Runaway stove - crisis averted

So silly me figures "Hey Ill save my hardwood and fillup with my maple for over night" 20min in and Cat temp 1700, cooktop 800 and flue pushing 700. Switched between cat engaged and disengaged for a bit, it helped but I couldnt do that for 3hrs so I got the ash bucket and pulled 3 burning splits out....... THANK GOD I didn't go to sleep before this happened!! House full of smoke is better than............ Reckless me Oh its a VC 2550 and my first year burning So BIG lesson learned!!

 

Can't close the air down? An air right stove ought to burn out with drafts closed or at least not enough air to burn like that!

 

Air was fully off these stoves have EPA airholes in the legs that let air in even with the air turned off and it seemed like all the wood was gassing off at the same time so idk. I need a drink!

 

This is wrong. Modern stoves are not air tight.

 

I think you over reacted a bit.

Next time, open the damper and then open the stove door for a while. Let it sort itself out for a moment. Close the door. Engage the cat and adjust the air. It should settle down.

But, it IS an Encore. So, you really need to check the gaskets for leaks. You said this is your first year with the stove. I have to assume you bought it used. Did you regasket the stove? If you didn't, you probably need to. If you did, are all the gaskets seated properly? Did you clean out the old gasket cement properly?

 

Keep an eye on that encore. They are great heaters when everything is right. When something isn't just right it will make you pull your hair out.
Don't ask me how I know.

 

BBAR beat me to it... What he said, check all your gaskets, especially that ash pan door.

 

Ya I fell for the air tight myth about 10 years ago very similar circumstances,( diffrent stove then) But I had to ride it out in a trailer with double wall flue pipe glowing faintly red with the lights off. I didn't have anything to pull fuel out into either at the time. Still get the Heebie Jeebies when the NC30 hits 700 mark, with the blower on.
Stoves - air wash - wide open no control, secondaries -most have no control, primary air- some control but not a complete shut off, in some shifts it to the secondaries. never had a cat unit.

 

I might have but I saw the fireback glowing a deep red and saw all the temps point to disaster and freaked a little. These fireplaces were designed to run in fireplace mode so maybe I should have tried that but to me I was thinking how to avoid nuclear meltdown This is the exact reason I posted this to know what to do next time. And I did redo all the gaskets but I will double check them all now. Thanks.

 

When I do door to door the dollar pulls out with some force but the door to stove cannot pull with out ripping, should door to door have the same force? (remember this stove is double door) I just did the ash pan gasket a couple weeks ago, I have to wait to test it till the stove is completely empty.

 

Tr

try waving an incense stick or cigar around the gaskets (outside) when the stove is running hot. The smoke will be sucked in any areas that are leaking. If the ash pan door is misaligned you could have leaks at the corners that the dollar bill test might not pick up as well.

 

Do this with the air completely closed correct?

 

I can't speak for other stoves, but with the Woodstock PH (which has both a CAT and secondaries), I can basically shut the stove down from an all out raging out of control fire by simply shutting the air control all the way off. All the flames go out within a minutes, ussually in about 10 or 20 seconds.

This sounds like a a leak to me... BB is dead on...

 

After going over all the gaskets with dollar bill test I found the door and ash pan needed minor adjustments in certain areas. I guess you really need to keep on new gaskets and keep adjusting them (I adjusted them once before a week after I did them). Im am going to run a full load today during the day and see what takes place.

 

No need to run a full load to test. Throw in a few small diameter splits. Four or five. Should equate to a half load or less. Get the stove going, close the bypass, and adjust the air accordingly. The flame should slow and look thick.

 

So loaded 4 splits of maple into a warm stove to simulate what I did the other night (3-350). Engaged cat at the 5 min mark and it took off up to 15-1600 played with the air a bit and was able to get it to come down to 1400. Left the air on about 2/3 closed and now its cruising 11-12oo after about 15min of 14-1600. Couple differences here 1. I plugged the EPA holes with gasket rope (not sure it did much)2. stove top and stove pipe never exceeded 450-500 (the other night 8-900) 3. Moved fan that was blowing across the top of the griddle to blowing underneath the ash pan from rear. So is it possible that the force of the air was getting into the griddle seal? I had turned the fan off when I hit the 1600 mark and it came back down to 1550 soon after. After I moved it to the rear blowing under (which is actually working better) is when it was in the 11-1300 range. Or all this can be completely unrelated.......

 

Sounds unrelated to me.... that also sounds very precarious to me. You should NOT have to tinker with the stove to ensure it doesn't overfire, somthing is not right, get it fixed. Safety first!

 

Yes I do believe it is unrelated at this point. I need to get a hold of some incense stick and give that a try tomorrow. I am thinking stove hot with air off to detect the leak the best?

 

The stove I would think want some air flow so its really cooking and sucking the air.