Post
by Hoytman » Mon. Nov. 28, 2022 6:20 pm
I understand being done.
I’m just looking at it that both my Hitzer and your DS seem to extract a lot more heat from the exhaust than a typical secondary burn wood stove or pre-epa wood stove for that matter.
I can’t speak for everyone else’s experience burning wood in a pre-epa wood stove, just my own experience.
I never was one to burn wet wood, green wood, only dry well seasoned wood. I’m talking cut, split, stacked up off the ground, and top covered for more than 3 years. Often our wood had released most of its bark and we had cord after cord like that waiting to be burned or sold. I’m more than familiar with old timers burning their stove hot once a day…blah…blah…blah.
I know from my own experience that my inside the home masonry chimney doesn’t stay clean from poor wood burning practices. In fact, this chimney was looking like new inside for nearly 70 years until I tried burning wood in this Hitzer, then found out the air intakes were very tiny behind those very large spinners on each door…something I don’t think anyone would have assumed to be so small. Any normal person would have looked at those large spinners and assumed there were large enough air intakes behind them to burn wood in the stove just like any normal pre-EPA wood stove.
That said, I noticed right away my stove pipe not getting up to temperature as I thought it should be. The experience of burning 3 other pre-EPA stoves told me something wasn’t right. Yep just know the heat exchanger in this stove works really well…and trying to burn wood in the stove proved no different with regard to the pipe temperature as I knew it should have gotten higher than it was even with my stove starving for air, based on the stove temperature and pipe temperature differential. That said…
…I’m seeing the same thing from your description of burning wood in your DS, a pipe temp still too cool. You should be able to get that pipe temp to 325-350 and keep it there with ease. Could you get it higher to 400, or higher? From your description the answer is yes. You should be in the burn zone to “prevent creosote” from 300 and up. For my chimney 300 is bare minimum and I tried to maintain at least 325-350 in order to keep my chimney clean. It worked too.
You’ll have to see where you need to run your stove on wood to keep your chimney clean, but it’ll most certainly need to cruise at a minimum of 300 for the duration of the burn until the fuel is spent. A reload will require charring of all the wood before being turned down to let the stove cruise with pipe at 300+. Anything below that pipe temperature, over a season of burning, you’ll likely see a dirty chimney.
Now the question remains is will the design of the stove allow you to cruise, with a 300+pipe during each load of fuel, or will the stove extract too much heat from the exhaust to maintain a clean burning wood stove throughout the season.
! If I can’t maintain 74-76 I’m not a happy camper !
that might be a world record.