Summit Insert burning too fast and dropping temps quick

[atom631]

http://originalbiobricks.com/buy
Envi blocks can be found at Tractor Supply should be one near to you.

no tractor supply on long island. there is a place in East Northport, about 40 minutes from me that appears to be a supplier. i will give them a call.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

I have the same issues with burning too fast, I always have and this is my third year burning. I split almost all my wood thin like I see in the op pics, I was only concerned about drying my red oak as soon as possible. But for me even though I tried to get longer burns and have failed, I don't let it bother me, it heats the space that it's intended to very well, due to the dry wood. I also don't fill my box as tight or full as the pics up top, I know that I keep too much airspace between splits, these have to be the major reasons why I can't achieve long burn times, down the road I will be experimenting with thicker splits nice and tight. I too don't have a block off plate at the bottom.. Thanks all as this is an interesting thread to watch.
Also my manual states that the box has a 30 pound limit for filling with wood, I often wonder how much I really am putting in, even if it's 6 splits which is a lot for me, I will have to try and weigh it out sometime.....but good luck.....

 

[atom631]

Here it is now at 11:49am. Fire is out, down to coals and they arent completely burning, so I opened the air intake. temp is also down to 315-325. I will need to reload within a 1 to 1 1/2 hrs.

 

[Huntindog1]

If your wood is a little sub par then using some kindling helps. The smaller kindling builds the heat up in the box nad saves the main wood load for a longer burn. Alot of times with sub par wood a person burns too much of the main wood load just trying to get temps up in the fire box. And I mean get the temps up in the firebox not just seeing flames in the box. As if your burning with the door cracked open your flushing the heat up the flue and the heats not staying in the box or building up in the box. The high quality small split kindling placed on hot coals will burn hot and fast even with the door shut and the input air wide open. So now you have the door shut and building lots of heat in the firebox as the heat isnt flushing up the flue. I would even add a fire starter on top of the kindling as another booster to the heat to over come the extra moisture in the main wood load. So you have hot coals , kindling and a fire starter like a super cedar getting temps up in the fire box rapidly to over come the moisture in the wood. This allows you to then start turning down the input air inn 1/4 ways increments to build even more heat as its the building of the heat in the firebox that allows the lowering of the input air then by lowering the input air 1/4 ways you now have less air flow thru the box that then lets the heat build a little more then wait a few minutes and close the input air 1/4 ways again and wait. You have to get a feel for it all and let the heat build in the firebox with the smaller kindling. I have found splitting some good dry oak into thin pieces really heats up the box fast as oak has alot of BTU's in it. Heats the box faster than say pine. As its all about the heat building up in the box not so much focus on flames but flames are important. As if you get the heat up in the box with good hot coals as a base and do it quickly you can then get the stove input primary air shut back down for a long burn as you didnt burn up much of your main load just trying to get the firebox up to operational temps.

Really good dry wood does the same thing lights off fast and heats the box up to operational temps quick and you get the input air shut back down quick and not too much of the load is wasted doing all that. Sub par wood you compensating for burning off the moisture and that keeps the firebox cooler.

 

[begreen]

Here it is now at 11:49am. Fire is out, down to coals and they arent completely burning, so I opened the air intake. temp is also down to 315-325. I will need to reload within a 1 to 1 1/2 hrs.

Looks like you are making progress. FWIW it took me a month or so to learn to run this firebox well so that I was getting longer burn times. But this year I have poorly split wood that I bought to support a local boy scout troop. My burn times are erratic and I can't wait until I start burning my personally split hardwood.

This wood load still looks loosely packed and while better, it had some medium to small splits in it. Pack it tighter next load, with more large splits and small splits filling the gaps. Skip the small splits on the bottom if there is a good coal bed and load it fuller. Say to within an inch or two of the baffle.

What species wood is burning?
How high is the ceiling in the great room?

 

[atom631]

unfortunately, those were above-average sized splits. Except for the stuff on the bottom. I dont have very many really large splits. I am also not sure what species any of it is.. if you look up in the thread, you will see i have a few pictures of the wood. its a mix of stuff the landscaper gave me.

the wood was packed as tight as i could get it. its looks loose because what you are seeing is an hour into the burn with a lot of the smaller stuff 1/2 to 3/4 burned down. i probably could have add 2 maybe 3 more smaller splits in.

the ceiling is around 13'ish.

 

[atom631]

ok.. here is the coal bed I was left with. Temp was down to 300. i probably couldve gone another hour or so, but for time consrtaints, i needed to do it now.

picture one is the coal bed i am working with.

Picture 2 is the load. it instantly ignited, even as i was putting them in. i may have been able to get 1 smaller piece in the top left corner. the pic is a little deceiving, there really wasnt much space there at all.

