Today's the day....... first fire!

I am same, great draw, load it and leave it

 

I will give that a shot, as soon as the wood you added catches good flame.

 

I try to understand what works for other people, even if their setup is different, if they give those details. That helps me to understand what the variations in setup and fire (draft, stove, wood etc), and how that plays out with the burn. I then try to apply it to my setup.

Hope that makes sense. I'm moving hay, so chilled and rushing...

 

Most of last week was warm enough that it wasn't worth me running the stove. I took off the lid and worked the gasket a bit, trying to plump it up thinking that may help/ensure it fit better with the lid.

The temps dipped this weekend, so started a fire Friday night. When I finally got to cut the stove air down for the night, I again got the smell of smoke. It also happen3d layer in the weekend. It seems to happen when I've turned the air down for a longer burn. I know both times it did it this weekend it was not smoke spillage from a reload.

Not sure what backpuffing is, in terms of is it an event that you know just happened, ie a visual or auditory event/cue? Is this normal, or should I be concerned? Also, any good ways to figure out where the smoke/smell of smoke is coming from? Doing the sniff test around the stove is a bit uncertain, as well as uncomfortably 'warm'.....

 

Its when the fire goes out, smoke/gasses build up in the firebox/flue and then there is still enough heat there that things re-ignite again...a mini explosion....they can be tiny, almost can't tell its happening unless you are looking at the firebox, or they can be big and blow things apart (those are more rare, reserved for when something is really wrong!) in your case it might lift the lid a bit if it was a big one?

 

So, sometimes I will be running black box, then a whisp of fire come up off the wood and the whole box then whoof in rolling fire, then go away. I didn't think that was backpuffing....is it? I thought that was like ghost flames engulfing the box...kinda. And, when I've noticed the smell, it wasn't when the box was doing the "whoofing flames" thing.

 

That would be fairly harmless "stage one" backpuffing...usually causes no issues for most people...and it's fun to watch too!

 

Yeah, we enjoy watching that "engulfing" of flames.....

 

It's just the cat igniting the unburned gasses that are hanging out in the box. When mine does that, it will sometimes go on for a while, like every 30 seconds or something. It's a blast to watch. We call them Ghost Flames.

 

Yep, I've had it do it every 15 seconds on the dot for a while, to just every once in a while. Its pretty cool.

My little girl will be like, "oh look at those secondaries", or "there goes some ghost flames". Or, "oh that's a good fire right there".

 

That's awesome!

 

I bought a stove collar that has a pupe damper. Mainly gotmit just to have options in case I ever needed to close.it down more, but don't think that will be needed due to my somewhat short chimney and therefore not-huge draft. But could/should I use that for any other benefits? Or just always leave wide open...