This started in another thread, but not wanting to hijack...
So you throw a large load of small or sappy splits in the stove, atop an established coal bed. It takes off and starts out gassing faster than you ever anticipated. Your secondary system (cat or flutes) goes nuclear. If you have a cat stove, you either open the primary air to cool the cat and watch the firebox temps rise, or you open the bypass damper and close the air control to burn smoke dragon style for 5 - 10 minutes. If you have a non-cat, you probably do something similar (?), or just ride it out.
The real question is how this situation can be avoided in the first place. You want to load that big firebox full, so you can leave for the day and have the stove cruise for 12 hours.
Seems to me the only solution is to load up the firebox a little at a time, letting each small armload of splits off-gas for 15 minutes before loading in more, to eliminate the large amount of simultaneous out gassing that leads to the "nuclear" condition.
Problems I see with this plan are:
1. You're going to burn a bunch of wood in smoke dragon mode, if you're incrementally filling the firebox over the course of 45 minutes or more. It might be more than an hour after adding your first incremental load before you can re-engage your secondary burn system.
2. Who has that kind of time before work in the morning?
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So you throw a large load of small or sappy splits in the stove, atop an established coal bed. It takes off and starts out gassing faster than you ever anticipated. Your secondary system (cat or flutes) goes nuclear. If you have a cat stove, you either open the primary air to cool the cat and watch the firebox temps rise, or you open the bypass damper and close the air control to burn smoke dragon style for 5 - 10 minutes. If you have a non-cat, you probably do something similar (?), or just ride it out.
The real question is how this situation can be avoided in the first place. You want to load that big firebox full, so you can leave for the day and have the stove cruise for 12 hours.
Seems to me the only solution is to load up the firebox a little at a time, letting each small armload of splits off-gas for 15 minutes before loading in more, to eliminate the large amount of simultaneous out gassing that leads to the "nuclear" condition.
Problems I see with this plan are:
1. You're going to burn a bunch of wood in smoke dragon mode, if you're incrementally filling the firebox over the course of 45 minutes or more. It might be more than an hour after adding your first incremental load before you can re-engage your secondary burn system.
2. Who has that kind of time before work in the morning?
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