Stove Tetris

That sounds exactly the same for me, I'm burning spruce, I have to keep the flue temp (probe) under 750 or things will run away.
And like DexterDay said the gap down the middle between the two splits eithe side of the dog house is crucial.

 

I did an experiment last night. I loaded it up with medium splits, pretty tight, on top of coals raked forward. Medium BTU woods - douglas fir and lodgepole. The desired gap in front of the doghouse. After it flamed up, I closed the primary air off, which kept secondary air going. And went to bed.

This morning the missus said it was 71 when she got up, but said it was too hot in the night. There were good coals in the stove. The glass is pretty dirty, so maybe a little more primary would have helped, but house already was warmer than desired. The outside temp was in the low 20s.

So, that was overkill for these temperatures. I don't mind the house cooling down into the mid 60s in the night. I will try this type of load again when the temps are down in the single digits.

 

OK I'll play.. loaded fast and not greatest cause stove was hot! really it was.. pic looks grainy but Tha t wbas bottom pieces Startin to smoke.. 0

 

Fuul load in last night and the OAT was 16 this am, with the IAT down to 66......lots of coals. That's a little cool for this house, so I threw in another 6 small splits about 8 am.
It's still 72 in the house at 3:30 pm, OAT is about 24.

 

I'm not Kenis, but that is what controls the primary intake.

 

I guess I still haven't figured out the airflow in this thing. So the rod controls the air inlets on each side of the doghouse, but the doghouse is unregulated? The secondary air, if I am not mistaken, comes up the back (where there is no firebrick), along the two sides, and through the drilled tubes?

These guys did some thinkin' figuring how that is all going to work out right. It baffles me that so much of the airflow is unregulated, but it works out well and with good control.

 

I'm almost embarrassed to post this, because the two pieces on the far left are, gulp, cottonwood. The rest is birch and big leaf maple.

 

Doghouse air is unregulated from two small holes just behind the front legs.

Primary air is from the manifold inlet at the back of the stove, where you can hook the OAK if you want to. The manifold inlet is controlled by the rod, however it can never be completely closed.

Secondary air is from the rectangle hole above and to the rear of the manifold, unregulated, supplies only the tubes just below the baffle board. This air passage inside of the stove is superheated in part by the blowtorch of the doghouse.

 

Well, I played Tetris again last night (sorry, I keep forgetting ), with a very large split of douglas fir (one of my highest BTU woods), and a few normal splits of the same, plus some pine on top near the tubes, thinking it would help the secondary combustion. All this on top of a very active bed of coals, with a gap in front of the doghouse. After I had sustainable flames, I closed the air damper completely. It went to mostly secondary burn (yellow-orange-blue color), with an intermittant whisp of yellow flame rising from the bottom. And I went to bed. From the bedroom I could hear that the stove temp was going up.

This morning I woke to a good bed of coals, a fairly clean glass, a warm-hot stove and the house at 68 degrees, with the outside temp at 0 degrees. When I asked the missus if the house ever seemed too warm in the night, she said no, it worked for her.

This is good sucess, I wasn't able to manage my heat so well with the old Allnighter. Part of that is probably that I can now see exactly what is going on in the stove through the glass door, and I couldn't do that with the Allnighter.

Tonight will be colder (-4 they say), I'll try a simlar burn. I have another chunk of douglar fir set aside already.

 

Huge bed of hot freaking coals wouldn't allow me to stack tighter or more. But here is all beech with an ironwood piece on the top center.

 

Already in the low teens, will probably touch single digits tonight.

 

OK, I see that, I didn't get it until now! (yeah, I am slow)

Does any air enter from under the lip on each side of the doghouse? I have reached under that lip and thought I felt an opening, which I assumed was connected to either the primary or the doghouse.

 

My recent load choochin' along.