Load it up, burn all night....

[velvetfoot]

No mention in my manual, far as I can see.

 

[Saddle Mander]

I am having a totally different experience. After 3 hours, my coals aren't even glowing any more.

 

[cableman]

I am having a totally different experience. After 3 hours, my coals aren't even glowing any more.

Thats crazy! I moved the bottom ash around and mine was glowing after 10hrs! It was a good burn!

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[oldspark]

The PE manuals say you can stuff them full to the baffles. I still get secondaries no problem even stuffed right tight to the baffle, there is still plenty of air space.

Cool, I had not looked into my manual yet.

 

[Dairyman]

Depends on what ya call full. Stuff it up to the baffle and not leave any combustion air space between the wood and the baffle and most of what comes off the wood get blown up the flue before it gets a chance to burn. Combustion needs fuel, air, heat, residence time and turbulence. Stuffed to the roof severely limits the residence time. I have run the 30 stuffed and also I have run it loaded just to the top of the fire bricks a bunch of times and get better heat and the same burn times just loading to the top of the bricks and letting it burn the way it was designed to burn.

So how much space is needed?

 

[oldspark]

The PE manuals say you can stuff them full to the baffles. I still get secondaries no problem even stuffed right tight to the baffle, there is still plenty of air space.

I do too but thought the suggestion about not loading it to the baffle was for our stove also, never noticed a problem with the secondaries with a small load of wood or a big one.

 

[Hogwildz]

I stuff mine to the bottom of the baffle, and have no problems with the burn or secondaries.
When the load gets going, the wood both shrinks and for whatever reason, what was at the bottom of the baffle, by the time comes to cut the air back, the load is not about a 1/2" to an inch away from the baffle at that point. Those jets of the secondaries will burn the wood whether tight against, or below. Matter of fact, the secondaries will blast though all the top splits practically blasting all the way through at each line of ports.
For me, the space is there, I am using it.

 

[Hogwildz]

I posted about this the other day, but I peeked through the vent in my fireplace above my insert and saw my flexliner glowing a little red after a re-load. Stove was just under 500 degrees at the time. When i cut the air half way down the liner quits glowing within minutes. I've since kept an eye on it and learned it will glow pretty much anytime i reload while building the stove temp back up. I suspect it is pretty easy to make a flex liner glow, and it probably happens to others here, but they have no way to see it. . I've tried cutting back the air sooner, but it caused problems reaching a good burn temp. I have a ton of draft, not sure if that could be part of the problem.

Elusive, you should in no way have anything glowing, on the stove, or the liner. With the exception of the baffle and sometimes the baffle rail(s).
If that flex liner is glowing, you got way too much heat going up the flue. Which leads me to believe your cutting the air back way to late. If you have to cut it back any later than 400-500 degrees, your wood is wet, or you have a weak draft, and your keeping it flaming longer to keep it from smouldering when you cut the air back. Which is an indicator the wood ain't ready.
I have 27' of liner and have a serious draft, and never seen the liner glow.
Based on what I have read, I am banking that your wood is not close to ready.
Throw some real dry stuff in there and you should be able to cut the air back around 400 and she will do the rest.
I load, run 15-20 mins, cut air back to 50% at 300 degrees, run another 10 mins, cut the air back all the way.
The time frame maybe be extended if I am loading a cold stove or say the insert temp has dropped to 100-150.
After 400 she is basically on autopilot with air shut back.

With a strong draft you would be cutting the air back sooner, not later.

 

[Elusive]

Elusive, you should in no way have anything glowing, on the stove, or the liner. With the exception of the baffle and sometimes the baffle rail(s).
If that flex liner is glowing, you got way too much heat going up the flue. Which leads me to believe your cutting the air back way to late. If you have to cut it back any later than 400-500 degrees, your wood is wet, or you have a weak draft, and your keeping it flaming longer to keep it from smouldering when you cut the air back. Which is an indicator the wood ain't ready.
I have 27' of liner and have a serious draft, and never seen the liner glow.
Based on what I have read, I am banking that your wood is not close to ready.
Throw some real dry stuff in there and you should be able to cut the air back around 400 and she will do the rest.
I load, run 15-20 mins, cut air back to 50% at 300 degrees, run another 10 mins, cut the air back all the way.
The time frame maybe be extended if I am loading a cold stove or say the insert temp has dropped to 100-150.
After 400 she is basically on autopilot with air shut back.

