The T5 does indeed have a nice fire show. Once the stove gets rolling good and throttled down, those secondaries start looking pretty wild.
I like when it builds up for a bit, then you get a good thump out of the stove when it finally lights off in a blue ball.
Wait till you reload on hot coals with softer or less desirable (not my word) wood. Cotton wood, silver maple and boxelder create some spectacular rolling secondaries.
BTW, I know it's new and you can't resist reloading to refire the secondaries, but keep in mind it is shoulder season. Long burns are a great way to extend your wood supply. I let the coals drop to 300-325 STT before reloading this time of year. Tuesday we got so warm we had to open the door for a bit to cool down the room
I had a small load of Norway spruce in our NZ3000 this evening, three 4" diameter splits to be precise. They last over 5 hours, once they got going I set the primary air back to near zero and just watched those lazy secondaries take over. We had to open windows, it got that damm warm in here! Seasoned wood and a good stove can be impressive to watch!
So cool to watch. I made it big on the monitor and it was like having the woodstove without the heat. Shaw TV has a video run 24/7 around Christmas time called the Fire Log. It is an open fireplace with a fire burning. You get to see the fire, hear the wood popping, someone putting a log on the fire but no heat. Our TV is four ft in the air so it really doesn't look to woodstoveish being that high.
Been there done that! Stove belting out heat, walking around in shorts and T shirt, windows open.... Dog at the farthest end of the house panting!
