We purchased a house this past summer, and it has electric heat and a fireplace with a wood-burning stove insert. It’s an old iron stove with blowers made by a company called “Dynamic Stoveworks” which I can’t find anything about using Google, and the manual didn’t come with the house. We did have a chimney sweep clean the chimney and inspect things, he said it was good to go. There was about 3/4 of a cord of firewood left in the garage…
I feel like it’s going through wood too quickly (about one hardwood fireplace sized log an hour) with the damper completely open … I’m finding conflicting information as to what position the damper should be in for operation. With the damper open the smoke from the chimney is almost invisible, but if I close it to 50% I get a fair bit of white smoke:
I believe you have to reduce air intake into the stove once a fire is going, else you will burn the logs too quickly.
See part 2 section 3:
Close the air intakes partially. After about 20 minutes, when the fire is established and burning well, reduce the amount of air going into the firebox. This will provide the fire with enough air to keep burning, but will stop it from blazing and burning too quickly.[9]
Close the air valve levers so that they’re open about one-third of the way. This includes the primary air, secondary air, and the damper.
Never close the secondary air valve or damper completely. This can lead to tar, soot, and creosote buildup in the chimney.[10]
We had a small wood burner in a cabin I stayed in a few winters back, talk about warm nights and cool mornings. :p
I’ve become somewhat of a master of heating, having used wood, coal, oil and electric in my lifetime.
We used a Wood Burning Stove and the air intake is how you regulate how fast and hot you want it to burn. We had to be careful because if it got too hot the pipe (ours was not a fireplace insert) would start to glow orange, so we kept it down and we used a small fan to blow/circulate the heat from the living room to the bedrooms in the back of the house. We also put a pot of water to help the humidity on the stove.
On the other hand if you burn too low it did cause more smoke; kind of simmers. Used to poke it a bit to make sure to get the air to the fire to help it when I had the air flow lower.
Woodstoves are just the best. There was one in my parents’ house growing up, with the catalytic combustor and everything. It would heat the whole house. I want one eventually.
I have a wood burning insert and yes, you can play with the air flow to control the burning. Once you get the fire going and some nice coals just reduce the air flow.
You will also find (maybe you live where it is really cold though) that you will over heat the house. But that isn’t really a bad thing.
Overall I think I’m still running around 1 log an hour … It’s been unseasonably cold here (near Russellville, Arkansas), which has confounded the analysis, but here’s the fireplace log:
With the air intake open about 60% the logs clearly don’t burn as fast, but occasionally they go out. Somewhere between 80-90% looks like the sweet spot for log consumption… of course, since the logs aren’t at all standardized (haha) it will take a few weeks I think to have enough data to really have an opinion.
The type of wood will make a difference too. Around here I can buy almond wood that burns very well. I can also get free pine from my neighbor (he has some property in the mountains) and while it makes great kindling and burns well mixed with the almond I would never buy a cord of the stuff as it just doesn’t last very long or burn very hot.
We have two burners, and use one of them most nights during winter. We have a different make, but I assume the principle is the same. TBH logs are so cheap here, we dont care much, but I find that if I want to minimize logs whilst getting max heat the trick is…
Let the thing go straight from cold to really, really fucking hot. Pile stuff on there, and leave everything wide open…
Once it reaches pretty hot (YMMV), wind the vent thing right i’m so its barely open, and the flames die right down. The whole inside should glow orange.
If you get it right, logs seem to last forever. Dont adjust it, open it or prod it until the temp drops and you really need to add more.
IANAL YMMV
I agree with the increased air intake. Most fireplaces have a handle where you can control the amoung of air your fireplace will receive. If it gets too much you will get a huge burning flame. And that usually is not what you want. Also try to look over what wood you use. If it is too dry with a low density it will burn up extremely fast and you won’t have a nice fire glow after the wood is burned up. Also try to only put new wood in when the fire is low. I also recommend you purchase the big log pieces surrounded by small branches you can use as a firestarter. Good luck!
