Summit Insert burning too fast and dropping temps quick

[Hogwildz]

Make sure you unplug the return before you run the furnace.
Not only might the heated air be traveling the return, but the return may also be dumping cold air in the hallway.
1600 should truly be no problem for the a 3cf stove. You will have to find where the heat id going and being lost.

 

[begreen]

Set the ceiling fans in the great room so that one is blowing upward, one blowing down. This will create a circular flow that will help move the air up high.
Try the fan trick I mentioned to help push cold air away from the bedroom hallway, it will be replaced with warmer air.
Turn the CAC breaker off with a post it note to unblock the return first.

 

[wildwildwest]

2) too much draft (doubful)

Please elaborate on too much draft, I have that concern. How is it determined?

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Please elaborate on too much draft, I have that concern. How is it determined?

If you cannot adequately control your fire with the vent lever - if you shut it down and it's still chugging away - and you have determined that you don't have and bad gaskets or other air leaks - you have too much draft

 

[wildwildwest]

If you cannot adequately control your fire with the vent lever - if you shut it down and it's still chugging away - and you have determined that you don't have and bad gaskets or other air leaks - you have too much draft

What is too much draft caused by? I have a new small insert, 17' chimney with a newly installed 6" liner w insulation. Small block off plate under damper cut stuffed w flex liner leftovers. Is it possible to have a chimney too tall?

 

[hamsey]

If you cannot adequately control your fire with the vent lever - if you shut it down and it's still chugging away - and you have determined that you don't have and bad gaskets or other air leaks - you have too much draft

Could this also be due to splits being too small? Most of my splits (bought) are on the small side. When I let them get a nice char on them and start shutting down the air they just take off. Even with the air shut down completely temps keep on going up and flames do not go out, sometimes it keeps building. I tried a couple of fires with bigger splits and the stove ran completely different. Was not able to shut air down completely and flames did die down and I was able to control the fire much better. It took longer for the splits to char I had to turn up the air a couple of times to get it going again.

 

[Huntindog1]

What is too much draft caused by? I have a new small insert, 17' chimney with a newly installed 6" liner w insulation. Small block off plate under damper cut stuffed w flex liner leftovers. Is it possible to have a chimney too tall?

Taller Flues can have more draft. 17 foot flue isnt going to be an issue. Its more like 25' flues and above. Being that your liner is insulated will give you more draft as the flue maintains heat well for the entire length of the flue. Warm air rising is what causes draft. Cool air doesnt rise well it usually wants to sink. If you have trouble keeping your stove from getting too hot it could be too much draft or your loading technique and stove operation needs to be adjusted as in not loading on too hot of coal bed when the stove is too hot or not getting the input air shut down quick enough. Loading too much small stuff that burns fast could cause out of control stove.

 

[Hogwildz]

I still say that heated air is being lost somewhere.
There is no way in hell that room should not be damn near 80 degrees or more on a good full properly burned load.
When you say cold start, did you purposely let the stove go out, or just didn't have enough coals to reload on top of?
I still have at least 2 hours worth of coals to burn down, that I just drug forward, and as usual, I loaded at midnight.
Not only should you be getting plenty of heat, but if your loading before bed, you should have plenty of coals in the morning.
Unless your burning soft wood at that size you have.
Our members in the West and PNW, parts of Canada etc, only have soft wood, pine, fir etc, an they have no issues of getting 8+ hours with coals for reload.

The way I see it you have two issues to solve:
1. The need for truly dry decent sized splits to load and burn, which quite frankly, you don't have in the pile I see.
That would be scrap starter wood for me &/or used to finish filling in the top of small gaps in a reload.

2. Determine where the heated air air going, where the heated air is being lost, and sooner or later you will have to put a block off plate in, there is a very good chance your losing heated air up that cavity, only to be bled out to the wild blue yonder, and being replaced with colder air dropping in on top and around the insert. Neither F/G nor Rockwool are air barrier, and do not stop air flow.
Nest time the stove is "cold", take the surround off and put your hand around the top and sides, see if you feel a cold draft flowing on top &/or around the insert.

