Travis Industries insert newbie Overfire?

Hello all,

I’m a newbie and have had a Travis Industries large NexGen flush wood insert, Lopi brand, for just 2 weeks now.

Overall, we love it. It’s purpose is supplemental heat to our natural gas main system. I live in Connecticut.

The issue: concern for overfire. I have been having trouble getting overnight burns past 6 to 7 hours let alone 10 to 12 hours. I have been following the advice of the installer and more so the owner’s manual. I get the insert started, burn through a fairly full load of large splits, refill with a few more, and get a big hot bed of coals. Then, I load it up with about five splits, burn fast for about 15 minutes, and then choke down the intake to let the burn tubes take over. Two things have happened. Either I don’t get it hot enough, the burn doesn’t last, the fire seems to die down in an hour so I just turn the burn rate up again. Or, it seems to work too well, air from the tubes ignites well, but the flame is almost blue. I swear the center portion of the front two tubes is glowing slightly red. After a few moments I’d back it off and let some air through the door, and things seem OK.

My concern is over firing. I don’t know how to find a happy medium, and I don’t know if I am somehow mistaken and this is just the glow of the embers or something or perhaps the secondary ignition giving the illusion of red. I did not think I could overfire this thing so easily without abusing it with cardboard and other no-no’s, etc. Any advice? Is there a thermometer product that would help me that can be used on an insert? Am I being paranoid? What else am I doing wrong? Installer said I could fill this thing right up to the burn tubes with wood.

Thanks,

Andrew

 

Hey Andrew- Welcome fellow Nutmegger

If you take a look over at pages 20-26 or so it'll give a good sense of what to expect, and like Dennis was saying about there's a bit of a learning curve. Above all else, it's best to err on the side of caution than not to.
Regarding what the installer said- no doubt that's true because many people on here, myself included will stuff our stoves to the gills, but take your time getting comfortable with the operation.

 

Seems to me My IS heats my home was having short burn time issues with his Travis insert too.
As far as the tubes glowing red...no issue there, pretty normal.
When you load 'er up and get the fire going good, try cutting the air back in steps, maybe 25% at a time, and a few minutes apart, the next adjustment after the fire stabilizes from the last adjustment..and then you might not be able to fully close the air down and still keep the fire going good...and once you get close to minimum, a small adjustment can make a big difference...but every install is a lil different too, so you will just have to experiment to see where yours performs best...how dry your wood is affects this more than just about anything else too...

 

It's only an over fire if the exterior of your stove is glowing. The secondary tubes glowing sometimes is normal.

 

I got the same large Lopi hybrid insert in march. Didn't get a whole lot of time on it but I've gotten those tubes to glow red plenty, no problems. I was worried I would burn the stove down and asked the installer about that too. He said it would be pretty tough to get it that hot and you would have to be using kiln dried or 2x4's, small pieces and have the door cracked and air flow heavy. It doesn't take much for this stove to get my living room to the 70's. If the stove was overfired my living room would probably be over 100 degrees by then. I wasn't able to get a full overnight burn but I still have a lot to learn about this stove. Temps are starting to warm enough that I might not use it again until next fall.