New stove, old stove habits

[paguy]

So I replaced an old Kodiack 2 door wood stove this morning. It worked very well but it had a crack on teh side and the steel flat stock below the flute inside was near gone.

Anyway i chose the summers heat england 2200 wood stove. Managed to get it off the truck and in the house with the help of the little woman. Everything went flawless.

So I fire it up and burn it low and slow, rince and repeat again. But it is not like the old one at all. I know my wood isnt properly seasoned, I had a triaxle of logs delivered in the spring and cut and split them early summer. They were suppose to be last falls timer and some were very dry while others were not.

Anyway, Im noticing its harder to get a good even burn going. While trying different settings and such, I have accumulated about 6 inches of coals. The top baffles are working depending on how hot I burn it, Sometimes I get them cherry. (not sure if that is good).

With the old stove I piled the wood in and let it go checking it every couple hours. It seems Im babysitting this new one and havent found that sweet spot.

So my question right now is this. With the new stove should I only put 3-4 18 inch pieces of wood in it and burn em to ash or do I keep the firebrick full of wood? With the llarge pile of coals I currently have, is it safe to assume just pull the vent out and burn them down before I put more wood in it? Also I never heard of the north south east west positioning of wood prior to getting on this forum. That a fact or fiction?

My thermometer reads 300-350 resting on top and the flu temp is about the same right now.

If anyone has some input I would appreciate it and I would greatly appreciate some "hands on" experiance from anyone who has this stove.

Im used to fill it and forget it of the old style. Im concerned I cannot do that with the new stove.

Model 50-snc30lc
(no blower, figured it was a waste of money??)

Thanks

 

[DAKSY]

If you're only getting to 300 - 350 temps on top of the stove AND the stack,
you're not burning anywhere NEAR hot enuff.
Get a moisture meter & see where your wood is at...
If you're over 20% - & I BET you are - you're not gonna be happy...
You'll be cleaning your pipes monthly if you want to prevent a chimney fire...
You GOTTA get dry wood.

 

[Pagey]

These newer non-cat EPA stoves like to run hot. My Endeavor is happiest when cruising around 600-650F on the stove top with a full load. I can run it around 500F, but that requires fewer splits and a much less established coal bed. The middle burn tube will glow from time to time during the hottest part of a burn when the wood is really out-gassing.

If you are trying to burn large splits on a mediocre coal bed (especially with damp wood), you're not going to get a blazing, spectacular fire. If you take a hot fire box with a good, thick bed of red hot coals, those same splits will take off like the 4th of July.

 

[paguy]

Dasky,

Those temps are just with a log or two in there on top of the coals I created, Im not trying to fire it up, just burn the coals down. BUT Im betting my wood isnt going to make me happy, I may buy a cord of DRY oak to get the season started.

 

[paguy]

These newer non-cat EPA stoves like to run hot. My Endeavor is happiest when cruising around 600-650F on the stove top with a full load. I can run it around 500F, but that requires fewer splits and a much less established coal bed. The middle burn tube will glow from time to time during the hottest part of a burn when the wood is really out-gassing.

If you are trying to burn large splits on a mediocre coal bed (especially with damp wood), you're not going to get a blazing, spectacular fire. If you take a hot fire box with a good, thick bed of red hot coals, those same splits will take off like the 4th of July.

Well once I get my coals down to about 3inches Ill play around with what I have. On the new stoves, do you still put enough wood in it to leave an inch top clearance or do you put less in? like I said with my old one, I filled it up and just adjusted the air inlets or flu damper, this stove says to not use the flu damper and has the air pull arm. I think I just gotta mess with it.

As far as my wood, some is moist I know that, Im not getting black soot on the window and my top tubes seem to be burning rather effectively, no to little chimmney smoke, maybe Ill be ok.

I will be getting a moisture meter tomorrow however. When cold cold weather hits I want to know Im ok.

 

[fredarm]

You can get to "fill and forget" with an EPA stove but it takes a little longer to get there. Get a good coal bed going with kindling and small splits. Once you get the stove up to temp with a good hot coal bed, load it up, char the wood on full draft, cut the draft back to about half, make sure the wood is still catching, then reduce the draft to a quarter to all the way. You'll need to find the "sweet spot" for your stove. Let it burn down to coals and repeat. With that big a firebox, you should be able to get 6 to 8 hour burns between reloads once you get the hang of it. There is a learning curve with these stoves. Oh, and N-S loading is with the ends front to back and E-W is side to side. I'm told the 30 likes N-S loading better. I can't do that in my stove except with very short splits.

 

[Pagey]

These newer non-cat EPA stoves like to run hot. My Endeavor is happiest when cruising around 600-650F on the stove top with a full load. I can run it around 500F, but that requires fewer splits and a much less established coal bed. The middle burn tube will glow from time to time during the hottest part of a burn when the wood is really out-gassing.

