Oak won't fire off as hard as some softer stuff...pine, soft maple, etc. You can get some ripping secondary action with those. A full firebox, especially when its cold out and your chimney draft is higher will help a lot. In those conditions you will find that as you close the air down, and the secondary combustion starts kicking in good, your stove top temps (STT) will actually go up as your stovepipe (flue) temps go down. As others have already mentioned, depending on how full the stove is and what you are burning, the secondary combustion will only last 2-3 hours because the wood is pretty well gassed out at that point...
Made it into the mid 80's today with a dew point of 69 and a heat index of 89. Supposed to be 30* colder tomorrow so maybe I can get some wood split. After tomorrow we are looking at rain just about every day for the next week. I have cataract surgery coming up at the end of October and I want to get my fall cutting and splitting done before then. If only it would stop raining.
One thing I am concerned about is overfiring the stove. My 'Inferno' stove top thermometer lists 700* as the low point of overfire condition.
Yeah, you'll learn the stove pretty quickly...and I'm not familiar with your stove either, but if it is a steel stove, 700-750* is about as high as you want to go on a regular basis, 800* wouldn't bother me too much, 900* is right on the ragged edge of damage even on a steel stove...and go much over 900* you can start to see the steel glow a dull orange in a darkened room....you may or may not have damage after that...I wouldn't recommend trying it. Your owners manual may say what the manufacturer says is max temp. You want to start cutting the air back about 100* lower than your target temp to allow for over run...and don't cut the air back all at once (unless the stove is already way too hot) you want to cut it back ~25% at a time, let the fire stabilize for a couple minutes, then repeat until you get things settled in where you want it. It takes a few weeks or months to get used to the nuances of a new stove...and every individual install is a just little different, even with the same model stove.
It's not terribly easy to overfire, but once you have reached that point its hard to regain control. About a year after we got ours I reloaded a hot stove with a full load of ash, some pine and some maple I think. All very dry. It lit off hard, lit up the room from the Secondaries firing like a wall of flame... It got me nervous so I started dialing back the air, but not quick enough and it had too much draft even with air down all the way. It climbed past 900 quickly and stayed there for a long while...at least 90 minutes. At one point I opened the door thinking that I could throw in some ash or water but that just made it angrier. Eventually it consumed the fuel and cooled down. It's frightening but I won't ever reload it full when it has a hot bed of coals. A few logs is fine... I don't know if it's really that temp though... It's one of the simple stove top dials and it often disagrees with my laser gun thermometer. That said I frequently let it ramp up to 700-750, before dialing the air down and settling in at a nice 500, STT. Top down fires work the best.
Congrats on your new insert Lopi Manuals Tell you to place your thermometer over the door , I suggest you move it closer to the center ,In your case probably As far back as you can ,If you don't have one Get an IR thermometer And check for the hottest spot And put your thermometer there Until you get used to the stove ,After that you can move it back toward the front if you want . I have my digital thermometer In the center hot spot on my Republic 1750 Then I have a magnet Mount thermometer Closer to the front near the door For reference . Like said with warmer temperatures (less draft) and small loads you won't get a whole lot of Secondary burn action , You need to get your stove temp up to about 500 for good secondary burn . Like said don't close your air down too fast , close it in increments but, The more wood You put in and the colder the outside temperatures are, The quicker you will need to dial it down . When you get your stove choochin good you will find That small movement will make a big difference like one eight to quarter inch On the rod. If your air control rod is easy enough to see you might want to mark it like I did , It's easier to tell where your at and you can repeat it . First mark toward the stove is my halfway Point ,Last mark away from stove is fully closed , in the pic it is closed One quarter of the way .
