The last 2 nights have ben a night mare

On my ds energymax 110 a few days ago I let my coal fire go out accidentally . It was burning well one morning I shook it a little to cool and well latter that afternoon I lost an entire grate and it was not salvageable.

Come back to the next day the outside temps are a little too warm to start coal back up . 45-50s and lows in the 30s.

So I decide to burn some wood . Worked well and fine . Ds includes a block of plate over grates . Which sometimes gives me trouble with the regulator working .

Night 1 I have block off plate in and wood fire burnt well several hours . Load up before going to work I get a puff back and of course it’s setting the smoke detectors off . My draft always maintained no less that .05 realizing after the fact I set the airwash on high . The stove was around 400 degrees stove pipe hung around 200-250.

Being that I didn’t go to work last night I made sure that today I burnt all day long just to be sure . Also removing the block off plate . My draft ranged from .05-.09 . Worked fine all day .

Tonight 8 pm I reload a load of wood. Splits ranging from 13-15%moisture about 10 small splits of wood . I open stove dampener up load the wood . Keep dampener open until I get a stovepipe temp around 300 for 10-15 minutes . Close the stove down nice . Re-burn kicks in nicely . Airwash is set on 3/4 to high . This storm system comes in and the wind picks up . I get another puff back again . There goes the smoke detector . At this point I’m frustrated . So being the stove is hot and drafting well and the outside temp is colder . The stove seems to be getting overly hot . Not that the bi metallic wouldn’t hold it down . I was affraid of another puff back while I was away from work. Because of the bi metalic holding the stove back . So I open the stove dampner up burn up some of the splits nicely and start throwing coal in . It cools down nicely and ignited very well . Maintaining a nice blue flame now and burning well .

I don’t have my baro installed but my draft is running .08 right now , which I’m not concerned about at this point . I’d rather have more draft than not enough .

Why is burning wood such a pain in the A$% ? I don’t care what anyone says anthracite coal is far superior in burning /heating and maintaining. All wood is good for is starting a coal fire .

Does your bimetallic close completely? If so put a paperclip on the flapper or something else so it always gets a tiny bit of air to the wood. Myself I wouldnt use the plate, let ash build up to protect the grate, and would keep a small area clear of ash with a poker so it gets a little under fire air. If needed, leave the MPD open. Your wood fire is getting choked for air, my opinion. Think old school wood burning, again just my opinion.

warminmn wrote: ↑

Thu. Mar. 30, 2023 8:30 am

Does your bimetallic close completely? If so put a paperclip on the flapper or something else so it always gets a tiny bit of air to the wood. Myself I wouldnt use the plate, let ash build up to protect the grate, and would keep a small area clear of ash with a poker so it gets a little under fire air. If needed, leave the MPD open. Your wood fire is getting choked for air, my opinion. Think old school wood burning, again just my opinion.

100% agree , there’s a set screw on my bi metallic flap To adjust a gap. I must have not had it set open enough .last night I adjusted it for a paper clip to fit . And for the outside temperatures I loaded a little too much wood . So I had a little too much temperature. Plus to make matters worse the stove was not very cool when I loaded it either .if anything I should have threw 3-4 splits rather than fill it up to the gills . Not very experienced with wood burning but I’m learning . By far anthracite is far superior and way easier to operate

As above definitely getting choked and sucking just enough fresh air down to detonate the wood gasses ) my garage stove does it without fail if my MPD is 11:15 on the dial , . I just had huge one in my Waterford the other day 2-3 pounds of reject hardwood molding , on top of coal’s smoldering I touched my MPD to give a little more flow and boom ! Just as loud and as terrifying ( my garage stove the hotter it is the scarier it gets ) like starts huffing almost and blasts smoke and ash out the door spinners . T

Your exhaust temps need a be kept in the burn zone at all times burning wood…this prevents creosote…and should also prevent puff-backs as well because stove will be drafting well.

That means at least 325F-350F to allow for the magnet to be off some.

The higher above 300F the better with wood to stay away from temperatures that would build creosote build up.
Even doing the above, good luck using the same dial setting with wood as with coal. From my experience with my Hitzer…not going to happen.

Those burn tubes in that DS, if firing properly, will be around 1200F to properly burn the smoke. Otherwise, you get what you got, puff-backs…which means it’s starving for air.

