I am in the process of learning our new Jotul 600CB Firelight. We had some below freezing evenings, so the past few nights I have been putting a decent load (not packed) of mixed hard / soft wood about an hour before going to bed, to carry it though the night. The problem I have is, whenever I put a decent load in, the temp will climb over 500ºF, even with the air control all the way down, I can not turn the air down enough to keep the temps in the 400’s. This is a common mistake for many folks who are either burning for the first time or who have used a non-EPA stove in the past -- and it's normal. In a car if you need to go slower you use less gas, right and so many folks assume that if you need less heat you reduce the air. In a similar vein of thinking, folks with experience in using non EPA stoves are used to cutting back the air on their older stoves to get a longer burn -- although in the process you also suffocate the fire and cause a smoldering, creosote-clogging chimney mess in time. Closing the air control with a modern EPA stove actually will result in more heat . . . if the wood is seasoned and the temps are right. Why might you ask is this the case? Answer -- you're keeping more heat in the stove and less heat is going up the chimney (which is why after closing the air control or shutting it a good amount you will most likely see the temp on the flue either stay the same or go down slightly while the temp on the stove rises). On top of this, closing the air control is often one of the last steps to achieve secondary combustion -- which is where the magic happens. No, I'm not talking about pulling rabbits out of hats or dancing, prancing magical unicorns -- I'm talking secondary combustion -- aka the Bowels of Hell. This is the reason why your stove is efficient and is able to really put out the heat. So . . . when you start closing the air thinking you are reducing the heat you are in fact often doing just the opposite -- increasing the heat in the firebox. To best control the heat you can do so my controlling what you put in the firebox (i.e. higher BTU wood vs. lower BTU wood, size of the splits (small vs. large) and how much wood you put in the firebox (i.e. half load or stuffed to the gills).. Getting too much heat and not long enough burn. In the morning there are not many coals at all, but maybe that will change with full hardwood loads. Is this normal for the new Jotul stoves? I would suspect an air leak, but can not find any. Is my air control faulty or is this normal? This is normal . . . and not a leak. To get a longer burn and have enough coals in the morning to easily re-start the fire you can make a few changes -- 1) use only hardwoods on this final fire, 2) use larger splits and rounds and 3) load up the firebox. The negative with this . . . if you can call it negative . . . is that your Firelight is designed to really heat up the place . . . if you do all three of my recommendations -- load the firebox up with larger, seasoned, high BTU hardwoods a half hour before you go to bed, get the stove up to temp, turn down the air and achieve a good, sustained secondary burn you should wake up in the morning with some coals . . . but more importantly you will have also kept the house warm all night long and have done so in a clean and efficient manner . . . again . . . depending on how cold it is . . . you could be producing a lot of heat in the home.
Any other Firelight owners out there? Oh yeah, suppose I should come clean . . . I own an Oslo . . . younger brother to the Firelight . . . but a very good heater in its own respect.Thank in advance
Bill