With a strong draft you would be cutting the air back sooner, not later.

Thanks for the reply. I've been having success with cutting the air back around 350 degrees the last couple days. I burn almost exclusively black locust that has been c/s/s for exactly one year, but some of my bigger splits aren't quite ready yet, so i've been more selective when loading.

 

[Huntindog1]

I remember one thing is loading east west and stacking it high in the front of the stove traps the heat in the stove and the stove can over heat more easily. Many of us east west loaders have done that and learned our lesson.

Stacking it high in the stove is a concept we talk about alot as these stoves work best from full load cycles. Plus the top down technique of fire starting. Your basically creating a real small burn chamber up at the top of the stove that being small is more easily heated up and the heat is more easily maintained in a smaller space which creates a condition to fire off secondaries. So you get a fire up in the top of the stove while your main wood load sits underneath as the stove burns down from top to bottom. There is just a little bit of dog house air down at the coal level to energize the coals at a slow burn level while most of your heat is made up top burning smoke gases.

I believe some maybe able to get a longer burn by block off the doghouse air inlet, on my stove its a 3/8" in hole on the bottom of the stove front center. I put a piece of aluminum foil tape over the hole. This now allows the draw of the flue to pull in more air in the top of the stove thru the secondary holes in the tubes or manifold. So the load at the bottom burns slower while the flames at the top burn more with more air coming in. More of a balancing act of air flow thru the stove.

 

[begreen]

I stuff mine to the bottom of the baffle, and have no problems with the burn or secondaries.
When the load gets going, the wood both shrinks and for whatever reason, what was at the bottom of the baffle, by the time comes to cut the air back, the load is not about a 1/2" to an inch away from the baffle at that point. Those jets of the secondaries will burn the wood whether tight against, or below. Matter of fact, the secondaries will blast though all the top splits practically blasting all the way through at each line of ports.
For me, the space is there, I am using it.

This is possible with the unique, flat-metal-bottom baffle in the PE stoves. The box baffle is not going to get damaged if you bang a split up against it. I would leave a bit more room under the tubes in a stove that has an insulation board baffle.

 

[Hogwildz]

This is possible with the unique, flat-metal-bottom baffle in the PE stoves. The box baffle is not going to get damaged if you bang a split up against it. I would leave a bit more room under the tubes in a stove that has an insulation board baffle.

Agreed. And I will be hopefully doing just that once I ever get the 30 Hooked up.

 

[privatejoker75]

We have a BK Chinook 20 and I stuff it every night around 11pm and put it on a lower thermomostat setting. At 7am it's still like 25% full and going strong

 

[Machria]

Well, if we are doing loaded pics...


View attachment 120845

That's an awesome shot

 

[jzinckgra]

I pulled this quote from the csia site " In the case of wood stoves, overloading the firebox with wood in an attempt to get a longer burn time also contributes to creosote buildup" I thought this was interesting given all the talk about stuffing boxes full. Maybe they are thinking everyone fills the box and let's it smolder all nite otherwise not sure I understand their warning.

 

[Huntindog1]

My experience has been that smaller areas up in the top of the stove are easier to build the heat up in the top of the stove. Free open space in a stove is harder to build heat up in. Even if the wood is stacked to the bottom of the baffle tubes there is still air coming in thru those air holes. Its the heat build up thats going to fire off those secondaries burning the smoke gases. If your wood is good and dry and you load on a good bed of hot coals your going to get some secondary action pretty quick with a full load of dry wood mainly because smaller areas build up heat much quicker than big open areas in a firebox. As a matter of fact like I mentioned before if you load wood high in the front of the stove with a east west load you can get a too hot of stove that can be hard to get shut down and cooled down.

If you think in terms of its all about the heat, things make much more sense. The old way of thinking is its all about flames but flames dont always build you heat.. So when your operating your stove think of ways to build heat in the firebox as when you do that better your stove will burn better.