I have a 1557 and it does heat the house pretty good, but i can not get a very good burn time, i close my door damper completely and just use the bottom damper,, usually its not more then one turn out,, I usually get the fire going really hot ,, out of the creasote area and then i shut it down to maybe one turn or even closed tight, Well even then its got nipples on it so you cant close it off completely, how is anyone getting 12 hrs out of these stoves,, i might get 6 hrs
One thing about these stoves is the learning curve; I swear, you could take a 100 installs in different houses and how you operate your 1557 will be unique to the house it is in.
I 100% control with the ash door damper, in fact tried moving the feed door damper the other day with no luck (it be stuck closed, fine by me). When I say 10 -12 hr burn times, one thing I need to point out is the last 1 to 2 hours is limited heat and most small amount of coal that I can use to get other pieces going.
My setup consists on 38ish foot of flue outside (duravent tripple wall) with an Exhausto 009 on top of the stack. While this exhausto prevents back-drafting, I am also a firm believer it causes my fire to draft a little more even on low then I want it (oh well, it helps reduce build up too
).
Generally loading it requires careful planning, I fill it as full as I can get it, wood right up to the smoke shelf with the ash door damper is closed to 1/4 turn. During the night this will keep the house around 70F (depending on how cold it is outside) with upto 10hr of useful heat, with last 1 to 2 being coals left and fans cycling on and off intermittently, the house will be cooling down, albeit slowly than if no heat was produced.
At night is this easy, during the work week, I operate slightly differently, each morning I give it 45 minutes of really hot roaring fire in the morning, load it fully and the damper gets closed all the way (the wife and kid leave about an hour after me, so she will try to fit a couple extra pieces in as she exits too). If I have actual coal we'll load on top of the wood as well.
Weekends and days off, if we're around the house we never load it fully. Mainly throw in a few pieces of wood and check it every few hours (this gives me extra control, and the wood we burn changes, usually slab is thrown in and sometimes a 85F house is to hot
)
Tes
