Why is my stove not *that* hot?

Andrea15

Effician said:

What weight of smokeless coal is in that firing ?

What species & moisture content was the wood being burned at the b&b ?.

Is yours a Defra ( smokeless zone ) spec stove?

I'm guessing you expect smokeless coal to have a much higher energy value than wood  when in reality well seasoned wood can get very close to calorific values weight wise with smokeless coal,  ie a quick weigh of a small piece of ~10% Mc ash roughly 8"x4"x4" is 1.75kg & will be around 8.5kWh of energy, 1.75 kg of basic smokeless will be somewhat similar kWh wise but will take a fair bit longer to burn.

Well, let's see...
1) Not sure. Given that a bag is 10Kg, that will be about 2 kg, I would guess. In case it helps, that is Brazier.
2) No idea, it was well dried and it had been sitting in a shed for quite some time.
3) Yes.

Effician

Andrea15 said:

Effician said:

What weight of smokeless coal is in that firing ?

What species & moisture content was the wood being burned at the b&b ?.

Is yours a Defra ( smokeless zone ) spec stove?

I'm guessing you expect smokeless coal to have a much higher energy value than wood  when in reality well seasoned wood can get very close to calorific values weight wise with smokeless coal,  ie a quick weigh of a small piece of ~10% Mc ash roughly 8"x4"x4" is 1.75kg & will be around 8.5kWh of energy, 1.75 kg of basic smokeless will be somewhat similar kWh wise but will take a fair bit longer to burn.

Well, let's see...
1) Not sure. Given that a bag is 10Kg, that will be about 2 kg, I would guess. In case it helps, that is Brazier.
2) No idea, it was well dried and it had been sitting in a shed for quite some time.
3) Yes.

Sounds like you were burning good fuel at the b&b & not so good at home.

I would expect 2kg of Brazier to provide little more than background heat for a couple of hours in our house.

Andrea15

Sounds like you were burning good fuel at the b&b & not so good at home.

I would expect 2kg of Brazier to provide little more than background heat for a couple of hours in our house.

What would you recommend? I have tried a few brands, but have not noticed a great deal of difference. For example I have some Homefire too and although it *seems* better, it doesn't feel *that* different.
The packaging doesn't give you any indication of what might or might not be better.

Effician

Andrea15 said:

Sounds like you were burning good fuel at the b&b & not so good at home.

I would expect 2kg of Brazier to provide little more than background heat for a couple of hours in our house.

What would you recommend? I have tried a few brands, but have not noticed a great deal of difference. For example I have some Homefire too and although it *seems* better, it doesn't feel *that* different.
The packaging doesn't give you any indication of what might or might not be better.

This is where the problem arises & why i asked if your stove was defra spec as i have had a similar experience to you, including the difficulty in getting the flue temp up when using just smokeless.

Coal of any type burns best when air is fed from below, in a defra approved stove the secondary air is prevented from fully closing  this causes the coal to burn at the top of the coal pile & ash to build up creating a smothering effect , the opposite of what you want for coal. Our stove flue has excellent draw which exacerbates the secondary air effects to the point where no matter what i tried smokeless coal was not a viable option.

We get enough free good wood now which has made our decision easy & that's all we burn now.

The fact that everybody's situations / expectations & experience are different will mean there will always be conflicting opinions, we're 16yrs into stoving & still learning & adapting.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hello OP

We have 3 stoves one of which is in the room rather than a chimney opening and it puts so much more heat in the room. 

We pretty much only burn wood (mainly Ash) and get decent heat out of all the stoves, the local place sells “multi heat” not sure what it is exactly other than smokeless and it’s not bad, I did buy 40 bags of Stovemaster a year ago but wasn’t impressed at all and most of it is still in the shed.

We have a Villager stove which is great, after 2 loads it leaves a bed of glowing coals from the wood, you can then close the stove right down, throw two logs on and the the stove looks like a window into a slow motion fiery storm raging on a distant planet. The heat soaks into the stove and the tiles lining the chimney opening get too hot to touch.

In another room we have a Charwood and if the vents are closed the flames go but it does seem to be the most efficient in terms of heat produced for wood used, although the room it’s in is very well insulated compared to the rest of the house which no doubt helps and this is the stove sitting in the room rather than inside the chimney.

We knew nothing of heating a home with stoves 9 years ago and it took a good while to figure how to run them and what fuels to use to get the best results for us.

As others said you don’t want a raging fire with the heat going up the flue and of course make sure any wood has a moisture content below 20%.

Have you tried just burning wood? If you get good heat from this then you’ll know the problem is the smokeless fuel you currently use rather than how the stove is being run. 

Andrea15

After a little while it looks like this. Not clear from the picture, but the coal gets coated with ash at the top.
In theory the top vent should be fully closed, but not sure what it means in practice. 

Effician

If you look at the pics posted by olly-j you'll see three controls, 

primary & airwash , these should close the relevant air intakes off completely,

secondary on a defra stove will hit the stop & appear to be closed but will still allow air into the upper section of the firebox causing more top burn on coal than desired.

Qyburn

We have a Morso Squirrel. Using solid fuel it's much slower to respond and to get properly hot, compared to using wood. However we do use it occasionally as it is easier to keep it running all day or even 24/7, for example during multi-day power cuts.

ariarnia

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Have you tried just burning wood? If you get good heat from this then you’ll know the problem is the smokeless fuel you currently use rather than how the stove is being run. 

i agree with this. the easiest way to check if its the stove or the fuel is to get some logs. if you only buy a small amount its overpriced for the amount you get but its only a one off for the test. 

the next thing to try would be a stove top fan (less than 20 from amazon) to push the air out into the room to make up for it being surrounded on three sides. 

then when you next have a chimney sweep out ask them to look to see if theres any problems they can spot with the flu like the rope seal being missing or whatever that might be letting more heat up and out. 

Andrea15

Effician said:

If you look at the pics posted by olly-j you'll see three controls, 

primary & airwash , these should close the relevant air intakes off completely,

secondary on a defra stove will hit the stop & appear to be closed but will still allow air into the upper section of the firebox causing more top burn on coal than desired.

Look at my picture and you will see that the vents are as per the drawing.
What I meant is that I don't know if the top vent actually closes entirely or not.