As you all know, this is my first season burn for heat. Now that the temps are dropping, we've been doing some burns. My PE T5 has been burning great with nice big loads over night, with hot coals and a clean glass in the morning. However, this morning I tried to make a small and hot fire, just to take a little chill off this morning. The stove was cold as we did not burn over night. I made a small top-down fire with three 2-3" splits of nice dry cherry N-S, and a pile of dry cherry and red maple kindling and paper. I never was able to get much of a secondary burn and the chimney was giving off a light white smoke at best, but as the fire burned down to coals I was getting too much smoke and the glass got sooty. I had the air wide open to keep it as hot as possible. Any thoughts? Do I just need to add a little more fuel to get the firebox temp up? Is there a prefered stacking method for small fires? This was the chimney during the coal stage with the air wide open.
Much of that depends upon the stove and of course, the fuel. My guess is that you just did not have enough fuel in there to warm both the chimney and the stove so it dirtied the glass. So when starting a fire in a cold stove, it takes a while to get heat where it needed and by the time the heat is up, say, in the chimney, the fire is almost out. This is one problem people have when they don't burn full time. Starting a cold stove often, they will have a bit more problem keeping things clean but worse yet is they will burn a lot more wood for the heat they get. Once you get the stove and chimney up to temperature then if you just reload the stove, it is mostly usable heat vs using a lot of the heat to warm things up when lighting in a cold stove. I hope this made sense. Perhaps I haven't worded it just right but what the heck, it is the weekend and I can't be out hunting tonight so pee on it!
I'm only guessing here 'cause we've never had a 'tube stove, but isn't the secondary activity what cleans up the smoke in non-cat stoves? You mentioned hardly any secondaries. Could explain why the smoke.... Probably need to burn larger loads to start and maintain those nifty top flames. Try another layer perpendicular to those 3 splits?
Correct, Next time you only need a chill break fire use small stuff (1 1/2" to 2" thick max) log cabin stacked about 1/2 way or more to the baffle and let her rip till you see the secondary's kick in and then back it down in steps. The trick is to get it hot fast, and cabin stacked should burn up faster to keep from running you out. You can cross stack some through the middle of your cabin stack if you need it hotter. Works good in my bigger Summit, play around with it and you'll have it down in no time.
I know you were trying to have a small fire, trying not to get the house too hot, sounds to me like you simply did not have enough wood in there to get it hot enough from a cold start I found my stove won't heat up worth a crap unless I have at least 3 medium splits in there, with some smaller stuff to get it going quick. Of course you could just put more of the small splits in. Also in this weather the draft is a little bit slow, but you have to get the pipe hot then you can start dialing the air down and the stove interior will get hot, and do what it is supposed to do, even then you still may get some brown build up on the sides of the glass with small loads, I do and it's nothing to worry about, once it gets colder and you start loading it up and burning hot fires for a long time that problem goes away. This is the hardest time of year to get a cold stove up and going and not get the house to hot. Temperature swings up and down or lot greater with tube Stove. Sometimes I just have to open a window for a bit. I think with practice you will figure it out
Thanks for all the ideas. I built a traditional fire with a little more fuel. It took off quick, had secondaries going in less than 5 minute. Burned down to some nice coal with little to no smoke. I'll fill it up soon for the overnight burn. It's forecast to get down to 40 tonight.
Sorry you couldn't get out hunting. I finally got out today. Lots of does and fawns. Got busted by a doe at 20 yds at about 5:15 so I took a walk to another stand. Unfortunately, I kicked up a dandy buck that had decided to bed down about 25 ft. from the stand I was heading to. Oh well, at least I know they are around. They're used to people walking in the woods, so they shouldn't be too spooked.
Hate to ask but how dry is your wood? Do you have a moisture meter? What's it say if so on a fresh so kit on a price like you burned the other day? If no MM how long was it cut and split and stacked? I think there is too much moisture in the wood and then not enough fuel if in the stove if it was too moist. If you have more fuel you can her over the high moisture as there is note heat to get you to that secondary burn. PS mike....still havent started that NC30 install :-(
If your fuel was dry enough, the fire just wasn't getting hot enough to burn completely. I find the weather can play tricks with your draft this time of year too; I've got to pay extra attention early on to get everything going right. It's nice to have some softer woods to burn this time of year too - you can have a more "normal" sized fire and still not get the house too hot.
1) Stove and chimney drafts like a hurricane. 2) I have a moisture meter but didn't use it. The cherry and red maple was CSS about 12 months ago, so it may be marginal. I'll check some later. 3) I think the main problem was that my "top down" fire just never took off right, so the box never got hot enough. I tried opening the air control to get it burning, but with the smoldery fire, I was loosing more heat than I was adding. 4) Stove did a great job heating us last night with low temp of 40F. It's still warm a 11:30 this morning.
I tried top down fires a few times , didn't care for it , took longer to get things going , some people swear by it
I just put kindeling in and some bigger pieces and then the big wood. Many times I start with pure dry pine splits cut into kindeling and then larger pine then oak/hardwood stuff.
May not get out again until Tuesday but that is when the weather is supposed to get back to more normal. Today was like summer and tomorrow is supposed to be the same. Don't like hunting when it is this warm. Windy too so that is not good but I see the wind has died down now and this is prime time!
Didnt get to read everyoned response but wife ran into that today. Not used to shoulder burning i guess. Closed the air to soon and choked it out. I came in opened the air and door gave it some NoS from my lungs and closed the door waited 10 min shut the air and off it went.
Last season I had a hard time making small fires in the 30 in the fall. This year I decided to experiment and put a rack full of small splits on the porch, almost kindling size. The rack also has a bunch of small splits from a scotch pine I cut down. Tonight I filled the stove most of the way with the small splits and pine then put 3 small hardwood splits on top. It burned great from the start and I didn't have to go outside and look to know it was burning clean. It may not work for you, but it worked out great for me. There's still a thin column of flames in there after a couple hours.
I worked late tonight and asked my wife to build a top down fire. She had no problem with draft and when I came home I didnt smell any smoke. She did better than my back puffing, poor draft, bad air pressure, poor planning episode of last night
