We just installed our first wood stove 5 days ago, a PE Super Insert, to heat our 2000 sq ft ranch house in Portland, OR. Thanks to a lot of great info from the members on this forum I think we chose a very good stove and have been really happy with it so far. Not having used a wood stove before I am blown away by how much heat it generates. We've run it the last 2 nights and our furnace hasn't turned on once. Granted, its much warmer here than where a lot of you all live. Overnight temps have been in the low 40's all week, but it still is having no problem heating our house.
My questions today are about secondary combustion and overnight burns. I can acheive secondary combustion once I have a good bed of coals and have the air flow control open 1/2 way or more. However, once I turn down the airflow to get a long slow burn for overnight I lose the secondary combustion. One thing that attracted me to a woodstove was the secondary combustion and how clean they can burn when achieving the secondary burn. Should I control the airflow so that I'm always achieving secondary combustion, even in an overnight burn? If I'm not running it hot enough for the secondary combustion should I be concerned about creosete formation? For those of you who use your stove as your primary heat source what % of the time are you achieving secondary combustion? And, can the secondary combustion still be occurring even if I'm not seeing the fire burning on the top of the stove?
Thanks for all the great info.
My questions today are about secondary combustion and overnight burns. I can acheive secondary combustion once I have a good bed of coals and have the air flow control open 1/2 way or more. However, once I turn down the airflow to get a long slow burn for overnight I lose the secondary combustion. One thing that attracted me to a woodstove was the secondary combustion and how clean they can burn when achieving the secondary burn. Should I control the airflow so that I'm always achieving secondary combustion, even in an overnight burn? If I'm not running it hot enough for the secondary combustion should I be concerned about creosete formation? For those of you who use your stove as your primary heat source what % of the time are you achieving secondary combustion? And, can the secondary combustion still be occurring even if I'm not seeing the fire burning on the top of the stove?
Thanks for all the great info.