If you are trying to burn large splits on a mediocre coal bed (especially with damp wood), you're not going to get a blazing, spectacular fire. If you take a hot fire box with a good, thick bed of red hot coals, those same splits will take off like the 4th of July.

Well once I get my coals down to about 3inches Ill play around with what I have. On the new stoves, do you still put enough wood in it to leave an inch top clearance or do you put less in? like I said with my old one, I filled it up and just adjusted the air inlets or flu damper, this stove says to not use the flu damper and has the air pull arm. I think I just gotta mess with it.

As far as my wood, some is moist I know that, Im not getting black soot on the window and my top tubes seem to be burning rather effectively, no to little chimmney smoke, maybe Ill be ok.

I will be getting a moisture meter tomorrow however. When cold cold weather hits I want to know Im ok.

I would load mine to the brim last year, but this year I'm finding that I get equal burn times loading it just barely above the fire brick.

 

[paguy]

OK,

First night down with new stove. Woke up at 5 to go hunting (went to bed 1100), had large bed of coals, (surface temp 225) 50% black not red or white. Threw a log on and went hunting, came back 6 hours later and still had big bed of coals. most were black except front middle, surface temp was 200 flue 250, house still comfy.


Obviously I need to burn it harder when I go to bed, fair enough, I was worried about burning it the first night hard, I had it closed all the way and out about 1/2 inch.

Question is, does the air feed into this stove (englander 30 2200) in teh front middle only? Trying to devise a plan for morning start ups and the left over coals.

Overall for not knowing anything about the new stove, the house was 65, about 30 outside with snow falling.

O and for the one that will ask, had one deer about 10 feet away at 600am, to dark to see anything but a blob, thought it was a bear.....way to dark.

 

[firefighterjake]

Going from the pre-EPA stoves to the EPA-stoves can present a real challenge for some folks as they have to relearn certain behaviors . . . perhaps the biggest lesson learned is that with the pre-EPA stoves you could get by with less than seasoned wood . . . and with EPA stoves you really need to have seasoned wood. That's the negative. The positive is that once you have that seasoned wood you will get a lot more heat with a lot less wood . . . and get to see some wicked cool "fireworks" inside your stove . . . better than TV on some nights!

The good news is that you've already kind of figured that your wood may not be all that great . . . and I suspect you're right. This will be 90% of your problem. Most folks here would say ideally you want your wood cut down, bucked up and split and stacked 9 months to a year (and longer for some wood species such as oak.) Burning with unseasoned wood will mean a) your wood fire will be hard to start, b) your wood fire will be hard to keep going, c) your wood fire will not result in lots of great secondary burning which means you will not be burning as efficiently and d) you may have to check and clean your chimney more frequently. You may be able to get some secondary burning with the Bowels of Hell or Northern Lights here or there . . . but trust me, when you burn truly seasoned wood you eyes will be open . . . and you may very well be convinced that your house is about to be sucked into Hell.

You can try looking for seasoned wood . . . but at this point it may be a toss of the coin as to whether the wood is truly seasoned or not . . . unless the guy straight up tells you how long the wood has been cut and split for before he brought it to your home.

Once you've got a good supply of seasoned wood you will find that while you can't just load the stove to the gills and damper it down to a smoldering, smoky mess for the night and wake up several hours to a cold house, but coals . . . but what you will find is that you can load the stove up (not necessarily right to the proverbial rafters even), get a fantastic fire going with secondaries firing, close down the air control most of the way (if not all of the way) and the next morning you can wake up to a bed of coals . . . and a warm home. The main difference in burning with these new stoves vs. the old stoves however is that while you will achieve similar results (after going through the learning curve) the main change will be the new woodstoves burn cleaner and if everything is good (i.e. the air and the fuel) you will end up not only with a nice bed of coals, but also a clean chimney . . . the same cannot be said for the old smoldering smoke dragons.

If you're getting a lot of coals you may be reloading your stove too early . . . the next time you're tempted to reload the stove during the day try going a little longer before reloading . . . but if you really are adamant about reloading the stove right then and there, but want to burn down the coals throw a small split or two on the fire, open up the air and in an hour or less your coals should be burned down.

How I load my stove . . . When I'm around during the day I'll typically reload the stove with 2-3 pieces of wood . . . I rarely stuff the stove to the gills . . . about the only time I really load up the stove is when I'm going to sleep or going away for several hours (i.e. work) . . . and even then I don't load it right to the baffles.

North South East West . . . folks who have square shaped fireboxs swear that there is a difference in the way the fire burns. Probably true . . . but I wouldn't really know since my firebox only really allows me to do East West loading . . . and this works for me. When I want a long, slow burn I choose hardwoods that are larger in size . . . when I want a quick, hot fire I choose softwoods and smaller sized pieces.

Heat . . . it seems as though you may be running your stove a bit on the cool side. Perhaps other Englander/Summer Heat owners will chime in here however.
My thermometer reads 300-350 resting on top and the flu temp is about the same right now.