securekey
New Member
I have a new Vista LE and this thread is amazing. The manual and youtube videos always leave out various details. This is a complete guide.
Thank you
Thank you
Enjoy your PE Vista. We love ours. Got ours installed in June of 2022 so 2nd season using it. We heat our 1,900 sq ft. Cape with ease. Smaller fire box but house is well insulated so don’t mind the shorter reloads. I would buy this stove again with a house with a similar layout. The forum has been very helpful.I have a new Vista LE and this thread is amazing. The manual and youtube videos always leave out various details. This is a complete guide.
Thank you
Welcome to the forum @Needhelp123I have a heritage 4 woodstove from hearthstone is says in trouble shooting that if I want to monitor the stack temp bo more than 12 inches but I have a condar fluegard that's says 18 inches from stove what should I do
Well dang! That means I’m back to just burning 3 small logs and keeping close watch. Is there a safe way to remove an actively burning log? I want to try adding more logs, but shutting the airflow down sooner. When it gets too hot, I have lowered the temp by separating the 3 logs further apart, but won’t be able to do that with additional logs.The stovetop thermometer is always on the stove top, (never on the trivet grate), about 2" in front of and 5" to the left of the flue outlet. I have a second one closer to the front door that I got, just because I am a stove geek. I use it for for cooking temp. This is a couple hours into the burn with a 3/4 full load in the stove. The rear stovetop thermometer is at 500º with a flue temp of 550º. I just opened up the air a bit to goose up the stovetop temp to 550º.
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Thanks for the suggestion. Had the chimney sweep out to clean and test everything this summer. Gaskets are good.If the stove is running away on you the problem is probably an air leak. Check your gaskets.
813 would absolutely have me in full panic mode. 😳😳Questions about starting a fire and avoiding a runaway stove come up so frequently I decided to document starting our stove. This is a Pacific Energy Alderlea T6 with about a 3 cu ft firebox. The stove is connected to a straight-up, 20' interior flue. The outside ambient temperature is 34ºF. The blower was off all the time for these shots. The firewood is douglas fir at about 17% moisture content. This is a N/S loading. An E/W loading start will follow.
NOTE: as testing will show, the older Condar flue thermometer is reading low. It needs recalibration.
There are 3 instruments shown.
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- A Condar probe thermometer on the double-wall stove pipe.
- The stovetop temperature on a Sandhill thermometer
- A digital probe readout for the flue using an Auber AT100
Here is the stove loaded with a gap in the middle for a top-down start. 3 balls of newspaper and a few flakes of kindling on top.
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Fire started, flue temp and stove top temp is <100ºF. Door left open about 1/2".
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Time to insert a split into the gap then close the door, with the air control wide open. This picture is showing the stove, the Condar, the stove top, and the Auber.
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Dry doug fir takes off quickly. This is about 5 minutes later, time to reduce the air to 50%. There will be no creosote worry here even though the stove top temperature is still low.
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Just a few minutes later and secondary burn is getting robust. Reduce air to about 70% closed. Note how stove top temp is still low and the probe flue thermometer is lagging far behind the digital probe. The digital probe reacts almost instantly.
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After another 5 minutes the fire is going strong, tme to close down air almost all the way, maybe 85% closed. If it was 10º colder outside I would be closing the air all the way due to increased draft. Note the stove top temperature. It's catching up but not fully warmed up yet. This is why stove top temp is not as helpful in a cold start. It takes time to heat up the mass of the stove, while the flue temp is already very high. Unfortunately, the Condar flue probe is sluggish which is less helpful, but combined with the visual cue from the firebox it's obvious that the air needs to be closed down until the flames slow down.
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Just a few minutes later the fire settles down. Secondary combustion is now robust. No need to change anything. The stove top temp still coming up.
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The stove has been cruising for 20 minutes and is almost up to temperature. The stove top settled at 625º. The analog probe thermometer is finally catching up to the digital probe.
Note that this is just one example of a N/S load of softwood in a large stove. There are many variations. This load of wood has a lot of young growth and sapwood in it so it is not as dense as old growth doug fir and it burns quicker with less heat. Every fire will have a somewhat unique character depending on firebox size, how much fuel is loaded, how tightly it is packed, outside temperature, and mostly, the operator. If you don't have thermometers, consider one, at least for the flue temp. And use your eyes for visual cues about the stage of the burn.
Hope that helps.
It's a little high, but this temp is safely within the flue system's operating spec. It's not it's uncommon to hit that flue temp on startup very briefly. This is quite different from a stove body reaching that temperature. The flue temp came down quickly with the closing of the air control.813 would absolutely have me in full panic mode. 😳😳
Oh. Flue temp. I thought it was stove topIt's a little hight, but not it's uncommon to hit that flue temp on startup very briefly and quite different from a stove body reaching that temperature. This is well within the flue system's operating spec. Note the probe thermometer reads around half that temp due to its much slower response time.
I’ve been experimenting….. found the boost air hole and covered it with metal tape. That alone helped keep things in check somewhat. Was able to get a nice burn with the usual 3 small splits without it getting over 700 STT.Loose logs with burn faster because of all the exposed surfaces. A tightly packed mass of wood burns slower.
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