Keep the garage door shut. With that open, you might as well have the front & back doors to the house open.
Once you get your present issues squared away, then youi can work on figuring how to heat the garage.
If your going to leave the garage door open, then you really are handicapping yourself and the insert.

You have a learning curve, we all have had that at the start. You have many fine folks giving you some sage advice. Be patient with learning how to load, what to load, how to burn, and apply the pointers the members are giving you. This time next year, you will be chiming is as guys are here. They had issues the first year, learned the wood, the stove, hones their burning practices, and are now tell how this year is so much better.
Many of us have been there. Hell my problem in the start was my insert burning too hot. Came to find my stove did have some Q/C issues. But still got it figured out, and 9 seasons later am still honing my burn habits, loading strategies, and how I operate the stove. After my first year, and getting in tune with the insert, I have made large to small adjustments each year, and have constantly heated with less wood each year, while not sacrificing anything.

Your first challenge is decent wood. You may not get that this year. But you can burn what you have to get yourself familiar with the stove and how it burns best for you.
If it was me, I would pack the larger splits you have on the bottom, and tightly pack the other stuff on top. Try going right up packed full and tight to the bottom of the baffle.
You're not going to hurt anything in that stove. Experiment, and see what ways you can make the most of what you got. Even if you have to supplement heat with the furnace, so what, your still cutting down on that with help of the stove. Start contacting wood dealers whom other members here gave you contact info. Stop in their yard, look at their piles of splits. Then make informed decisions.
I personally would rather have wetter large & medium sized splits, rather than dry small thin splits. In the end, when ready to burn, the larger & medium ones will serve you better. Just my opinion.
You can always split large one down, but small ones although can be stacked together, still do not offer the advantages of large splits.
What you considered medium, your finding out are actually small.
Relax, do what you can, the best you can, and get a feel for it all. Don't let it stress you out. Keep fine tuning, and use the furnace if you have to, the insert will still help cut down on the furnace use. And please don't forget to unplug the return register when your going to run the furnace. I know that is something I would do.

 

[Grisu]

Did you heat last winter solely with oil? How many gallons did you use in what time span? (The entire winter or just a cold month like January.) I am with Hogwildz, when the stove is at 700 F and you are still cold, you have some major heat losses somewhere. Knowing your oil consumption will help in determining if that already was the case before the stove was installed.

 

[begreen]

Makes me wonder how well the ac ducts are insulated and if the supplies are also a source of cold air or leakage.

 

[Hogwildz]

Makes me wonder how well the ac ducts are insulated and if the supplies are also a source of cold air or leakage.

That was one of my points. There is some serious heat loss going on there, that should be found.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

What is too much draft caused by? I have a new small insert, 17' chimney with a newly installed 6" liner w insulation. Small block off plate under damper cut stuffed w flex liner leftovers. Is it possible to have a chimney too tall?

Assuming a stove is in proper working order the cause of over draft is having too much chimney. However, outside air temp can affect draft quite a lot too - the colder it is outside the better a chimney will draft. So if you have a chimney that's on the tall side for your set up it might draft a bit too much on colder days, and vice versa. With regard to your particular set up, I can't say. Maybe start a new thread.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Could this also be due to splits being too small?

Not really. Smaller splits burn better, and are more prone to over fire, but that's possible without a specific over draft problem.

 

[Hogwildz]

How you making out there Atom?
Any progress?

 

[atom631]

hey!! sorry i havent replied sooner.work and the holidays have gotten the best of me.

Before I give you an actual update, I need to catch up on asnwering some questions i missed after my last post:

Make sure you unplug the return before you run the furnace.
Not only might the heated air be traveling the return, but the return may also be dumping cold air in the hallway.
1600 should truly be no problem for the a 3cf stove. You will have to find where the heat id going and being lost.

Why would I need to unplug the return if I run the furnace? I have baseboard, oil heat. I know I will definitely need to unplug it before I run the CAC come summer, but not sure why the furance.

