How to properly operate your wood stove
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- Опубликовано: 21 окт 2024
- It is important to know how to properly load your stove as well as control the intensity of the fire. Watch the video to learn tips from Ryan Reed at FCPros and contact us today if you have any questions or concerns about the operation of your wood stove.
Finally found a video where someone explains where the airflow comes from! Thanks! Also gotta say, this video definitely gives great family-owned business vibes. Nice to see someone just imparting knowledge to the audience and his son. Keep it up!
This is absolutely BRILLIANT. There's an entire subreddit for "explain it to me like I'm five." You brought Brody on to literally make sure you followed that same model lol! (We don't expect a five year old to have all the background, and sometimes we need to teach people things without the background stuff, too )
I really appreciated the simple instruction and the explanation as to the function of the air and how it cycles. Thank you!
Question. Would adding a flue damper to these modern stoves help in anyway? With retainingthe heat..seems like it would help but the community seems divided? Thoughts?
If air can't get in, then there should be no gas going up the chimney, in theory!
1:30 "A woodstove prefers to operate in a medium to low setting." I have a few questions about that. I just had a Lopi fireplace insert installed and am really looking forward to using it when it gets colder.
What you said speaks to a concern I have. I read in several places the best way to get the most efficiency is to increase or decrease the amount of wood you add instead of decreasing the oxygen. Their argument is that when you starve the fire of air, unless it is really hot (and even then it can be a problem), you will generate more creosote and burn it less efficient.
So my question is: If I avoid the low oxygen setting, except late at night before going to bed, on cold nights, is it be best to leave it wide open, or could I split the difference and set it at medium? I'm thinking of setting it at medium before going to sleep. This way the fire lasts longer but still burns clean enough.
Interested in any input you or anybody else might have. Thanks.
Great question. This is a terrific intro, but it would also help to have a combustion engineer or something describe these things. I'm not that, but we've been using our Lopi stove for about 20 years now, and here's what I've found. Assuming you have well-seasoned wood (moisture below 20%), it's best to think of the wood as fuel, and the air as air, just as happens in a car engine. There's an optimal mix of fuel/air where you'll get the most efficient burn. Adding fuel without adding air results in more unburned fuel going up the chimney as smoke. Adding air without adding fuel just makes for excess air, which can make an engine run badly, but 'stokes the fire' on a woodstove.
I'm always trying to keep our woodstove in the 400F to 900F range, preferably around 800F (exhaust gas temps as measured by our pipe thermometer). I generally avoid changing the air intake, leaving it open (ours is a little constricted because the air is coming from outside the house through a pipe.) To change the temperature, I prefer to modify the amount of fuel in the stove. But the 'fuel' in this case is combustible gases, not exactly wood. The amount of combustible gases in the stove is based on the amount of wood, the amount of wood surface area exposed, and the temperatures inside the stove. 'Burning' wood is first pyrolysis - baking off volatiles which then burn, and then burning charcoal.
What I often do when the stove is up to regular operating temperature is put two split logs in at the same time. I leave about 1in of space between these logs, with space behind the back one and space in front of the front one. This is the best airflow situation for the stove overall. Then I watch the exhaust temperature. When it rises to 800-900F, I briefly open the stove door and use a tool to shove those two logs into each other. Without the gap between them, I've effectively reduced the surface area for gases to escape from, and reduced the actual "fuel" in the stove at the time, without changing the amount of wood or harming the airflow. This results in a clean burn, at the same temperature, and less temperature rise.
Then, if the exhaust gas temperature doesn't stop rising, I'll use the intake to reduce the air enough to prevent over-firing, and as the temps drop, I'll close the exhaust damper to retain heat. When the exhaust temps start to drop a little, I'll re-open the intake. This all tends to result in a long burn time for those two logs, with very little smoke, temps around 800F at chimney/flue, and a steady stove temp (magnet thermometer on the side of the stove) around 400-600F. As the logs turn to embers, I'll close the exhaust damper more to retain more heat.
The only time I vary from that is when I'm firing the stove overnight. Then I use the biggest pair of logs that will fit, get the stove up around 800F exhaust gas temp, push the logs together, and cut the intake down to half air. When the temp drops to around 600F, I close the exhaust damper about half way, verify the temps and flame are steady, and go to sleep. It's probably producing some smoke that way, but not a lot, and results in a reasonably warm house by morning. All of that works well for us. Hope that helps!
Thanks.
#OneMessageFoundation
So many words and said nothing
You just didn’t listen 😂