PE Alderlea T5 (continued, first full season, page3.)

[mar13]

Both of you need to go by the flue temp and not the stovetop temp. She is unlikely to overfire the stove. Start turning down the air when the temp is around 400ºF (the T in Best on the Condar?). Top down burn on a half-load of wood should burn cleanly and keep from getting the stove over 550-600F.

I'm doing my first seasons on my (so-far) unadulterated T5 (not epa2020). ~23' straight up stack. Very dry tan oak and eucalyptus medium (~4" radius, quarter circle) splits, with cypress (soft) kindling. Top down burns. Using a Condar flue thermometer and Condar stove top thermometer. No problem controlling the burn & getting clean burns with outside temps in mid40s. But that said, I've been conservative with the wood load (3 splits) and watching it like a hawk as some past reports have me hyper aware about preventing runaway temperatures. With these size of loads, cutting the air all the way down seems counter productive except at the peak burn.

When the daytime highs stay cooler and the days rainier, I'll experiment with larger loads.

All be told, this T5 requires a lot less tending than my old cast iron pre-EPA VC which I fed constantly to keep hot, undercontrol, smokeless burns going. With all this new extra time on hand, it's hard not to want to fine tune the air adjustment on the T5. (In retrospect, I think I was doing over kill attempting to keep the entire burn smokeless on that old VC stove.)

 

[Woody Stover]

Both of you need to go by the flue temp and not the stovetop temp. She is unlikely to overfire the stove. Start turning down the air when the temp is around 400ºF (the T in Best on the Condar?). Top down burn on a half-load of wood should burn cleanly and keep from getting the stove over 550-600F.

We do use the flue meter when starting a load, and sometimes get secondaries when the needle is just hitting the bottom of the silver band, 230. There's glare on the dial in the previous pic, but the top end of the silver is 475, so I figure halfway should be around 350.
I don't really look at the stove meter until the burn is established, the air is cut all the way and flue damper is closed. A few times, flue has leveled off around 350 and stove under 650. More often, flue is pushing 470 and stove is 700+. That might last a couple hours with the size loads we've been doing, then temps start to fall back.
Yeah, I'm not too worried about her over-firing the stove, as long as she cuts the air all the way for the cruise, which she has been doing. Only way she could get into trouble is if she gets some damp or dense wood it there, the burn is sluggish and she opens the air more, then leaves. I'll caution her. We need more burns before we'll feel fairly certain of what will happen with most loads. These partial fall loads are just the ticket to build confidence. I've been impressed at how long the house stays cozy even on a short load. You were sure right about the cast iron acting as a heat sink. Hasn't been too cold yet, though. She has 2x4 walls, a vaulted ceiling, and air-sealing could be improved.

~23' straight up stack. Very dry tan oak and eucalyptus medium (~4" radius, quarter circle) splits, with cypress (soft) kindling. Top down burns. Using a Condar flue thermometer and Condar stove top thermometer. No problem controlling the burn & getting clean burns with outside temps in mid40s. But that said, I've been conservative with the wood load (3 splits) and watching it like a hawk as some past reports have me hyper aware about preventing runaway temperatures. With these size of loads, cutting the air all the way down seems counter productive except at the peak burn.

We had a couple nights that went to freezing, but when we lit the fires it was probably still upper 30s. I didn't notice an appreciable increase in the draft, but that's on 15'. May be a different story at 23'.
Partial loads have been a bit bigger than what you're describing, and a couple loads were maybe 2/3 full. Splits were bigger. I agree with begreen, I don't think an over-fire is a worry, unless you do something way out of the ordinary. Real winter temps will answer some of the questions.

 

[Woody Stover]

I lit her a short load about 1 PM yesterday, since she needed a warm house shortly after she got home. Big round in the center bottom was maybe 5". I had a soft Maple split on top but as you see, the fire went down into the rounds on the right side pretty early. Instead of laying that Maple flat, I should have let the flame come up around it more, then maybe the fire would have stayed on top better. I cut the air to 2/3 when the stack got to 230 and to 1/3 not too long after that. Even though the fire went down into the rounds pretty quickly, I got a great, muted secondary burn. You can see that the flames are dull red and blue, and temps of flue and stove went up gradually. I went out to bust some kindling for the gals, and by the time I left, maybe 1.5 hrs. in, the stove was up to 670 and the flue was maybe 400 or so. The stove meter marker showed that it didn't get much hotter during that burn, or when she tossed on three more splits in the evening.

