Question about damper adjustment: Osburn 2400

[NoobTube]

Still pretty new to this guys so I tried to do research and any potential issues with sealing and what not has been tried.

Well its starting to get pretty cold around here. 15*F this morning here, woke up to a pretty chilly house after reloading around 10:30PM last night. It was 60*F downstairs and my heat kicked on upstairs.
Anyhow, i'm noticing its hard to control my stove top temps lately. I was trying to shut down the air around 550*F and let it cruise on up to 650, but its rising up to 750-775*F even with the air shut down and the fan on high.

I tightened up the door seal a bit. Man that wasnt easy to do while a fire was going...

I'm wondering if there is any more adjustment that can be done to the inserts damper?

my chimney is roughly 25', has a cage and cap on a liner with vermiculite insulation packed into it.

My burn times are getting shorter. And coaling is getting bigger and bigger.

Maybe i need to remove some ash today? I have a lot in there.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Oh and today I shut down air at around 300*f to see if a slow rise up would be better. currently I'm seeing a lazy flame up but not activating the secondary burn tubes. I'm thinking thats too much.

EDIT: 7 mins later. Secondaries are now activated. Stovetop 375

 

[NW Pa Burner]

I would definitely shut down your air supply earlier, 300* might be too early but mine is usually half closed at 300* to 350* and fully closed by 350* or 400*. You have a tall chimney at 25' so once your draft is going it is probably pretty strong. Also, make sure your C-cast baffle above the secondary tubes is pushed to the back. You can just reach up there with a glove and bush on the baffles to the rear, they will slide. IF not pushed fully to the rear a gap may exist which will change the flow of gases in the stove.

I've only seen temperatures that high once and it was after a reload into an already hot and roaring stove. It seams the Osburn is more of a batch stove than a continuous feed stove. Load it, let it do its thing until it is done, then reload.

Coaling might be due to an incomplete burn cycle. I had bad coaling last year and realized that upon a reload to let it burn down to about 250 or 300* then reload. During the week it isn't bad because at night and morning I would load it and the burn cycle is done by the time I get back to stove. During the weekends when I'm home is where it was tougher because I would look at stove and with no flames in there I would want to reload, but the coals were still putting off a lot of heat. If you reload to early it seams the coals would die off with the fresh wood on top and the coals would get ashed over and start to build up. Once there is nothing but coals left I would wait to the stove gets down a bit and then open damper wide open and wait to stove gets down to 300* or so and then reload. Seamed to help me out quite a bit.

 

[NoobTube]

I'm going to check and see if that baffle is pushed back. I know I've accidentally whacked it a few times with some wood. I might have moved it a bit. That would explain a lot. After turning it down at 300 all the way, it still climbed all the way to 700*F+ with the fan on high. I'm going to let it completely burn out tonight and check it out. First thing I'll do is check that baffle, and while I'm at it, I'll clean out almost all the ashes and leave some coals if I can find any good ones.

 

[NW Pa Burner]

If memory serves me the baffle consists of two pieces that sit on top of the tubes and/or fire bricks. On top of the baffles is some insulation and a steel weight. I just pushed on the edge of the baffle just inside the door and wiggled the back one a bit to make sure it was all the way back tight.

It also sounds like you have a well insulated and tall chimney, that can create a strong draft. You can check to make sure your air supply is closing fully as designed by pulling the fan assembly out from underneath the stove. The damper is right there.

With a strong draft and if you are burning really dry wood it may be necessary to build tightly packed fires that don't flare up so fast. I'm on a three year firewood plan but am only burning one year seasoned wood at the present. I had some leftover from last year and that stuff would flare up fast and I would load all of it EW. With the one year seasoned wood I crib it to get it up to temp faster and burn hotter. If I did that with well seasoned wood it may spike in temperature. Just some thoughts.

 

[NoobTube]

Thanks. For the instructions. I'll do both. The c-cast baffle sounds like its an easy check. I wonder if the baffle isnt closing fully either. If there is an adjustment to close it down further, that would be wonderful. First couple fires, I could easily get lazy licking fires where almost the entire secondary tubes were flames and the bottom was dark, but now, thats compltely unattainable.

I imagine as the stove has been fired it's probably changed shape just a little bit and tolerances have changed, so it makes sense some adjustment to things would be necessary.

I know with the door. It loosened up a bit so I just tightened it 1 turn in to give it more compression on the gasket.

 

[NW Pa Burner]

Haven't adjusted my door yet but may be something I need to keep and eye on.

Sounds like something changed for you as my secondaries just float around like plasma. If yours is still roaring then you are getting air from somewheres. My damper will close fully but not create a tight seal. Maybe the spring handle on the damper is too far in on the connecting linkage to the damper not allowing it to close fully? If your door is tight and that damper is closing fully the only other place it gets air is the secondary air supply but that is not adjustable.

 

[NoobTube]

Worse comes to worse, I'll call my installer and have him come out and check it out. But I'll tinker and see what could be the issue.

 

[NoobTube]

Alright, NW Pa Burner, thanks for the advice. I fixed it last night. Indeed the top baffles were forward instead of rear. So I pushed those back.

Also I adjusted the damper control to close as much as it would go with the stop bolt still installed. I tested it out running E/W splits over night and am happy to report good secondary burns and pretty good coaling this morning!

I'm certain if I removed the stop bolt completely, I could cut even more air off, but I think for now this is pretty darn good.

The issue with the damper was that the coil handle had been put on too far which did not allow the damper to close all the way to the stop bolt on the stove before the coil handle hit the outside stove jacket.

Both were super-easy fixes. Thank you for your suggestions and help.

 

[NW Pa Burner]

Great news, got to like easy fixes. Happy burning.