Set the ceiling fans in the great room so that one is blowing upward, one blowing down. This will create a circular flow that will help move the air up high.
Try the fan trick I mentioned to help push cold air away from the bedroom hallway, it will be replaced with warmer air.
Turn the CAC breaker off with a post it note to unblock the return first.

the silly thing about my ceiling fans is they dont have invdividual controls. they both run off a single wireless remote. maybe if i position myself in such a way that i am far enough away from one of them, i can operate them independently.. i will have to give it a try.

If you cannot adequately control your fire with the vent lever - if you shut it down and it's still chugging away - and you have determined that you don't have and bad gaskets or other air leaks - you have too much draft

this might be a problem for me. i am not too sure. i dont feel like there is much of a different in my vent lever from fully open to 90% closed. however, fully closed the fire will go out if the wood isnt completely hot/burning enough. however, i can close the vent once its blazing and it will slow down but will not go completely out. could i have too much draft?

I still say that heated air is being lost somewhere.
There is no way in hell that room should not be damn near 80 degrees or more on a good full properly burned load.
When you say cold start, did you purposely let the stove go out, or just didn't have enough coals to reload on top of?
I still have at least 2 hours worth of coals to burn down, that I just drug forward, and as usual, I loaded at midnight.
Not only should you be getting plenty of heat, but if your loading before bed, you should have plenty of coals in the morning.
Unless your burning soft wood at that size you have.
Our members in the West and PNW, parts of Canada etc, only have soft wood, pine, fir etc, an they have no issues of getting 8+ hours with coals for reload.

The way I see it you have two issues to solve:
1. The need for truly dry decent sized splits to load and burn, which quite frankly, you don't have in the pile I see.
That would be scrap starter wood for me &/or used to finish filling in the top of small gaps in a reload.

2. Determine where the heated air air going, where the heated air is being lost, and sooner or later you will have to put a block off plate in, there is a very good chance your losing heated air up that cavity, only to be bled out to the wild blue yonder, and being replaced with colder air dropping in on top and around the insert. Neither F/G nor Rockwool are air barrier, and do not stop air flow.
Nest time the stove is "cold", take the surround off and put your hand around the top and sides, see if you feel a cold draft flowing on top &/or around the insert.

Keep the garage door shut. With that open, you might as well have the front & back doors to the house open.
Once you get your present issues squared away, then youi can work on figuring how to heat the garage.
If your going to leave the garage door open, then you really are handicapping yourself and the insert.

You have a learning curve, we all have had that at the start. You have many fine folks giving you some sage advice. Be patient with learning how to load, what to load, how to burn, and apply the pointers the members are giving you. This time next year, you will be chiming is as guys are here. They had issues the first year, learned the wood, the stove, hones their burning practices, and are now tell how this year is so much better.
Many of us have been there. Hell my problem in the start was my insert burning too hot. Came to find my stove did have some Q/C issues. But still got it figured out, and 9 seasons later am still honing my burn habits, loading strategies, and how I operate the stove. After my first year, and getting in tune with the insert, I have made large to small adjustments each year, and have constantly heated with less wood each year, while not sacrificing anything.

Your first challenge is decent wood. .

I am able to get the great to 80 degrees. Although it hasnt been extremely cold yet. The highest its been is 83..which was stifling. However, less than 10' away, down the hall...it drops severly.

If I load at around 10:30-11pm... I can get up at 5:30-6 and be able to start a new fire from the bed of coals. however, the temps in my house at that point have dropped to under 68 degrees (again, not very cold yet)

The garage shop is officially closed down for the winter.

I definitely do need to get better wood. i might try to buy a 1/2 cord to try out and see how it does compared to what i have now.

Did you heat last winter solely with oil? How many gallons did you use in what time span? (The entire winter or just a cold month like January.) I am with Hogwildz, when the stove is at 700 F and you are still cold, you have some major heat losses somewhere. Knowing your oil consumption will help in determining if that already was the case before the stove was installed.