Unlike coal, which maintains a constant temperature in the house, you’re also going to have to give that up some when burning wood and let the house temperature swing and cycle some, let the house get colder, then bring it back to temp.

If I’m wrong and you figure something else out do let me know as I’d be interested as well. I had to give up burning wood in my 354 because the door spinner intakes were too small compared with a normal older wood stove which have much larger air intakes and in order to keep a fire lit trying to use the dial I kept turning up the rear dial…never did get to turn it high enough to maintain a wood fire. Your stove is somewhat different though because of the secondary air tubes, which mine does NOT have…YET.

Another thing…

…most secondary air tube wood stoves do NOT recommend the use a manual stove pipe damper in the stove pipe…which would also indicate that when burning wood you will also fully open your stove’s built-in damper for better draft. Once you get it going you may find a point where you can close it a little but NOT fully (Hitzer built-in dampers by design already do NOT fully close but D.S. may be different).

Also, use enough wood for the Stove temperature you need until you figure out how to run it with wood. That is, add small amounts of wood to sort of creep up on your stove operating temperature. This will help keep the bi-metallic open until stove gets too hot.

ShawnLiNy wrote: ↑

Thu. Mar. 30, 2023 1:27 pm

As above definitely getting choked and sucking just enough fresh air down to detonate the wood gasses ) my garage stove does it without fail if my MPD is 11:15 on the dial , . I just had huge one in my Waterford the other day 2-3 pounds of reject hardwood molding , on top of coal’s smoldering I touched my MPD to give a little more flow and boom ! Just as loud and as terrifying ( my garage stove the hotter it is the scarier it gets ) like starts huffing almost and blasts smoke and ash out the door spinners . T

Yeah it’s loud ! Blows the clean out door open ! I think the wood is worse than coal bangs ! I only ever had 1 coal bang and learned my lesson . I also think to I had too much wood in the stove

I was outside once when I had a big coal puffback out of my stainless chimney. I would have sworn a muzzleloader went off. They are a lot louder if your outside! Wooooof inside, WOOOOOF outside! lol

Unrelated but last year I saw a video of some idiot in a basement throw a spray can of something and close the door ( he backed up to the camera about 20’ away you see the door and glass blow out and a massive fireball than black I guess cameras can’t handle a little explosion

Hoytman wrote: ↑

Thu. Mar. 30, 2023 1:29 pm

Your exhaust temps need a be kept in the burn zone at all times burning wood…this prevents creosote…and should also prevent puff-backs as well because stove will be drafting well.

That means at least 325F-350F to allow for the magnet to be off some.

The higher above 300F the better with wood to stay away from temperatures that would build creosote build up.

E89F1914-44FF-4BC8-8CC3-BB22C01F3901.jpeg

Even doing the above, good luck using the same dial setting with wood as with coal. From my experience with my Hitzer…not going to happen.

Those burn tubes in that DS, if firing properly, will be around 1200F to properly burn the smoke. Otherwise, you get what you got, puff-backs…which means it’s starving for air.

Unlike coal, which maintains a constant temperature in the house, you’re also going to have to give that up some when burning wood and let the house temperature swing and cycle some, let the house get colder, then bring it back to temp.

If I’m wrong and you figure something else out do let me know as I’d be interested as well. I had to give up burning wood in my 354 because the door spinner intakes were too small compared with a normal older wood stove which have much larger air intakes and in order to keep a fire lit trying to use the dial I kept turning up the rear dial…never did get to turn it high enough to maintain a wood fire. Your stove is somewhat different though because of the secondary air tubes, which mine does NOT have…YET.

The secondary’s in the ds work almost immediately. Load open up stove dampener char wood until it gets to 350 stove pipe for 10-20 minutes and lock down. The inside temp is hot enough to ignite the Re burn system . If the stove temperature on the face is 300 and above it Re burns wood gas . Coal it needs to be a little higher . Mostly I’m going to say what happened in my situation was , my house is extremely tight . Weather conditions were flipping upside down almost immediately. And between having too much wood in the stove , lost flame and poof . With the ds and my chimeny and the bi metal wood drafts anywhere from .06-.1 depending where the flap is . Given a paper clip distance from the flap . With the excessive amount of wood that paper clip distance was not enough .

I could never leave the ds stove dampener open fully , maybe about 1/4 . Wood creates a hot internal temp .


Knowing what I know now it would be different in what happened .

The previous settings worked before but also the outside temps were much different and there was not so much weird barometric conditions .