Long burn, how to, please help, and ideas...

[FPX Dude]

Hey, how do y'all get such a long burn, or overnite?? I get a good coal bed goin,, then toss the splits and pack 'em in (I dunno how to measure that, but I'd say like 50lbs. of splits) and get them ready. Let everything come up to char, like 20-30 mins., then shut it down, and go into cruise mode. At this point, everything is fine, temp at 650, just mellow roll on the flame, this lasts for like 1-2 hrs., then I get what seems like the over fire and everything takes off all at once, this happens until hours 2-3, then burns out and all I get is coals for another 1 hour or so, but nothing like you BK guys and all?? How do you make it go so long w/o that big "everything catches off" and control it??

 

[EatenByLimestone]

What stove are you running, how tall is your chimney, and what are you burning?

 

[Wisco Shepherd]

My guess would be if you are loading onto a full bed of coals you don't need to run it high for 30 minutes. Let her run high for 5 minutes then back it back down in steps

 

[stoveliker]

Don't compare to a BK; it's a different system.
For one, a BK has a thermostat, so if something "takes off" it'll close the air more. Second, the BK has a cat and can run at a lower output even with a large firebox full by smoldering (with the cat cleaning up the exhaust and providing heat). Given that burn time basically is the BTUs loaded divided by the BTU per hour output rate, long burn times just mean running at a lower heat output (and one should ask whether that would be enough for your home to remain comfortable?).

So different beast altogether.

That said, pack your fireplace tightly with big splits, East West may help. And if your wood is truly dry, dial down sooner (in steps; see the flames get lazy, wait 5 minutes, then the next step).

 

[begreen]

Indeed. As a big fireplace, this is not going to burn like a BK stove. Lots of questions:

How tall is the flue on this fireplace? Is this the single-door or double-door model? How old is it? Can we assume that the bypass is closed after startup? Is the 650º the cat temp or the FP temp as measured on the face? What is the cat temp when the fire "takes off"?

 

[FPX Dude]

Flue is typical 16' in a chase, 650 is measured with the IR gun, cat is glowing, yes bypass closed, air control is barely open, I have the 36" Elite so single door, splits are E/W and packed tight. I dunno, just seems to be nicely going along, the edges are doing good, then at like 2-3 hrs. it gets it's mind as if all the wood is nicely chared and everything just catches, I wouldn't call it an overfire but it's really going, anyway thanks for your replies...

 

[NickW]

This sounds like what I experience with my tube stove. At 1 1/2 hours in I have to shut things down a little more due to takeoff. Then when it starts to drop open up to my cruising settings. I have a really narrow flue temperature range (700-750) where it just runs nice; lower and it just doesn't want to maintain, higher and it wants to takeoff. I think the horizontal run and tall flue is the reason.

 

[begreen]

air control is barely open,

Close it down all the way when it starts to take off.