Aaaaaahhhhh......

Some nice combo secondaries in Hi Def in the Ideal Steel stove tonight, burning cherry:

 

Normal to have flames like that?

If I let my stove run like that I'd probably burn down the house!

 

Yes, if I need a lot of heat out of it, I'll let it go at that rate for an hour or two. It will chew through a good bit of wood burning at that rate. Its -3 here now so I needed to kick the heat output up for a while before heading up to bed.

But what you're seeing is the rolling cat secondaries after cutting the air back from 100% to 50% then down to about 40%.

 

I could sit and watch those for hours on end.

 

Yea if you want heat you are going to see some flames, I still see posts about lazy secondary flames dancing in the fire box, that's great if you just are looking for a visual effect, I could play a DVD on the TV that would give me that.

 

Good stuff Brian. One thing I wanted to ask you about was that in your photos with the Ideal, it seems to be placed relatively close to the wall in terms of corner clearances. I can't tell for sure from the photos, but the walls look to be ordinary sheetrock and there is wood trim in proximity. Have you checked the wall temp, either with an IR gun or by touching them? I'm very interested in the Ideal, but corner clearances will be an issue.

 

Originally the left rear corner was about 9" from the wooden door frame. IR temps on the wood were pushing into the 150s early on before I had run any really hot burns, so I moved the stove 4" further out into the room. Clearances now are about 12" on left rear corner, 13" right rear corner. On my hottest burns the door frame has hit the mid 160s on IR.

UL-127 Temperature limits on combustible surfaces are 90F over ambient room temperature for unexposed (ie., in contact and covered) surfaces and 117F over ambient room temperatures for surface exposed to ambient air so if room temp is 72, combustible temps up to 189 are permissible.

Woodstock tries to keep recommended clearances so that surface temps are at 150 or below. Last I talked to them they had not yet received the UL clearances for this stove but they were also working on a rear heat shield to keep clearances as low as possible.

 

thanks for the reply Brian. It looks like they have a real winner with the Ideal and my bank account has room to buy one.

 

Guess the Blaze King runs a bit different. I assumed EPA stoves were all about the same with a smoldering burn.
If I ran my stove with the air open enough to have flames like in the vid it would peg out the temp gauges. Only times I have flames is when I first have a fire going.

 

Cats are a different animal.
But even BK owners report having flames if they need a lot of heat.
Smoldering burn even in a EPA stove is not good.

 

This is from woodheat.org, a website with a ton of good info. Probably more aimed at non cat.
"Look for these signs of good combustion:

• When wood burns it should be flaming until only charcoal remains. If there are no flames, something is wrong
• If there are firebricks in the firebox, they should be tan in color, never black.
• Steel or cast iron parts in the firebox should be light to dark brown, never black and shiny.
• With seasoned wood, correct air settings and proper loading arrangement you should expect almost instant ignition of a new load of wood - a long delay before ignitions indicates that something is wrong.
• If the appliance has a glass door with air wash, it should be clear.
• If the appliance has a glass door without air wash, it will be hazy, but should never be totally black.
• The exhaust coming from the top of the chimney should be clear or white. A plume of blue or gray smoke indicates smoldering, poor combustion, air pollution and probably low system operating temperatures."

 

Brian, what sorta flue temps. are you reading on a burn like that?

 

Gheez! I could feel the heat coming off my computer screen from those flames !

 

When it's running on full air, probe flue temps have gotten as high as 750. Running a prolonged high rate of 50% air the flue probe will read 650.

Routine flue probe temps run in the 350-400 range.

A couple weeks ago a friend was visiting and between him and my son they left the door open a hair on a reload and failed to engage the cat in a timely fashion. Flue probe temp hit 1000. Hopefully that's the last time that happens.

 

I took a 6 1/2 minute video then edited it down to its current length. The iPhone was already getting hot to the touch at that point.

By the way if you click on the YouTube link then set it for highest definition and run it on full screen mode it's pretty impressive. I've never uploaded a video on the highest definition setting, took a long time to upload but it made for nice detail.

 

Have you noticed any build up in the flue so far? I check mine with a flashlight and a hand mirror.

 

Usually I clean the flue the first week of January but I cleaned it when I installed this new stove in late November so I haven't even looked at it yet. Honestly given the hybrid tech and the double wall stove pipe I expect less creosote than I got with my Fireview so I wasn't in any hurry to clean the flue.

 

Swags, I'm thinking the wood will be more of a factor than anything. I get plenty of flame with the BKK wide open upon start with a fresh load, but I have to cut it back within 30 min. or I'll get the CAT to hot.
I took the cover off the flapper housing and now adjust by sight, don't even pay attention to the dial. The stove goes dark quickly but the temps. rise. I normally get a 475-500 stove top and the Cat Probe will be in the upper end of the active range. Flue will stay about 4-450. That's with dbl. wall and a probe. Those temps. are with the fans going on High, so I'd read higher if they were off. I never shut the fans of.