A Little scare and a few ?? on my PE Pacific insert.

[jqgs214]

Ok, high temp here on Strong Island was 40 deg yesterday, Had a nice fire going from about 1:00. House was at a comfortalbe 72 deg without stressing the stove at all. So, was getting round 8:00pm, stove had cooled to about 300deg and I Loaded her up more than ever before. 6 decent sized red oak splits. Got em charred up and dampered all the way down, almost put the fire out actually but there was still some secondary action firing on and off rapidly. Took out the flashlight and look at the chimney outside and no smoke so It was burning cleanly. Slowly but surely the secondary action picked up. Said to the wife "see its perfect now". 2 Hours later and the Secondaries are cranking, wife and I in our scibbies since its 76 deg. Start gettinga wiff of that curing paint smell, look at the stove and its 750deg. Crank blower to high and its goes up to 78deg in 10 minutes in the house and the stove top goes back down to 675-700deg. Man I wish I could damper down just a little more because I dont want to wake up in the middle of the night to that smell and overfire my stove by not turning the fan on high. I could even have put maybe a little more wood in there too. So a took a closer look at the damer slide and there is a cut out on the bottom that it slides through. It hits the end of the slide on the fully open (left) end, but when dampered down to the right, the damper mechanism stops about four inches before the end of the cut-out. Is that normal on my stove or do I have something blocking the slide path. I can control a fire very well but just a little more on the damper side would be nice. Hope that all makes sense. Any input?? Maybe 4 larer splits would slow it down?? I had it packed pretty tight. I dont have larger splits ready for this season but I do for next year.

 

[iceman]

Ok, high temp here on Strong Island was 40 deg yesterday, Had a nice fire going from about 1:00. House was at a comfortalbe 72 deg without stressing the stove at all. So, was getting round 8:00pm, stove had cooled to about 300deg and I Loaded her up more than ever before. 6 decent sized red oak splits. Got em charred up and dampered all the way down, almost put the fire out actually but there was still some secondary action firing on and off rapidly. Took out the flashlight and look at the chimney outside and no smoke so It was burning cleanly. Slowly but surely the secondary action picked up. Said to the wife "see its perfect now". 2 Hours later and the Secondaries are cranking, wife and I in our scibbies since its 76 deg. Start gettinga wiff of that curing paint smell, look at the stove and its 750deg. Crank blower to high and its goes up to 78deg in 10 minutes in the house and the stove top goes back down to 675-700deg. Man I wish I could damper down just a little more because I dont want to wake up in the middle of the night to that smell and overfire my stove by not turning the fan on high. I could even have put maybe a little more wood in there too. So a took a closer look at the damer slide and there is a cut out on the bottom that it slides through. It hits the end of the slide on the fully open (left) end, but when dampered down to the right, the damper mechanism stops about four inches before the end of the cut-out. Is that normal on my stove or do I have something blocking the slide path. I can control a fire very well but just a little more on the damper side would be nice. Hope that all makes sense. Any input?? Maybe 4 larer splits would slow it down?? I had it packed pretty tight. I dont have larger splits ready for this season but I do for next year.

wow very interesting

 

[jqgs214]

Sarcasm?? or do ya want someone to chime in here? Be honest I'm a big boy

 

[Cearbhaill]

I don't claim to know anything about anything, but my PE Pacific insert is the same way. I can see a piece of steel in there blocking the way of turning it lower.

BTW- ask me why I stood in my basement last night at 2AM with the exterior door wide open for a good 20 minutes. Those babies get hot!
I always sit there until I see the thermometer peak and then go down a little bit but last night it got away from me. I had just read about newbies being to afraid to get them really hot, and so I was practicing using a bigger load for overnight. Scared me.

 

[jqgs214]

wow, too run away PE's on the same night, now that scary!!

 

[begreen]

It sounds like the stove is working as advertised. I'm a little jealous. Best suggestion that I can give is to use smaller loads. Save the 'fill it to the gills' for those zero degree nights.

 

[jqgs214]

Yeah, I agree but do you think larger splits will help slow her down?

 

[Todd]

4" sound a little much to me. I know most non cats have some kind of stop on the air slide control to keep the firebox hot with enough air and keep the secondary going. I have heard of people tinkering with these to close them up a little, but that might void your warranty or give you a dirty burn. Maybe something is blocking it like some weld slag? If that is normal maybe think about installing a pipe damper to slow it down.

 

[Cearbhaill]

wow, too run away PE's on the same night, now that scary!!

We shouldn't be scared I guess. I still have no idea how the insert temps relate to flue temps but I'd imagine they are a good deal higher. I just try and keep the thermometer out of the "overfiring" range.

As for me I am just learning about the proper way to do things and as with anything else it takes a bit of experimenting to get things right. There is probably a fine line between hot enough and too hot. It's timing the final damping down that's giving me trouble- I tend to do it too soon and was trying to push it a bit.

We'll get it figured out

Edit: It's not a piece of slag that's blocking mine. It is a piece of steel welded in neat as a pin.


And mine smelled like cinnamon!

 

[Jimbob]

......"2 Hours later and the Secondaries are cranking, wife and I in our scibbies since its 76 deg. Start gettinga wiff of that curing paint smell, look at the stove and its 750deg. Crank blower to high and its goes up to 78deg in 10 minutes in the house and the stove top goes back down to 675-700deg."


I wouldn't call 750 degrees stove temp a runaway. When you have that much wood burnrng all at the same time, even slowly, you are going to make some heat. You can safely run it @ 800 without damage.
Our Summit runs like that if I load it right up on a cold night.
That smell will go away after a few good burns like that.

