Often times when I reload the stove, it is hard to load for the heat when the door is open. When the my wife loads, I can feel the heat output from my chair. If I would get a screen to put in front of the door, what would be the ramification of burning with the door open when down to coals?
Nothing. It's just an unregulated fireplace at that point. We do it occasionally to burn down coals . Most mfrs sell screens specific to your stove.
You will actually get more heat out of the coals by leaving the door closed with your air about halfway, and the blower on low. If you don't have a screen on there it could pop coals 3 feet or more across the room
I guess I always thought of it as how a fireplace works...it feels hot but is actually sucking heat up from the room. However....if It FEELS hot...then why not?
When I experience this the most, is when I am burning down the coals to ash. Not talking about loading up and leave the door open. The stove manual and most wisdom I have read, said "do not burn with door open". From what I have observed it seems like a lot of BTUs going up the chimney when burning down coals.
It is, because you are not containing the heat in the stove, with the door open, the draft is just blowing the heat out the chimney. Sometimes it is necessary for me to crack the door open pull the air all the way open and get the coals gone, but most of the time I don't do that
Try this, this is what I'm doing right now. Pull that coals forward, put a small split across the front with the air halfway, turn the blower on low to get some extra heat while you are burning the coals down.
So true about the concrete. No risk of damage from embers popping. Something to consider if your flooring is damage prone.
I think that the warning heeds the spark warning plus if some people put their stove in an area where the stove door is wide open, it can be hit by someone walking by and slam that thing. Glass window and all.
I don't think it is a good thing to burn with the door open. Heat comes out and so do some of the gasses. Then there is the possibility of coals popping out or falling out. I also think you actually lose a lot of heat by leaving the door open. In our case we simply wait until the wood is down to coals or almost there and the stove top temperature has dropped to at least 350 then open the draft 100%. After a bit we may then go stir the coals which helps them burn down faster. As they burn down then we'll even sort of rake some to the front of the stove which helps them to burn down faster. Doing the burn down of coals this way I can't remember the last time we had a problem with too many coals and we keep the house plenty warm at all times too. We actually get very little temperature swing here and I like that.
I can't open the door on my IS past about 3-4 inches without smoke spillage, in most cases. I do run it with the door in the 1" open position, with the handle resting on the latch, to start from cold. I agree though, too much heat is lost. And with the jackpine I'm burning, it's too dangerous with all the fireworks going on!
I tried this one time! Turns out what I thought was ok was not a good idea at all. So, like you, I was sitting in the basement, waiting for the coals to burn down. I had the door open and stirred the ashes and coals around and thought, hmmm, that feels nice...And it seemed pretty harmless...So I left the door open and sat back down and went back to playing on the laptop, 8' from the stove. Some time went by, maybe 20-30 minutes...When I hear this beeping... Whats that?... Not a sound I'm used to hearing...not a smoke alarm...not a kitchen timer... So I go up to investigate and see a red flashing light on the kitchen table...whats that?...turn the light on...it's Mrs. TD's personal CO detector. All the techs and maintenance are required to wear them on their belt at work...I didn't think much of it at first, but it wouldn't stop(and the wife and Ruger were already asleep). So I went over to a window in the kitchen and cracked the window and held it up to the window in the draft and it only took a few seconds to stop. So I carried it back to the kitchen table and sat it back where it was. Seconds later it started again, so I went back to the window. Few seconds later it stopped and I closed the window but left it on the counter by the window, where the fresh air was still lingering. Started back down to the basement, and it went off again. This was now minutes after I closed the stove door and went to investigate. There's a reason the manufacturer puts warnings in the manual! And anyone that says otherwise is wrong the CO detector looks like this Any time she stands near the back of their service truck or my atv it will go off.
Weird. I have a CO detector 10' across the room from the stove, and another in the hallway upstairs by the bedrooms. They don't have readings, so I bought another one just to be sure. I pt it on the mantle directly above the stove door, right in the edge so it would see any gas. It has never once budged off of 0.0. I usually crack the door 4-6" to burn down coals and various amounts on fire up.
The heat you feel across the room and in your face is the IR heat. It tricks you into thinking it is warmer when it is actually sending more heat up the chimney which also means more cold outside air getting sucked in somewhere else in the house.
My wife and I used to live in a cabin that only had an open fireplace for heat. We slept on a mattress directly in front of the fire because everywhere, everywhere else in the cabin was see your breath, frost on the windows, shivering with your hands in your pockets, cold!
