I have took notice for a good while..that when you have a pretty good pile of coals..how much more the heat omits from the stove with door opened than closed. Other than sparks(depending on what type of wood you are burnin) ill leave mine open with a careful eye on it. My stove is an insert ..in which im sure..makes a difference than free standing. Just curious if anyone else ever does this on occasion....
You mean, use your insert like a fireplace? Not me. If I find the level of wood coals is getting piled up, then it's time to put small splits on top and let it burn down. I'll still have the cat active. While it's nice to feel the radiated heat of the open door, you've got heat going up the stack, imo.
I experience that too- this morning for sure when I was reloading the stove. I don't have it down to a science or anything but if there's a substantial bed of coals I find that the wood ignites so much obviously better. If it is kind of warm during the day I'll let them burn down, but otherwise I love having them to keep the stove going at a steady pace. It was in the teens this morning and was great to get the stove back up to temp with a bed of coals.
I have a Baker wood/coal smoke dragon in my unfinished basement. When i go down to load it up, I sometimes warm the bones with the door open. No doubt that metal door blocks the direct heat from a nice coal bed. Since not in my living space, I’d never consider leaving it open.
I have an older freestanding cast iron stove so my perspective is a little different. But I get good radiant heat right through the doors. When you open the doors and the air velocity increases going through the stove, over those coals, it's fanning the fire and making it more intense than with the doors closed but like MikeinMA said, your vacuuming the heat out of your house and pulling cold outside air in through every crack & gap. Also burning up your wood a lot faster as you have no control of combustion. I'm guilty of leaving my doors open once in a while just to see the fire, essentially in fireplace mode, but mostly in the shoulder seasons and usually not very long as I know I'm wasting wood, kindof.
I have the same situation at times. Coals will sometimes be 3-4 inches high in my Jotul F400. I've also opened the doors and felt the radiant heat. Sometimes I leave them open, sometimes I don't.
I'm not sure I'm interpreting the original post correctly. It almost sounds like you're concerned that the large pile of coals is a problem? It's the best problem to have, the fuel has reached it's ultimate state & is burning at near 100%, all the moisture & volatiles gone and typically nothing but clean heat mirage coming out the chimney. I just let it burn down till a point when I start tossing in more wood.
I know exactly what you mean. I've got an insert too. While I'll leave the door open a minute, or so, that's it. If I want/ need to burn down the coals, I'll throw on a low ashing kind of wood that doesn't leave much or any coals. Pine is best but silver maple, poplar, basswood, low BTU stuff.
I think it’s just a case of opening the doors to feel the large increase in radiant heat, and maybe to enjoy the view.
Not concerned with the pile of coals...they do have to burn down in order to fully load stove tho.. As far as draft goes.....my experience is...you only get a hard draft if the door is slightly ajar...fully open...not so much at all. I can stand 5 ft from the stove with the door wide open n feel more radiant heat than with door closed with the blower on
We have opened the door on ours and roasted hot dogs when the weather was bad outside...I know, we're southern rednecks...but those dogs were good...
When we first bought our Fireview it did not take long for the coaling to cause a slight problem. We'd need more heat so as we always did, simply add more fuel. However, the fire box soon was at least half full of coals. We could not get enough wood in to last very long at all. I searched for answers but basically found none that were worthy. Yes, I had toyed with opening the firebox door to burn them down but really did not like that and felt someone would have to be there to safeguard things. I tried the putting kindling on top of the coals to help but that really did not do all that good either. There had to be a better way. In the end, what we found was during the winter months when the stove is hot all the time (otherwise there was never a problem), we could almost always notice when the stovetop temperature began to fall somewhat. Now when we see the stovetop temperature down to 350-400 we simply open the draft as far as it will go. That way the stovetop will hold that temperature while the coals burn down. Of course we never burn the coals down all the way as it does help a lot keeping some good coals in the bottom. But we no longer have that problem of all the extra coals.
I'm starting to see where I was having problems understanding. I just woke up to the fact that I clicked on the EPA stove forum and you guys are dealing with cat's in your stoves. My old non-cat stove loves huge piles of coals. But back in line with Bear's original post, that infra-red radiation from those coals is a soul warming kind of heat. Can't blame you for cracking the door to enjoy it. I've always found it cool that when I break up a nice pile of coals and leave the doors cracked to blast that furnace, I can get blue flames coming off the bed of coals. I guess that's why the cat stops working, nothing to reignite in secondary combustion.
That radiant heat feels good but how much of the room's nice warm air is going up the chimney ? A normal fire with some wood that doesn't coal ( or depending on how you define coal, coals very little or short lived ) on top of the coal bed keeps your secondaries and/or cat going and making some heat without making the coal problem worse. Seeems a shame to let all that heat go up the chimney just to shrink the coal bed.
Anyone have a thermal imaging camera to see what is really happening? Since we all know heat rises, that extra radiant heat should be rising to the ceiling and if it is vacuuming air at a faster rate, it should be door level temps. There is still huge amounts of that heat being spread into the room and up. I guess a punk stick (incense) or two strategically placed could show air flow changes with it's smoke trail?
