Woodstock Fireview. What to do if stove top gets hot.

[Todd]

If you are regularly burning on 0 without losing flame, there's a good chance that the air restrictor plate in your intake is off-track and letting in extra air. . .worth a quick look with a flashlight. The rod attached to the air control handle is attached to this plate at the other end, just look up under where the handle is located.

Yes, this happened to my Fireview and once I fixed it, it was a whole different animal. .75-1 is where I ran my Fireview and it would only get up into that 700 range at the lower end with no flame.

The Keystone may look similar fire box wise but there's one big difference, the Keystone has a small 1/4" hole drilled into the back of the ash pan housing that allows a little more combustion air into the fire box. I have found I can burn the Keystone on much lower settings than the Fireview on the same chimney. I also think the Keystone has a little more control than the Fireview and I've had many less OH CHIT moments.

 

[ddddddden]

Yes, this happened to my Fireview and once I fixed it, it was a whole different animal. . .

I think I learned about this from you.

 

[fox9988]

I double checked the air restrictor plate, it is sitting flat in the bottom, looks good to me. I do loose flame below ~.75, but the cat still glows. I probably burn at lower temps than most of you; mild climate, 1536 sq.ft. heated, well insulated and VERY tight. It looks like I will get by with 1 (one) cord of wood this winter, burning 24/7, only heat source. Yeah, I'm a light weight.
Todd thanks for weighing in, you're one of the few that have owner both stoves. There isn't much Keystone discussion going on this year, so I try to relate the FV tips/techniques to my stove. I also didn't know about the 1/4" air hole. I'm wondering why a full load of ashes doesn't block the hole and change the burn? I'll have to check that out. The Keystone cat assembly seems to insulate the stove top and thermometer form the heat until the cat is engaged and active (creating a huge lag in STT). I'm typically through the whole reload process (regulating single wall pipe temp at ~450), cat glowing, before I see Any change in STT. I use the STT more like an odometer than a speedometer. Is the FV cat set up the same and do FV owners see such a long lag?
In bypass mode things can change in a hurry. My single wall pipe can rise ~100 per min on full draft. After initial flames, I cut the draft back to 2 for ~20, then engage.
Dennis, sorry to derail your FV thread with Keystone talk. I'll try to keep the hijacking at a minimum from here on out.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Mine only got scary hot once, when I got distracted during a reload. Cat was not yet engaged. Air was relatively open,,,years ago, so I don't remember exact details. I shut the air, temp climbed another 15 degrees or so, in a couple of minutes, but fire was dying down. After about 15 minutes or so, stove was quiet, temp had dropped to an acceptable level, so I engaged the cat. with the air slightly open.

I never knew to do as you suggest, Dennis. Unlike you, I did not like burning my stove over 550 or so. When it started to climb higher, I just shut the air off for a bit, and it always stopped climbing or came down...I always found it quite easy to stop the fire by closing the draft. Opening the air may very well work even better. May also get an instanteneous result, while my technique resulted in the stove taking a few minutes to start to cool...could be precious minutes if you were over 750.

A question: since the side and front temps were fine when the stove top was hot, couldn't one just open the cat for a bit? That would cool the top, and with the stove that hot you'd still be getting a clean burn.

Another question: Seems if one was burning as usual, and had the unusual happen, then either different or more wood, or high wind or really cold out? So...once one gets the stove operating at a nice stove top temp, does one leave the air open more than it originally was for the rest of the burn?

I've never had the Fireview do that in the middle of a burn...always was at start -up if it got too hot for me.

Bottom line, even when it was really hot, I never had the Fireview in a runaway, uncontrollable fire. A nice, and safe, stove. Every time it got hotter than I wanted, it was operator negligence at start up...not that that makes it any less of a problem.

You can open the bypass and the stove top will cool but if you are doing this you may have to do it several times or else just leave the bypass open for a longer period of time. But if you do it by giving it more air then you are not wasting any heat at all and are getting the full benefit.

Once the stove top temperature is down to maybe 680 or lower, you simply then go to your normal draft setting and enjoy the heat and the fire show. Our normal burn setting is about .75.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

You suppose another reason the cat cools is with that much air coming in the smoke is going through the cat so fast that not all is being burned.Also,if i close my stove to .75 i get back puff so i could correct this by closing the air down in increments ya think?

If you are getting back puffing, then you want more air rather than less. And yes, closing down in increments is usually a good way to go. Many times I'll set the draft at 1.5 when engaging the cat then after maybe 5 minutes drop it to the normal operating setting.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Ok what the heck am I doing wrong three times in a week the stove top has gotten to or a little over 700*. Each time was after a reload so im thinking that im reloading to soon or just plain wrong. What are the proper reload steps and also at what point should i reload?

Not sure what you are doing wrong Matt as you don't state how you are operating the stove.

Reloading too soon? Not sure what you mean there but when the stove gets down to coals, it is time to reload. If we have a large coal bed then I'll just level them out before putting wood in. If for an overnight load, then I want to push the coals forward a bit so that the bottom rear piece has very few if any coals underneath it. The rest of the load is just a matter of fitting in the pieces.

Then we wait until the wood is fairly charred which can be anywhere from 5-15 minutes but normally close to 10. We watch both the stove top and flue temperature. Stove top we want to 250 or more. Flue we go from 400-500. I do think perhaps this could be different on a vertical flue. Ours is horizontal so I think perhaps we get a hotter reading sooner than with a vertical flue.

So the flue is at, say 450. Stove top is at 250 or more and I turn the draft down to 1.5 and engage the cat. Then wait a few minutes, normally not more than 5 and if all looks good the draft then goes to .75 and I go to bed.

Daytime reloads are very similar except that we just level the coals and not push them forward. Usually these loads do not fill the stove either and most times when engaging the cat we can go right to .75 and all is well.

Hope this helps.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I see discussion on taking up to 45 minutes to get the Fireview to 200 stove top. For sure if you are starting a cold stove the stone could be heated to quickly but I doubt it would be for that time. Most times we have engaged the cat by 30 minutes and we engage at 250 or above. The big key to getting the Fireview warmed up is to not leave the draft open full with the bypass opened. By doing this most of the heat just goes flying up the chimney. Once we get the fire going good we drop the draft to 50% and this warms the stove much faster.


And Fox9988, I did not take your posts as highjacking the thread. All is well.