I think we'll pick up the blower for the stove. That would allow her to let house temp drop when she's gone, saving wood, yet recover quickly once she is home. Blower should peel off heat before it can go up the flue when you are letting it rip a bit, and would be handy to bring down STT if needed.

 

[Woody Stover]

I went by her house this morning, chimney looked like a fire had just been lit so I stopped in to see how it was going. She's freakin' a little bit, sez "The fire is going crazy..I can't slow it down!" I look at it..wood is glowing over the ash dump. I reach underneath the ash lip, and the dump lever isn't seated and locked in. I had told her about that, and showed her how to make sure it was locked, but I guess I should have made her do it herself so she could actually feel it sliding back and locking in. Sometimes she says 'Yeah, yeah, sure. right, I see" and nods a lot, but I'm not sure she knows what I'm talking about and figures that if she just agrees, maybe I will quit talking.
At any rate, no harm done. The load hadn't been burning long, and the stove and flue meters weren't hot at all and the baffle wasn't glowing..secondaries weren't firing yet.
It got down to freezing last night, no wind. She had only put three medium splits in last night and her house was down to 64. Apparently she needed a couple more in that load.

 

[begreen]

I suggest not using the ash dump. It isn't a lot easier and has the potential to get a coal or clinker trapped which may keep it from closing tightly. Ours has not been used for almost a decade. Keep it simple.

Bonus, if you clean out the ash pan it makes a dandy bun warmer.

 

[Woody Stover]

I don't know if yours is similar, they may have improved it, but this door is spring-loaded, and then there's also a retraction spring. You have to pull the lever forward to clear the lock, and when closed and released the door is slid back by the retracrion spring into the lock slot, or above a bracket (I didn't actually look at it, was just able to feel how it works.) You can then double-check that it is locked by pushing the lever down to see if the door will open. If it won't, it is locked.
I guess a clinker could get wedged in there so that the door wouldn't slide all the way back but you'd know if the door wasn't locking when you pushed down on the lever to double-check. Once it even begins to slide back in the slot, it is sealed. I would have to actually look at how the door lock works, which I will do soon, to see if what you are suggesting has much likelihood of happening. I think that what happens presently is that there is a bit of ash or coal still on the door, and the door-close spring can't close the door far enough so that the retraction spring can slide it back into the slot. If you just pull the door back out slightly against the retraction spring, it clears any ash so that the door is fully closed and can be pushed back by the retraction spring into the slot.
She got spoiled on the Dutchwest ash grate many years ago, like I did. She's not a fan of shoveling, which she occasionally has to do in her sister's Fireview. I could get her up to speed on efficiently and cleanly removing ash with a shovel and pan, but I'm pretty sure that if I ask her if she would prefer to do that, in light of what just happened to her, she would probably still not want to shovel, especially when I give her a hands-on lesson so that she can feel the ash door lock in. I can ask, though. If one speck of ash is seen escaping by her, she won't like it one little bit, no sir.
If you don't shovel out for several weeks, as I seem to recall you saying, it's possible the T6 holds much more ash than the T5. Appears to me that one would have to shovel this stove once a week during 24/7 burning.

 

[Woody Stover]

I showed her how to make sure the ash dump was closed, with HER operating the lever. Then we stuffed in a pretty decent load. Only going into the upper 30s tonight, but there's a pretty good breeze so I don't think she'll roast.
Dogwood top right, several Red Elm, the ones with a little moisture on the ends, White Oak block bottom center, flanked by two small Red Elm. Some big air gaps along the bottom row. Load seemed to be burning under control. We had good secondary burn, clean plume, air and flue damper shut, about 350 stack, 400 stove when I left. I expect it to peak a little under 700.

