Fireplace / Stove question. Lacking heat!

Monkey88

I recently moved into a house that has a working wood burner/multi fuel stove. It's the first time I've had a wood burner/stove/multi fuel and I'm unsure how to use it efficiently.

It's unlike conventional stoves that I see (it's all metal with no glass doors). The heat output has so far been uninspiring and I was hoping it would be better.

So far we've been burning coal and some wood.

I'm looking for some pointers on how to maximise the heat output; should I run it with the doors open or shut? I have 2 vents on the bottom of the doors and something on the flue that turns (which I imagine shuts off the flue/chimney), do I run the top flue/vent wide open?

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks :-)

I have some photos of the fire, but the system won't let me post them. Please PM me if you wish to see a photo.

michaelgordon

Hi Monkey

Have you got a flue thermometer? Your best getting the stove hot first with kindling. Make a jenga type tower, i use 16 to 20 bits of kindling and a couple of fire lighters to get it going, with all vents open light and close the door. The door should always be closed.

When it gets to about 300f i close the bottom (main) vent and put on a couple of briquettes or small logs and the temp will get to about 400-500f and then slowly drop and once it gets to about 300 again top up the wood ,keep doing this until the room is nice and toasty.

A._Badger

The first thing is don't use ordinary housecoal - it produces far too much soot and will clog the stove up, which has serious safety implications. Use either wood or smokeless fuel instead, even if you don't live in a smoke control area.

The second is make sure the stove and chimney have been properly swept before using it.

The third is never use a stove pipe 'throttle' when you are burning smokeless fuel or coal - it can lead to a dangerous build-up of carbon monoxide. Only use it to regulate the stove when you are burning wood.

As to running it, light a fire with kindling, with all the vents wide open. Once it has caught, either add smokeless or wood to build a decent sized fire and shut the door - running a stove with the doors opens greatly reduces its thermal efficiency. Having said that, it's OK to leave the door cracked open a little when you are getting as much air into the stove as possible to aid lighting.

Once the fire is burning well, regulate it with the bottom vents only if you are using fuel other than wood. If you are using wood, you can find the best balance between using the bottom vents and the stove pipe regulator.

Hope that's some help.

Monkey88

Thanks for the replies guys.

I don't have a flue thermometer I'm afraid, the fire is all metal and doesn't have glass doors which is a bummer as I can't watch my nice fire burning when the doors are shut! :-(

I'll give it a try with the doors shut and see if the heat output is any better.

We haven't been using housecoal. The product I've purchased is a smokeless coal called Ecoal50 from Homefire. I tend to mix this with a couple of logs in the evenings.

firefox1956

Ant idea what make the stove is ??

Monkey88

I've been doing some research today and I've discovered that the stove is a Stovax Regency Large.

I've also, during this research, discovered that the grate on the fire is the wrong one & is smaller than the grate it should have.

The user manual for this stove says it can be run with the doors open or shut. So I'm assuming the incorrect grate is causing the issue.

Swipe

Monkey88 wrote: »

I don't have a flue thermometer

I recommend you buy one, it could be the difference between having a chimney fire or not

Greenfires

That's basically a copy of the ancient Franklin type stove. Not bad to look at if you like that kind of thing, but hardly any more efficient than an open fire as they're so "leaky" and send most of the heat straight up the chimney. Burning with the doors closed may be slightly better heat wise, but you'll lose the psychological effect where seeing the flames actually make you feel warmer.

You can get CO poisoning from a wood stove just the same as from a solid fuel one! Having the chimney swept is important!

A flue thermometer should only be regarded as a very rough guideline and by no means an essential - the temp it reads will fluctuate a fair bit depending on the state of the fire and may be worrying if you're not used to a stove. For instance, a wood fire going into the charcoal stage will show a reducing temp, and may well get down into the "Creosote" levels before needing re-fuelling. But in this stage there is absolutely no chance of creosote formation despite what the flue thermometer may suggest!

If you're burning wood, then don't worry about the grate. In fact let the ash build up to cover it - wood burns better this way. Smokeless is the complete opposite and should be burned on a clean grate. Burning both at the same time is always going to be compromising one or the other.

Gloomendoom

I have an antique Franklin stove and it can really kick out the heat. Far more than an open fire, doors open or shut.

However, the sheer size of it means that it takes a while to warm up the casing to a point that it starts to give off heat. Controlling it is an art as sealed it isn't. I find running it doors shut produces the most heat and that it how we use it when it's lit to just produce heat. If we want to sit around it, the doors are open.

It's not a stove to own if you don't like your house smelling of wood smoke as you invariably get a puff of it escaping when the doors are opened.