 

[atom631]

this is it now, 10 minutes later. the thermometer hasnt really started to move yet, but its blazing. at what point do i start shutting it down? when the temp goes up or when it looks like that?

 

[atom631]

i choked it off about 5 minutes after the above picture....and we have 650!! this is by far the hottest its ever been. its so hot, that i think its baking the paint again. it has the same smell as when i burned for the first 1-2 times. i had the blower off and kicked it on. im assuming the blower will bring the temps down? with blower on about 50% its stable at 600.

 

[begreen]

ok.. here is the coal bed I was left with. Temp was down to 300. i probably couldve gone another hour or so, but for time consrtaints, i needed to do it now.

picture one is the coal bed i am working with.

Picture 2 is the load. it instantly ignited, even as i was putting them in. i may have been able to get 1 smaller piece in the top left corner. the pic is a little deceiving, there really wasnt much space there at all.

Burn the coal bed down further by putting a couple small, skinny splits on top and opening up the air halfway.

this is it now, 10 minutes later. the thermometer hasnt really started to move yet, but its blazing. at what point do i start shutting it down? when the temp goes up or when it looks like that?

At this point the air probably can be shut all the way down. A hot coal bed ignites dry fuel quickly.

Sounds like you are starting to get a better handle on things. Practice makes perfect.

 

[Dix]

Atom, call Tommy.

1

 

[Hogwildz]

Every time you hit a higher temp than ever before, the paint will cure/bake a little more, and you will get that smell of curing paint. This is temp, and not an issue.
When you get it down more, it will go to 700-750, and you may want to put the blower on high for a couple hours until it settles in.
It will get easier and more natural as time goes by.
I still experiment and fine tune my burning habits going on year 9.
I started loading 3x a day every 8 hrs. Now 2x a day every 12 hours. Saving wood alone right there. No massive coal bed.
It takes patience and resiting the urge to feel there must be massive flames and also fight the urge to reload before it truly needs it.
You will have temp swings in house temp between the end of the load and reload. This comes with burning the stove.

 

[Dix]

The more firewood you have in the house, the more you burn.

 

[atom631]

Dixie - I am absolutely going to call Tommy this weekend. I'll probably get 1 1/2 cords.

I'm definitely getting the hang of it more. After that reload at 1pm I only put 1 piece on around 6 and then 2-3 very small pieces around 9 to get a nice hot coal bed going again. With it being really cold today, my house stayed pretty warm for the most part. I loaded up at 10 with the blower off and it's around 650 now. I have a nice slow burn from the top only. I'm going to give it another 15 minutes or so to see if it breaks 700. Then I'm going to kick the blower on and hit the sack.

Thanks for the all the assistance. This really has been great. I feel like I have a handle on it and understand it better. With some better wood I can see this becoming what I had hoped.

 

[Cory S]

i did purchase a moisture meter and the average readings have been 18%-23%.

Did you get these readings from the face of a fresh split right then and there? Does your MM have sensitivety settings? My MM needs to be set on M2 in order to read my wood accurately. M1 reads too low. I have found my wood that reads 18-20% on the face of a fresh split, feels like the wood came from the Sahara desert. Very light and almost sound like glass rods hitting together.

 

[Hogwildz]

Be careful with closing it down when you get truly dry wood. I close down 50%ish at 300-350, then all the way closed between 400 & 540 and it still climbs to 700+
Its easier to let more air in if it stalls, then try and slow down a fire from hell.
The top burning is exactly what you want.

 

[atom631]

unfortunately, i think expectation vs. reality hit me hard last night. The stove could not keep up with the weather last night. It was probabl down to about 23 outside and my house just wasnt that warm. my bedrooms plummeted to 60 degrees. i had to turn on my oil heat.

when i came to check to see what the problem was at 2am...there wasnt one. fire was still going. the temp had dropped to around 400 and the blower was on full blast with decent heat pumping out. i also had my ceiling fans on. my great room thermometer only read 71.5. its strange because it was really cold all day yesterday... temps were low 30 high 20s....and my house got to 77 at one point and wouldve kept climbing if i didnt open the door to my garage (wife's workshop is in there). the bedrooms were at 67 and climbing too.

maybe i put the overnight load on too late. i had let it burn down a decent amount. when i reloaded at 11pm the great room was at 69 and bedrooms 65.

