reducing Alderlea T5 combustion air

[Cynnergy]

I have the Super (same firebox) and have been playing with it a lot over the holidays. My one and only triumph so far was to get a 10 hr burn with lots of coals left on doug fir running at about 500F. They were about 8 medium sized, square-ish splits that I loaded E-W into a warm stove (but not enough coals to relight so I used a homemade firestarter and some kindling and burned top-down). Packed the box as full as possible with no gaps, with space at the front top for the firestarter and kindling. Took a while to get going, but turned it down to half at stovetop 300F, and then inch by inch every few minutes after 400F. Checked chimney and it was burning cleanly. Our chimney is about 16' from top of stove to top of chimney, with 1 pair of 45's in the stovepipe at the stove.

Hubby loves to put about 4-5 large splits on coals (300-400F stovetop) loosely packed, and I find these loads tend to run up to 700F+ pretty easily, even with the air all turned down by about 450F. I was up a few nights being too warm with these ones . At other times I can't seem to keep the burn clean no matter how hot the stove is running - our wood is damp though, so hopefully this will become more consistent next year - or maybe it's just me fiddling with the air controls too much!

We cut our splits 14-15" this year so that we could load E-W. With this size and picking small/med splits, you can also put a layer in the back E-W and the rest in N-S. I haven't had a lot of luck keeping the temps down on those loads though. No overfires, but 650-700F makes things pretty toasty in the cabin once we've been home for a day or so.

The firestarters have been great though - couldn't get SuperCedars to Canadia-land so just mixed up some paraffin and doug fir sawdust and packed into egg cartons. We can let the stove cool off if it's getting warm and relight easily.

 

[begreen]

Sounds like you are getting the hang of things. It will be easier with drier wood. Tell hubby to burn down the coals a bit with a small split on top and wide open air for about 30 minutes. That will lead to less dramatic reload fires.

 

[mcgster]

Do you have a key damper that is closed to reduce draft? That's the easiest retrofit and it does not require altering the stove.

No luck with a flue damper my insurance agent told me not to install a flue damper when i called originally about getting the stove installed.

 

[dyerkutn]

Start turning down the air sooner, say when flue surface temps are 450F. Do it in increments if the fire is too lazy or all the way if not. As soon as you start turning down the air down the flue temps should settle down too, even with a full stove.

BG and Ray--This is working really well. Last night at 11 p.m. --near coldest ever--I filled about 3/4 full (very unscientific estimate) as opposed to my usual 1/2 with a combination of large and small splits. Big coals underneath so fired right up. Flue got to 600 in about 5-10 minutes. Closed down air most of the way with wood still flaming. Waited till therm. started showing downward movement. Moved it to stovetop which hit 725 within 15 minutes. Once it slowed down a bit went to bed. Got up at 8:45 to nice hot coals for a quick reload. Stove area was over 70 degrees and far end from stove was still 65. Yahoo. I am totally thrilled--and warm.

Also, I now see that this level of burning is good when it is so cold, but really not necessary when we get to normal winter temps because the area being heated stays plenty warm with much less wood and fewer reloads---and I see that a smaller fire can also be brought to very hot quickly enough to turn down the air without creating very much smoke---that was my big worry about keeping my fires smaller. It really took this cold spell for me to begin to see how the stove functions in different situations. You need the big picture to make sense of it all. Thanks for help from you and dozens of other threads I have read for this learning. And I am sure I am not done.

 

[begreen]

It was the same for me with each new stove. Until you have run the stove under a number of different conditions and with a variety of wood you may not know the stove fully well. We're all still learning. That is part of the fun.

 

[mcgster]

Loaded my t6 up with a full load today and the burn time was 2hr 20 minutes. If anyone has any foil tape ideas for the t6 so i can test it out i would greatly appreciate it. -22 today and with the wood burning like this its costing a fortune!

 

[begreen]

I would get another insurance agent. Most do not care a bit about a key damper. Or have the dealer install it. You need better draft control. How will modifying the stove keep your insurance agent any happier?

Do you know if you have a series A or B Alderlea? Does the window have mutins or is it plain glass with no grillework?

 

[mcgster]

Hahaha if only it were that easy! She told me it was common that agents didn't want to install key dampers and when the company installed the stove i asked the tech doing the install and he said the same thing but they have steered me wrong before so i wouldn't be surprised if it was BS lol.
This is the model with no metal on the glass at all, it is a 2013 model i believe