I went through around 3 1/2-4 full tanks of oil @ 275/fill between november and april...and last winter here on the east coast was nasty. one of the worst weve had in a while. we arent cold in the great room..it can actually be too hot in there. its just the bedrooms that just arent getting that heat.

 

[atom631]

so....for the update - im still blowing through wood. im pretty sure i went through a cord already. if not, its pretty damn close. i think my issue is i am overcompensating and reloading too often in order to prevent the temps in my bedrooms to drop. sadly, i have failed in getting the stove to warm that half of my house. not only that, the stove has posed an issue for me that kinda stinks. because the heat gets far enough down the hall to hit my thermostat, my oil heat never comes on. it will read 70-73 degrees on the thermostat. however, walk another 5' and the temp literally drops 10 degrees. go another 5' into my master bedroom and it could be as much as a 12-15 degree difference. i am going to have move my thermostat. i dont see any other choice. it isnt even that cold yet too. so come mid-january, early-feb...and my oil heat will probably be pumping full time anyway...which defeats the purpose of the stove. i have tried desktop fans all over the house in different configurations blowing to and from the hallway, high and low and it doesnt help. aside from that.... i need to have the blower on the stove on at least 50% all of the time to get the heat down there.

so not to be a downer...but here i am thinking.... oil is down the lowest its been in years...and i am just offsetting my oil costs with electric costs by running 2 ceiling fans, a blower and desktop fan 24-7.

dont get me wrong, its works great in my greatroom and we love it in there. i can get the temp up to 80 if i wanted..but it really is only good for in there (and my living seems to do ok). i think couldve gotten away with a much smaller stove that wouldve required less wood to run at max efficiency. i really didnt think that a stove rated for 3000sq' wouldnt heat a 1550sq' single-story home entirely. ah well. expectations vs. reality.

the last thing i am going to try is to open the vents for my CAC up again, but just in the bedrooms and try circulating using that. some people have told me it works..but based on what i was told on here, i havent really given it a shot. ill probably try it this weekend and see how it does.

im kind of bummed out about the whole thing though i was really hoping the stove wouldve allowed me to give a big middle-finger the oil companies..but it doesnt look like thats going to happen. now im just praying for gas to be available on my block soon.

 

[begreen]

Seems like some architects will do their darnedest to come up with impractical designs. They don't care. It's the homeowner that bears the burden. I will never own a house with cathedral ceilings.

 

[atom631]

Seems like some architects will do their darnedest to come up with impractical designs. They don't care. It's the homeowner that bears the burden. I will never own a house with cathedral ceilings.

its so funny you say that b/c my last house had catherdral and we absolutely hated if for the same reasons. the room was frigid in the winters. the burner would never shut off, ever. when we were house hunting..literally the one thing we decided was NO CATHEDRAL. well wouldnt you know it.. here i am in a house with cathedral suffering the same problems. we fell in love with everything else about the house..so not getting it b/c of that seemed silly. im only in this place 1 year this past october. im still learing/figuring it out.

 

[Grisu]

I went through around 3 1/2-4 full tanks of oil @ 275/fill between november and april...and last winter here on the east coast was nasty. one of the worst weve had in a while. we arent cold in the great room..it can actually be too hot in there. its just the bedrooms that just arent getting that heat.

You may also have a larger heat load than you are assuming. 3 fillings at 275 gl are a bit more than 800 gl. An 80% efficient furnace will give you 112,000 BTU per gl of usable heat. Together that multiplies to 90 million BTU for a pretty normal winter. You will need at least 5 to 6 cords of dry hardwood to get that amount of heat from a stove. More if you are now keeping the temps higher than before or the winter is worse. I would look into an energy audit; you may have leaks you are not aware of.

