Well after much thought and PM discussion with Loon and old conversations with other people I decided to file down the stop for the air adjuster on the T-5. What would happen especially on a full load was the temp on the flue pipe would soar past 800 degrees surface temp on a new load.. The stove would also get very hot and with the air all the way down I could only sit nervously and wait for things to cool down.. What I did was file down the stop and snip a tiny piece of metal where the air adjuster slides. This has allowed me to reduce the air a bit more to prevent this from occurring.. Gotta say this has made a world of difference and the heat is much more uniform now! Loon thanks for your input.. Pics would be difficult to take but Loon has some that will clue you in somewhat to what I did yesterday.. I still get 12+ hr. clean burns and better normalized temps across the burn.. It appears that the EPA in their infinite wisdom makes the stove manufacturers have a certain amount of minimum air to maintain clean burns which happened to be a bit excessive for the T-5.. Ray
Glad it worked for you. I used a Dremel and notched the stop on the T6 air control. I can hear it pull for air when I shut it down. The stove made me nervous a couple of times by getting too hot. I modified mine 2 years ago and it has been great.
Yes I have heard others have the same issue on either T-5 or T-6 and I suspect there may be others with the same issue..
I know exactly what you guys were going thru, My IR did the same thing at my old place. If loaded full my STT would soar to 800F before settling down. I had many nervous nights sitting up waiti g to make sure it settled down. Not sure if I could even do a mod like that on mine but since moving it to the new home I don't even need to now. The new setup has two 90's in it and with that I can keep the stove around 550-600F on full burns now. It's like a new stove! I did install a damper but doubt I will ever use it.
I've used it some Mitch. It def slows the fire down. The problem was once you get out of the peak part of the burn it slows the draft down too much and causes some unburnt coals and a cooler firebox. If I can be around to monitor it I might use it a little more but it's not been necessary so far.
Ours is barely 13', and draft certainly is not an issue. Stove seems to breathe pretty easy, and I can see where it could be too easy. Haven't had anything make me nervous yet. Where do you find the hottest spot on your stove top? I seem to consistently get the highest readings left of center, and about directly above the edge of the baffle, so on the forward half. Seems kind of odd, partly because a relatively small area is considerably hotter than much of the rest of the stove.
