (usually referred as "north south", in which you are looking at the cut ends of the wood, or "east west" in which case you are looking at the bark through the glass)

a hotter shorter fire comes from N/S loading as the airflow front to back flows between the splits more readily. the E/W load does not allow air to move as fast through there between the splits so combustion is a bit slower.

as i mentioned above the neat thing about a Non-Cat is they actually run hotter the lower the draft control is set. which is contrary to what happens in an old tech (smoke dragon) where if you need more heat you just open up the airflow. the way a noncat works is once enough temperature is achieved in the firebox, the draft is cut back as far as the flue system will let you, so we maintain a low sedate primary fire, this allows the wood to literally be "baked out" releasing more fuel (woodgas) to the secondaries which ignite and burn the gasses away. this produces far more heat than just burning the wood in a conventional manner as far less air is needed to burn the gasses. the heat stays in the stove longer beforre transiting the flue as well so there is more time to conduct this heat into the body of the stove.

as for loading, to maintain the longest fire , load east/west and try to pack the splits together so that the seams between the splits do not have much space between them. then once we have achieved our initial temperature in the firebox, start closing the draft down until its as closed as it can be and still support the fire. you may or may not be able to close it all the way depending on how strong a flue system you have, but once you hit the "sweet spot" the "light show' in the top of the firebox will be in full display and the glass will literally burn itself clean. this is when you will see the real capability of that stove.

would love to see the reaction when its settles in like it should, youre gonna be amazed

 

To add a little to what Mike said, this stove is cranking some serious heat even at 500-550 deg.
The house got down to about 68 before the overnight load got going, but once it did, the house ended up at almost 76 within a couple hours.
Beautiful secondaries for the first 2 hours.
I'm still working toward longer burns, so maybe the e/w loading is next.