i got the englander Madison stove and the thing won't shut down for anything. I have the air all the way closed, the CAI blocked off and the stove is up to around 850f. I have all the fans in the house blowing on it. Please advise quickly
Run away stove, need some help!!!
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I had a similar out of control fire in a Wonderwood stove when I added too much rotted wood onto a large bed of coals.
Attack the problem from these directions.
first - get several pieces of wood and start soaking in in the sink, when they are good and soaked carefully add this to the stove. this conversion of water to steam will reduce the heat of the fires.
Second, open your house, put the air conditioning on the coldest you can go and then have at least one of the fans blowing the air out of a window. You need to get the heat away from the stove or condition it. On my morning of danger, I had the house open and a fan in the window at 25 degrees OAT.
third and counter intuitive, others have said after you add the wet wood to open the primary air wide open and the flue damper wide open. On these EPA stoves having less primary air allows it to get warmer as the air stays in the firebox for a longer period of time.
the stainless steel flues are designed for these fires for about 30 minutes, so get going.
Finally, have the fire extinguisher ready to kill the fire if all else fails. or call the fire department.
Attack the problem from these directions.
first - get several pieces of wood and start soaking in in the sink, when they are good and soaked carefully add this to the stove. this conversion of water to steam will reduce the heat of the fires.
Second, open your house, put the air conditioning on the coldest you can go and then have at least one of the fans blowing the air out of a window. You need to get the heat away from the stove or condition it. On my morning of danger, I had the house open and a fan in the window at 25 degrees OAT.
third and counter intuitive, others have said after you add the wet wood to open the primary air wide open and the flue damper wide open. On these EPA stoves having less primary air allows it to get warmer as the air stays in the firebox for a longer period of time.
the stainless steel flues are designed for these fires for about 30 minutes, so get going.
Finally, have the fire extinguisher ready to kill the fire if all else fails. or call the fire department.
I had all the windows in the house open and air running, I was sitting here watching the stove when I heard a pop sound, soon after the flames started to calm down and get lazy as they should. Stove top has gotten down to 600f finally.
I'm not sure if that automatic mechanism thing they have on these stoves got stuck open or what but that sure wasn't a fun thing to go through.
I'm not sure if that automatic mechanism thing they have on these stoves got stuck open or what but that sure wasn't a fun thing to go through.
i have this stove, so keep us posted what you find ,if it malfunctioned or what? 850 is above my circle of comfort ,mine never went over 600 ,but i havnt put a full load of wood in it yet.
lsucet
Minister of Fire
LMAO. Well we all have our way to do things but I think that you need to learn how to control it at early stage of the burn. Also if loading a full load , load it tight and try to start closing the air in stages before the fire gets out of control. I am sure more members will give you more tips. There is lot of experience members here.
Did you actually engage the auto setback function? It doesnt go on by itself ,you have to activate it? If not then its all manual control,
I did just that, or that's the way it was supposed to work. This stove has a mechanical air control that allows the maximum air in until it reaches a certain temperature. At that time it's supposed to close. I'm thinking it didn't close and got stuck open.
Yes I had it activated and completely pulled out so once it reached the temperature it would go into a slow burn
lsucet
Minister of Fire
Another thing I noticed on mine is the automatic system can get stuck if I pull it all the way out. What I do is pull it out twist it and push back just a hair and everything work fine.
Maybe that's what happened to me. I loaded up the stove for the night and pulled it all the way out and twisted it
lsucet
Minister of Fire
I had that problem with the Madison for some reason but the big brother the 02 did work fine every time.
Oh OK thats the one i have the 02 . Good to know. I thought the stove was very controllable based on the half dozen times i used it before i ran out of cold weather this past spring. will be giving it a workout this winter.
Well stove top is down to 450. Is there anything I need to look for in the morning after it cools downs since it got so hot?
lsucet
Minister of Fire
I also had some over temperature situations with both. I will no call it overfire but a little on the hot side. To much for my liking. But you will get the hang out of it. I agree that after awhile I end up just using it manually and forget about that feature.
lsucet
Minister of Fire
lsucet
Minister of Fire
I still have both but not installed. For some reason I went different route but they can give you massive amount of heat.
Alright will do.
I think there needs to be a sticky thread on what to do in a overfire/run away stove situation. There's has to be things you can do like what texas123 said. It would be nice if they where in all one thread
That "pop" makes it sound like the automatic air control is not working right. Next fire, don't use that control and see how the stove behaves. If you still have a problem controlling it, check the door gasket all the way around with the dollar bill test.
PS: There are several runaway threads every year. One thing you can do that may seem counter intuitive is open the stove door. That will flood the firebox with cooler air and will break secondary combustion. The stove will still be blazing, but temp should settle down.
lsucet
Minister of Fire
I did the dollar bill test when I first got the stove. I had to adjust the hinges to get the bottom and back side of the door to seal.
I would think you should try to starve the stove for intake air ,which would slow down combustion but that may not be possible.
HisTreeNut
Minister of Fire
I had a runaway fire when my stove was new. Lucky I had read a thread about runaway fires a few days earlier. Opening the door wide is counter-intuitive, but it did work. My guess is it floods the stove with cooler air but also creates a strong updraft of sorts, drawing heat up and out which helps with cooling everything down. Regardless, it worked and the fire got under control and the stove cooled down. Have been much more careful since then with fires. I was just glad I was wearing brown pants. 
Where were you measuring the temps from ,stove top , flue collar? and is that external or is it internal flue temp?
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