 

[jqgs214]

Jimbob,

Thanks for the input, my thermometer only goes to 800 so 750 scared me a little, but man was that heat output nice! Cant wait for colder weather and I'm gonna need more wood!

 

[Jimbob]

This is what the air control looks like on ours with the inlet damper wide open.

 

[Jimbob]

And this is how far it closes (as viewed from underside of stove, with ash drawer removed).
You probably can't see that on your insert, but this illustrates that the air control is made not to close completely.

Sorry for the crappy pic.

 

[begreen]

Yeah, I agree but do you think larger splits will help slow her down?

Larger splits should give a slower burn without as much of a dramatic temperature rise.

What we have it seems are several new 3 cu ft stove owners (not just PE) that are just discovering the potential of these babies. It's why we stress safe installations and good clearances to combustibles. These puppies with a full load of dry wood are serious burners.

 

[jqgs214]

I agree BG, even my 2.0CF cranks the heat! Woo HOO

 

[begreen]

Yep, my neighbor has the Spectrum and is really happy with it.

BTW, all you new stove owners, check the fit of the gaskets on the stove. The doors often need a minor adjustment when they settle in.

 

[jqgs214]

Jimbob,

That;s not the slide In talking about. The lever itself slides horizontal through a cut out in the lower shield of the stove. It hits the cutout on the left but has room to spare on the right. Its a cutout thats about 1/4" high and 16" long. It is not the air inlet itself just the lever that operates it.

 

[Cearbhaill]

And this is how far it closes (as viewed from underside of stove, with ash drawer removed).

Ash drawer?
We have an ash drawer?? hh:

And yes wxman- that's the slit I was looking at too.

 

[Jimbob]

Jimbob,

That;s not the slide In talking about. The lever itself slides horizontal through a cut out in the lower shield of the stove. It hits the cutout on the left but has room to spare on the right. Its a cutout thats about 1/4" high and 16" long. It is not the air inlet itself just the lever that operates it.

Ah, I see what you mean.
Mine's the opposite though, the lever nearly touches the right, but has lots of room on the left (high) end.
I wouldn't take that to mean anything, it's just the way my pedistal was notched.
2 major differences between our units.
Mine's a freestanding stove, and it's the next size up (Summit). Your insert is based on the Super 27.

 

[Jimbob]

And this is how far it closes (as viewed from underside of stove, with ash drawer removed).

Ash drawer?
We have an ash drawer?? hh:

No.

 

[Cearbhaill]

No.

Phew!
No wonder I couldn't find any mention of it in the manual!

 

[thechimneysweep]

The slot where the draft control arm enters the stove isn't precisely cut to the exact position of the arm when open or closed all the way: it is wide enough to accomodate the full throw of the slide plate on the other end of the arm on various models. When the lever is moved as far as it will go towards the low position, the slide plate is closed to the tiny slit shown in the photo above. In other words, looking at the slot it can appear that you should have more throw than you do on one side, and less slot than you need on the other. Not the case.

As to the "runaway" fire, relaxamundo. Your post describes exactly how my Spectrum has worked for 15 years now. When I cram it full for the long burn, kindle it up, and close the draft control down all the way (which I've found is the perfect setting to keep my house at the temp my wife likes it), the temperature climbs steadily for a couple of hours, usually peaking at +- 800 degrees before finally settling down for the remainder of the burn. I believe this is due to the gasification of the resin content in the fresh load, which provides a lot of fuel to the secondary burn all at once.

Each time your stove reaches a higher temperature than it has before, you're likely to smell hot paint. We notice this all the time in our shop, where we've got nine test flues and new models are constantly coming and going. The smell is not toxic, and not necessarily an indication of overfiring or an out-of-control burn. Over time, it will go away altogether.

 

[jqgs214]

Thanks Tom,

I thought I recalled earlier you saying something about the 700deg mark, thats why I was little concerned. Thanks for taking care of the gasket issue. They'll go out in the mail tomorrow. Will one stamp cover those?? Dont recall what you put on the inbound.

 

[karl]

Wxman I think bigger splits will help you too. I've been sorting out the big stuff from my pile as I've been burning. It hasn't been really cold here yet so I havent used them. Last night I put a 8 or 9 inch round in the insert and a few bigger splits. I closed the draft control all the way after they got burning. I was kind of dissapointed with the lazy flame and lower heat output compared to the small stuff I had been burning. Anyway, nine hours later I woke up and was surprised to hear the fan still running continuously and not intermittenly like if normal does after that lenght of time. When I went into the living room the stove had a huge bed of coals left in it. I am in need of cleaning the ashes out of it, so that may have helped keep the coals longer too, but I'm telling you I had so many coals left this morning, I seriously thought about having to let them burn down.

 

[Cearbhaill]

As to the "runaway" fire, relaxamundo. Your post describes exactly how my Spectrum has worked for 15 years now. When I cram it full for the long burn, kindle it up, and close the draft control down all the way (which I've found is the perfect setting to keep my house at the temp my wife likes it), the temperature climbs steadily for a couple of hours, usually peaking at +- 800 degrees before finally settling down for the remainder of the burn.

My thermometer shows "Overfiring" begins at 600º.
If it ever went up to 800º I'd have to call 911 on myself.

This still goes back to my question about how stove/insert temps relate to flue temps, which are what these thermometers are designed to measure... right? A stovepipe?

It's quite confusing to a newbie who's just trying to learn how to do it correctly.