 

[Hogwildz]

I didn't realize the oil furnace was baseboard & not forced air. Never mind the unblocking the return comment.
I still say your losing heat somewhere. I may not be in the 80's. but my entire house except for one room is pretty steady on temps, without major differences in degrees. Upstairs is a little warmer of course. I love my cathedral ceilings, but have a more wide open layout, and don't have the issues you have. Are you leaving the bedroom doors open? Depending oh how long you have been burning and how steady, a cord at this point is not out of line. If you can notice a severe drop in temp in a 5' or 10' difference, there is something else wrong there. The warm air doesn't just stop like as if there is an invisible wall. Waht is the attic/ ceiling area like near the bedrooms? Is there a chance of heat loss there? Is the ceiling air sealed well at the bedroom side of the house? You're losing heat somewhere.

 

[Dix]

I went through around 3 1/2-4 full tanks of oil @ 275/fill between november and april...and last winter here on the east coast was nasty. one of the worst weve had in a while. we arent cold in the great room..it can actually be too hot in there. its just the bedrooms that just arent getting that heat

That seems like a lot of oil. In a winter like the one we had last year, this 2000 SF joint would go through 200 gallons of oil a month for heat and HW from November to April, averaged out. With the 2 programmable t stats on 68F when we were home, 64 other wise.

 

[Dix]

Depending oh how long you have been burning and how steady a cord at this point is not out of line

What Hogz said. Especially with the cold weather we've had here on the Island. I've gone through about the same for each stove.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

this might be a problem for me. i am not too sure. i dont feel like there is much of a different in my vent lever from fully open to 90% closed. however, fully closed the fire will go out if the wood isnt completely hot/burning enough. however, i can close the vent once its blazing and it will slow down but will not go completely out. could i have too much draft?

That's more or less how mine operates, too. Reading this and your other post it sounds like it's not an overdraft issue. So that's good news. Here are some pointers:

1) Relax.

2) It will take a couple seasons to really dial in your stove operation. Assuming you have dry wood, your results will improve over time.

3) Your stove is a space heater. No amount of insulation or circulation will change that. You can make adjustments and improvements, but nothing will change the fact that the further you get from your stove the cooler the temps will be.

4) Having said that, it'd be worth your while to look into buttoning up your place

5) Worst case scenario - you will significantly cut down your oil consumption

 

[Sconnie Burner]

Just read through everything. Don't give up on it. I would recommend getting out and finding your own wood or start buying for next year asap! My guess is you have some low btu wood and possibly wetter than it should be. And too small of splits. I can tell a huge difference between my softwoods and hardwoods. Softwoods do exactly as you describe in my stove. High quick peek and a quick fall to 450-500 even with a full stove. (Works great for fall and spring burning though) Now throw a full load of oak or elm in and it will hang at or above 600 for hours!

Look at it this way: you will cut your consumption on oil for this year and more so following years. Get a heated blanket or mattress pad for the bed and be happy with the temps until you get some prime wood and your stove figured out. Seal up the house the best you can when funds allow. As mentioned have an energy audit done and find the major heat loss issues and fix those first. I've got a 2 cu. ft free standing stove that will cook me out of a 2400 sq ft house on anything but lowest air setting with outdoor temps in the high teens and low 20s. You shouldn't have any troubles keeping warm.
A block of plate is a must from what I have read on here in the past. Even if you can fasion up a crude one in a u-shape so it slides in and along the flue with the stove already in place for this year. Or have a pro come in and do it. The cost will be of set by the heat that will stay in the house in turn keeping the oil furnace from coming on.

 

[Huntindog1]

+1 on the wood must be a little too much moisture.

The biggest issue with wood that is just a little too much moisture is that you can get it too burn so you think its fine but its robbing the good quality secondary burn as that is where the real heat is coming from using these stoves as more of a gas burner than a wood burner. Yes the wood is burning but the majority of the heat in theses stoves comes from the smoke gases burning.

If your think the wood is sub par split it one more time and then use it. Also you can set the next load next to the stove after you split it one more time and let it dry out.

On restarts figure out how to use kindling and firestarter like Super Cedars to get the temps upin the fire box quicker, even on a hot bed of coals. You will be amazed how much it helps the whole burn cycle gettng temps up quick to over come some of the mositure issue.