 

[begreen]

The amount of ash created is going to vary with the wood species. It’s why I like Doug fir. Low ash.
I’d fill that hole and make it a full load with temperatures in the 30 s.

 

[Woody Stover]

I'm hoping this load will have room temp around 70 come morning. We shall see.
Look at that gap between the rear rail and the sagging baffle that bottoms on the rail in the center. I imagine quite a bit of air is being bled off the secondary air supply at that point. I can see a secondaries coming out of that gap at times, from the air escaping. I could block that with some flat gasket or something, or flatten the baffle out but I don't think I'll do anything yet, just observe it for now..
What is inside of the baffle, anything?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I have a piece of fire brick above my ash dump. I use a steel dust pan to shovel the ash out.

 

[SpaceBus]

I haven't used an ash dump, but I like the shaker on the Morso and the cooker has a grate. I think both stoves are allowed to burn coal in Europe.

 

[Woody Stover]

The amount of ash created is going to vary with the wood species. It’s why I like Doug fir. Low ash.
I’d fill that hole and make it a full load with temperatures in the 30 s.

I guess the conifers are the lowest-ash wood.
Even though that was a loose load, when I checked at about 11 hrs. the stove was still 260 and the house was at 71, with some coals left in the box. Not bad, but it's not cold yet. We've got some teens coming Mon. and Tues...definitely gonna be full-load time.

I use a steel dust pan to shovel the ash out.

One nice thing about a pan, you can chose when you want to dump it; You don't have a hot load that has to be dealt with immediately. If you can let the stove go out, OK, but sometimes with our climate we have to keep crankin' loads..

 

[begreen]

Ash content can be high in some conifers and hardwoods too. I read somewhere that it relates to mineral content of the wood, bark creating more than the wood. Doug fir bark can be very thick and creates much more ash than the wood. I think locust may have a similar characteristic.

 

[Woody Stover]

Ash content can be high in some conifers and hardwoods too. I read somewhere that it relates to mineral content of the wood, bark creating more than the wood. Doug fir bark can be very thick and creates much more ash than the wood. I think locust may have a similar characteristic.

Some White Ash I've gotten has had bark 2" thick! I foolishly nuked the pics. But BL, for the heat you get, isn't giving you that much ash.
So she was having visitors shortly after she got home, and I went over a couple hrs early to fire the heater. I loaded a bunch of 4" rounds, Red Elm and Mulberry. Of course, after I'd cut all the air, I forgot about the flue damper again or maybe I could have kept that much wood from catching. I'm just not used to thinking about the flue damper yet, as I never use mine at home.
As it turned out, the right side of this load got going pretty good early on. In these pics, you can also see the secondary burn from under the back of the baffle where the gap is between it and the back rail, due to the sagging belly of the baffle. It's visible as a horizontal line behind the secondary flame that's coming off the holes in front of the baffle. STT went 725, flue 475. Sheesh. No reeling the burn back in with the present air setup, once you have that much wood catching and the secondary is firing that hard.

Once the right side gassed out, in less than a half hour, stove and flue temp dropped quickly. By the time I left, two hrs in, stove 600, flue 350. It's blowing through wood and throwing heat out the flue like nobody's bizzniss. You can see that the right side is pretty much consumed to coals, and there's relatively untouched wood left on the left. Secondary has pretty much died but I think it will continue to clean up the gas from the left side.

After I freaked at how vigorously it was chewing the wood, I began trying to convince her that instead of jamming a full load in, on mornings when she leaves early, maybe it would be a more efficient use of resources to put in just a few splits and let room temp fall some while she's gone. Then just fire up the furnace for twenty minutes or so when she gets back, until the new stove load can start kicking heat. Like begreen says, "It's cleaner and greener!" What's it gonna cost, a buck or less? We have the highest electric rates in the state, but the lowest gas rates.
Or when we get the blower on the stove, maybe that can recover room temp pretty quick..

 

[Woody Stover]

Just found out she's got a heat pump, not gas furnace. Begreen says his heat pump uses very little power, but I don't know how new it is. Her heat pump might be about twenty years old..