Loaded up my insert this morning on my normal routine. There were a little more hot coals than usual but certainly didn't look like too much. I have reloaded with more hot coals in the past with no problem. Reload with air wide open. Let it light and burn wide open for about 10-15 min. Throttle air down to just over half. Then i usually throttle it down a little more every 5 minutes and end up just a little open (maybe 3/8" away from fully closed) about 30 or 35 minutes into the burn. Dont know if I took too long to throttle it down this morning or what happened but it ran away at about the 20-25 min point. I closed the air completely and turned the blower on high and it kept running away and then i could see the stove top glowing. The glow was coming from inside the air gap where the blower air comes out the top of the stove. The glow could have been the stove top or the flue liner. So i shut off the blower and carefully opened the stove door (scary) to let the heat out. Then closed the door and kept the air closed and put the blower back on high. Took about 7 minutes for the stove top glow to go away. 1 hour later and the stove is running like normal. Tonight after it is all cooled off, I plan on pullin the insert out a few inches, removing the surround and checking out the liner connection etc. Anything else i should inspect? Pretty scary. Not sure what happened. Normal load of oak and cherry. Mostly big splits. Sure hope i didnt damage anything.
Wow. I have the sister stove. One time the top glowed, but I think it was because I wasn't paying attention and the fan was off. Not long ago, I loaded it up to the max and the fire was just starting when the fire out. I put the air in and everything was fine, but it hadn't been blazing yet, so whew! Opening the door wide will cool it off?
I know my furnace is different but i forgot to close the ash tray while getting the fire going. I was home, up stairs floor felt warm, went down stairs cooled it down a bit. Now i dont leave the down stairs unless the tray is closed.
Two things I'd like to comment on and they are in red in the quote. First is the burning wide open for 10-15 minutes. Sometimes this is okay but if you have good wood, that should definitely not be necessary. On reloads, most times we can't leave the draft wide open more than 5 minutes and many times not that long. Second is opening the door to let the heat out. Actually what you did was to let cool air in rather than letting hot air out. And this, of course leads us to that last part where you said you closed the door and kept the air closed. By closing off the air, you also closed off letting any cooler air into the firebox. I did comment in the other thread about this and you will find that many have fire extinguishers near the stove. We keep sand. Others keep ashes. Sand or ashes will work fine for cooling down those roaring flames. Good luck and I hope nothing is warped. Most stoves can stand an overheating so long as it is not often nor too much of an overheat. Still, that red color does make one wonder.
Agree with Backwoods on the 10 to 15 minute burn with full air. That is a long time to burn on full blast. If it's a cold start that is fine, but if the stove is already hot, and you have hot coals already, all you need ot wait is 2 or 3 minutes, maybe 5 minutes at most. Good luck checking!
I'll be the third one to say 10 - 15 minutes wide open on a hot coal bed is a long time. I actually have never opened my drafts up full. My insert has 2 air inlets, 1 to feed the bottom of the box and 1 to feed the top back (that's the primary). I set both at about half because I have a very strong draw, even at that 15 minutes and I think I could do some blacksmith work. I do though know that all stoves draw different so if that is the procedure you have always used and had no problems you likely had just the right outside air temp for a premium draw and it went nuclear on you. My stove gave me a little tinge a few days ago and I think it was the very cold outside temps making a perfect draw. Stove top hit close to 700 and the cat was almost 1900, I opened the bypass for a minute and gave it more primary.....settled in at 1750 on the cat and 650 on the stove. I really doubt that you did any harm at all, I'd probably just burn on but if you feel more comfortable checking, please do.
After 10-15 minutes I'm almost closed, I can only imagine what the stove temp would be if I left it wide open for 10-15 mins.
Acknowledging that all drafts are different, I'll chime in that, with my strong draft, I open the air all the way ONLY to load the stove. Close it by at least 1/4 as soon as I close the door. I NEVER have a problem getting the fire burning. Woodstock advises in the manual not to burn with the air wide open.
This is from my Regency User Manual: Ways to Prevent and Keep Unit Free of Creosote 1) Burn insert with draft control wide open for about 45 minutes every morning during burning season. This helps to prevent creosote deposits within the heating system. 2) Burn insert with draft control wide open for about 10 - 15 minutes every time you add fresh wood. This allows the wood to achieve the charcoal stage faster and burns up any wood vapors which might otherwise be deposited within the system. I do not do #1 because that would cause an overfire for sure. I have always followed #2. In fact if I tried to close the air off before it is roaring (10-15 min) then the flames will die down and I will not get the secondaries. The only way for me to get secondaries going is to leave it wide open for 10-15 min. Maybe the time difference is a difference between different insert / stove designs? If I don't get flames coming out of my gas tubes I don't get a lot of heat out of my insert. After a fresh load if I throttled the air down even to half way at 2-3 minutes or even 5 minutes I would never get flames out of the gas tubes or any secondaries. When the fire dies down, my insert cools off very quickly. I have an exterior chimney, so when you think about it the insert is mostly outside. I can burn 24/7 and the bricks around my insert are still cold to the touch. They never warm up. So maybe that adds to the need for my longer starts. In the morning after a 8 hour burn I will have red coals in the bed, but you can pretty much touch the metal insert and not get burned. This is the 3rd year I've been burning with this insert and this is the first time it took off out of control like this. I always burn dry wood (my wood is all around 16%). The only thing I can figure is that some of the oak I loaded that morning was extra dry. I have a big box in my living room that I load about 4 days worth of wood in. I had some 4 year old oak in the box for several weeks that I had been saving for cold nights. Maybe 2 weeks in the dry house (my living room is about 30% humidity) dried them out even more and that is what really flared up. Still don't know. Have not had a chance to inspect the stove yet. Going to do it tonight.
