Getting the most from my stove using smokeless

Alycidon

Solid fuel requires far more oxygen than wood to burn and it burns from the bottom up.

Keep the grate clear of ash, so riddle when refueling, keep the secondary air supply fully open and leave it alone (thats the one above the door).

Control the burn rate on the lower primary air supply. You mentioned shutting this down partly, so you are restricting the air supply to the stove, this will slow the burn rate and lower the working temperature.

A

suki1964

John_the_Boy wrote: »

Hi Suki - last night I tried with about 7kg of coal on and had a lovely looking fire burning but it never really got really hot, stove thermometer showed 310F (wood would be 450F).

Most of a 10KG bag of homefire smokeless should be enough to get a good temp shouldn't it?

Spoke to Stovax today & they think it might be because there isn't enough air getting to the coals so suggested leaving the door ajar whilst burning to see if that makes a difference - just seemed to make it worse. The other option they have suggested is that there is too much draw on the flue and the heat is going uo the flue.

Looks like I will have to get the shop who fitted it out to test the flue draw.

What a pain this is turning out to be! Almost tempted to go back to central heating all the time.

As badger says, something is wrong somewhere

You shouldn't need that much fuel to get a hot fire. I've googled the fuel you are using and it's the same size I use and I'd only use say a scuttle a day with a layer of anthracite

You have to let the air in to start the fire and you need those coals red hot and with a dancing flame before you start restricting the air flow Seriously those fire bricks need to be glowing, they radiate the heat. Once they are super hot , that's when you restrict the air flow and just let the coals smoulder as kinda red hot- haze, but no flames

If you can't achieve that then get the installers back to check all is well. We done a self install and everything was grand for two years, then lo and behold, the line of trees next door got higher and with a wind change we couldn't get the stove to work right. An extra half metre of flue solved the problem

Stoves are fickle creatures. Once you conquer it, it's easy. Just takes a season or two to learn its foibles

And mine is carp if I only burn wood it's much better suited to anthracite where as mums down stairs is better on smokeless

John_the_Boy

Thanks everyone for your comments :T

Decided to try a diffent fuel - went for Blaze. Fire has been going for 1 and 3/4 hours with primary and secondary air vents open plus the third clean burn vent open. 5kg of fuel on, good flame and the stove thermometer is showing 300 again and not really increasing anymore :mad:

Got an IR thermometer from Maplin (£19.99 - half price at the moment) to check how accurate the stove thermometer is. Top of stove is reading 230F to 250F (depending on position) and the hottest part of the firebox is showing 530F.

I give up - off to stove shop I got it from this weekend to discuss options/ideas.

If anyone else has any thoughts I would welcome them. Thanks again.

Swipe

John_the_Boy wrote: »

Decided to try a diffent fuel - went for Blaze.

If you are still having problems with Blaze then something is wrong. I find it to be one of the fuels that puts out the most heat. E.g at the weekend I had a really small fire with just a couple of shovels of blaze and my stovetop was 300F.

John_the_Boy

How many pieces would you say was in the two shovels? I put on about 25-30 pieces (half a 10kg bag) and have just managed to get to 310F per my stove thermometer. IR thermometer says 260F.

Cheers.

pambler

I agree that you need to learn about your stove and it's foibles. I have an Aarrow 5 in my kitchen, in which I burn Taybrite. Whilst it will get up to about 350f when burning with flames, once I shut down the air vents it usually burns at around 200-220f. I keep all the doors in the house open, and I find this is enough to keep the downstairs at a pleasant temperature and take the chill of the upstairs (which I don't like too warm anyway). Sometimes I find the kitchen is too warm!

My big worry was that because I was mainly burning at a temperature way below what my thermometer showed as ideal was that the chimney would be really creosoted up when it came to be swept, however this wasn't the case - the chimney sweep said it was a lot cleaner than the chimney for my woodburner in the lounge, which was only used a couple of times a week last winter.

Swipe

pambler wrote: »

My big worry was that because I was mainly burning at a temperature way below what my thermometer showed as ideal was that the chimney would be really creosoted up when it came to be swept, however this wasn't the case - the chimney sweep said it was a lot cleaner than the chimney for my woodburner in the lounge, which was only used a couple of times a week last winter.

Slumbering smokeless at low temps is fine and nothing to be concerned about.

Swipe

John_the_Boy wrote: »

How many pieces would you say was in the two shovels? I put on about 25-30 pieces (half a 10kg bag) and have just managed to get to 310F per my stove thermometer. IR thermometer says 260F.

Cheers.

Probably about 15 pieces of Blaze with a small amount of lower heat 'cozy flame' as a base.

John_the_Boy

Thanks for the reply. Starting to think 310F isn't too bad for smokeless, was expecting it to be a lot hotter than wood but guess it is made up for by the fact it lasts so much longer.

Will still talk to the installers just to make sure everything ok. Just for comparison I have had 4 fuel express heat logs going tonight and the stove got to 350F.

What temp is everyone else getting on their stove with smokeless? Understand the temp isn't everything but it will give me a good guide and stop me worrying.

Swipe

I mostly drive my stove at around 300F on smokeless in normal weather. If it's really cold, I blast it with some logs on top of the coal and get it up to about 500 - 600F for a short period and then it'll hover at around 400 - 450F for the next hour or so.