 

[Huntindog1]

unfortunately, i think expectation vs. reality hit me hard last night. The stove could not keep up with the weather last night. It was probabl down to about 23 outside and my house just wasnt that warm. my bedrooms plummeted to 60 degrees. i had to turn on my oil heat.

when i came to check to see what the problem was at 2am...there wasnt one. fire was still going. the temp had dropped to around 400 and the blower was on full blast with decent heat pumping out. i also had my ceiling fans on. my great room thermometer only read 71.5. its strange because it was really cold all day yesterday... temps were low 30 high 20s....and my house got to 77 at one point and wouldve kept climbing if i didnt open the door to my garage (wife's workshop is in there). the bedrooms were at 67 and climbing too.

maybe i put the overnight load on too late. i had let it burn down a decent amount. when i reloaded at 11pm the great room was at 69 and bedrooms 65.

Alot of that depends on the layout of your house. Can you give us a rough drawing of the layout of your house. Sometimes running too much fan mixes the air such you dont let the natural convection of the heat flows thru the house. Plus the mass of the house plays into it as if you let the houses mass cool down its really hard to ge tthe rooms at the other end of the house to heat back up thats why keeping the stove going 24/7 is important as if the stove burns down or goes out for a long period of time the thermal mass of the house temp drops.

400 stove temps , not sure on an insert but stove top temp on a freestanding stove 400 after 3 or 4 hours is a little low in my opinion. Maybe back to your wood quality ,maybe?

You have plenty size stove for your size house actually over sized. But getting heat to flow to other parts of house maybe be the issue and how well your house is insulated and the quality of windows at the other end of the house where the bedrooms are. The pic of the room you posted with the stove looks like it could trap heat in there.

 

[Hogwildz]

HD, he has a layout on the first page of this thread.
I did not see anything about sf being heated, or don't remember, and I don't have it in me to reread everything.
One big problem is opening the house up to the garage. Is the garage insulated well? Prolly not. Major heat loss there.
Where do those vents along the wall next to the garage go? Any chance the heated air trapped up there is migrating and flowing into those vents and into the garage, or even leaking into the garage if those registers aren't sealed to the framing?
Try reversing the ceiling fans to see if that helps. You have a huge pocket up there to trap heat, and that ain't helping air flow.

71.5 is not too shabby in my book. You already know the bedrooms are going to be the hardest to heat.
We got down to at least 15 last night, maybe slightly lower, and it was windy as crazy all day & night, I woke up to 64 downstairs, 68 in my bedroom upstairs. I am fine with that. If I want to, I can kick the furnace on for 1/2 hr or so to get the temp up. I do this occasionally, but not often.
The issue here is not producing heat, but retaining and distributing heat.

I say again, that great room should be hot as hell with a Summit in there or any other stove that size.
You're losing heat somewhere or several places, aint no way that room and the adjoining rooms should not be a higher temp, unless you have serious heat loss.
And another place you are prolly losing heat is right above the insert and up. Meaning put a proper block off plate in that old damper area. Many have come here with issues similar to yours, wondering where the heat is going, and finding no block off plate and a lot of heat going up, instead of in the room. I mentioned this before, up to you to address or dismiss.
How high have you had the insert temp to so far?

I would have been happy to wake up to my great room at 71.5 degrees. When we hit single digits with serious wind, I may wake up to anywhere from 58 to 62 degrees downstairs. But I am realistic on what my "space heater" can do. And with 2666sf with the layout of the house here, and the T&G heated air sieve along the entire ceiling & leaky skylights, I think my insert far exceeds my expectations, as I rarely run the furnace. I just don't expect to run around naked here either.

If it is making good heat, the next step is to find out where the heat is going.

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Not only layout but how well insulated is your house?
The room my insert is in has many single glass windows and no insulation in walls, when I stop heating it the temperature of the room just drops in this cold weather....

 

[mstoelton]

So I have read through the entire thread and I will provide some comments. These comments come from my experiences with my inserts (Clydesdales) they are smaller than the PE summit, and do not throw as much heat. That said each one is on a separate floor of my house. Each floor is 1600 sq. ft. I can run the main floor clyde and have the great room at 80 degrees with 15 degree outside temps (last night). The bedrooms were ~72. I circulate with ceiling fans only and the bedrooms are down a hall.

I see two issues that are limiting the OP's optimum heat retention from his summit.

#1 No Block-off plate above stove. This serves as a thermal barrier to prevent heat loss to the chimney area. It also prevents your insert from grabbing the cold air from the chimney area and circulating the cold air with the warmed jacket air. I installed block-off plates as part of my original installation due to the research I did here and because my insert instructions suggested it. If you do not have a block-off plate, the natural convection of the insert makes the hot air rise into the chimney and displace the cold air that is in the chimney. This cold air is displaced and flows into the space you are trying to heat. This is really critical in an exterior chimney situation (like the OPs).

#2 marginal wood - make no mistake, the burning of marginal wood will frustrate you. Every wood seller out there will tell you his wood is seasoned. Last year I had to purchase most of what I burned. This year I was able to lay in a good supply and everything except the oak is ready. Marginal wood will cause you to have to run the stove with more air supply in order to keep the wood burning. This will cause the wood to be burned at a faster rate, but at a lower temp. due to having to boil off the moisture.

Last year I got a load of "seasoned oak" that was really not ready at all. so I quit burning it and started calling wood suppliers. I warned them that I would be testing the wood at random before they dumped it. If they brought me wood that was above 20% that I would not pay for it. I had 2 suppliers not show-up after this conversation but one that was fine with it. I was able to get a load of mixed hardwoods delivered for a reasonable price and it was at 15%-18% based on my testing. If you burn wood you need to have a meter to check the wood you buy or cut yourself.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

No Block-off plate above stove.

I might be misunderstanding but doesn't the rock wool stuffed behind and above serve as a de facto block-off plate?

If you burn wood you need to have a meter to check the wood you buy or cut yourself.

I'll take this a step further: If you burn wood never count on being able to buy burnable wood. Ever. Count on cribbing it up for at least a year.

 

[begreen]

It sounds to me like things are working well, but the expectation is somewhat unrealistic. The stove is an area heater. It is located at the far end of a room with a heat-trap ceiling and something like 40-50 ft away from the bedrooms. The OP is getting better at achieving good burns, but that is not going to keep the bedrooms warm without some assistance. Hot air is not going to easily convect into far bedrooms in this modified ranch layout.

atom, have you gotten on a ladder and checked the temperature near the ceiling in the great room? I'm wondering how well the ceiling fans are working there. If it is hot at 12', I would try reversing one fan so that one is blowing up and the other is blowing down. That should help break up hot air near the ceiling peak.

What was the great room temp last night when the bedrooms were 60F? As a test try this trick. Do you have a table fan? For more even heat in the house put a table or box fan on the floor at the far end of the hallway, pointing toward the woodstove. Run it on low speed. It will blow the cooler air down low, toward the woodstove. The denser cool air will be replaced with lighter warm air from the stove room. Running this way you should notice at least a 5F increase in the hallway temp after about 30 minutes running.

And don't even consider trying to heat the garage with the stove unless the house gets too hot. Keep the heat in the house.

 

[Hogwildz]

I might be misunderstanding but doesn't the rock wool stuffed behind and above serve as a de facto block-off plate?



I'll take this a step further: If you burn wood never count on being able to buy burnable wood. Ever. Count on cribbing it up for at least a year.

Nope, batt insulation is not an air barrier.

X2, i know of very few people that burn wood they buy the same year they buy it, many in frustration of trying though.
Hence, the 3 year rule I live by. Always a supply of wood ready to burn, no worries or frustrations.

 

[atom631]

to answer a few questions - total square footage is under 1600. i have had the fans on clockwise but i reversed them tonight to see if it made a difference. i just bough a small desk fan today to try to putting it at the end of the hall. wont come in until friday.

im no too sure what happened last night. the great room did hang at around 71 degrees all night, but the bedrooms were 60. i actually dont mind sleeping cold, but my wife hates it. i may just have to throw the oil burner on at night when its really really cold out. im thinking that the door to my garage may have been open a crack. but tonight its around 30 out and my bedroom is 64...so it makes sense that it would be 60 when its 21 out.

i did notice something and this may be a big something.... if you look at my floor plan on page 1 of this thread, you will see in the hallway where i mark the CAC return. right underneath that return is my thermostat. i noticed as i walked from the living room/great room area that i feel like i hit a literal wall of cold air right after the thermostat. as of right now, my great room is at 76 degrees and my thermostat in the hallway is around 71. go into the bedroom, only another 15' (or so) aways, and its 64. so im thinking maybe all the warm air is just flowing right up the return. i pulled the filter out and stuff it with insulation. its not really enough and i can probably pack it pretty good, but it was enough to cover the surface. maybe this will help.

as for a block of plate.. its something i guess i will need to revisit during next summer. i mentioned earlier that i have buddy with a summit insert who installed his on BOP. i had him come over and take a look for me. he thought it was going to be very difficult. first, it appears my chimny was redone at some point. when they redid it, the old damper is mortared in with bricks above and below, so other than removing the door, nothing else is able to come out. also the summmit is really tight fit in the opening. there is only about 2-3" above the insert. he wasnt sure how we would be able to attach the liner once the stove was slide into place. this was all determined before the unit was installed, so it was just gone off rough estimates. maybe now with it in, we can get a better idea on if it can be done.