How hot does your wood stove get?

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The last several days have been extremely cold, and I've been loading up the stove as often and as much as I can fill it. 500f is my max, and yet it takes a good part of the day to heat the cabin. Zero degrees outside this morning, 48 degrees inside when I awake. Good Lord!!!

I trust this to be pretty accurate. But I did learn something rather interesting tonight. I've been concerned about the wood temperature of wall behind the stove. The other day I was reading the wood to be at 200 degrees. Yikes!!!! Am I going to burn down my home? Tonight I learned that if I take a reading and the laser light is thru the stove pipe heat, I get a bogus reading. Tonight I put my hand on the wood and it was warm but nothing like 200f. Holding the Infrared Heat Gun Thermometer off to the side (off and away from the stove pipe) and take a reading of the wood, it gives a much more accurate reading that confirms what I am actually feeling. Wood is warm, nothing to fear. FYI.

LASER INFRARED HEAT GUN THERMOMETER​

1670114682585.png
 
Pretty sure ignition temp of wood is a lot higher than 200F (in the neighborhood of 451 F perhaps) but yea that would concern me also if the wall was really 200F.
 
You can put a metal plate spaced off the wall and open on the top/sides/bottom. Cheap spacers available at TSC, ceramic fence insulators.

When the plate gets warm convection will draw cold air from the bottom of the plate near the floor and exit near the top. Wall probably won't even get warm.

I did this when I installed a woodstove in my traditional fireplace to protect the wooden mantle above it. I used a piece of polished aluminum. The mantle does not get much higher than room temperature.

A 10-pk of insulators is $13

1 fence insulator.png



woodstove.jpg
 
What mad professor said; a metal (or cement board) baffle spaced an inch or so away from the wall will do wonders to protect the wall behind, with the bottom a couple of inches above the floor to allow cool air to get in under and convect up between wall and baffle. I personally don't tolerate any feeling of warmth of wood behind the wood stove.

In the back of my mind, learned from BC Hydro's heating expert after the back-to-nature hippies from the 1960's started installing wood stoves in all manner of unsafe locations, is that wood exposed to high temperatures over a long period of time can have a flash point as low as 140C--40C degrees above water boiling temp. It's amazingly low, lowering with time as the wood carbonizes.

I'll try and track that down, but you can as well.
 
The reading area of those temp guns is cone shaped, the center of which is the laser beam. The laser beam has nothing to do with the actual measurement, just a pointing device. Three feet out, the circle of temp read might be 10-12", and there might be info on the side of the gun itself about the measurement area spread. You might be catching the edge of the stove pipe with the actual measurement zone, and getting a higher reading than the wood behind your stove.

I run my stove according to this:

IMG_20221203_192653.jpg
 
Found a reference--

"If there is no pilot flame, ignition may (depending again on experimental conditions) not occur until pyrolysis below the char layer slows sufficiently to allow the char to come into contact with the air [9]. Charcoal has the lowest spontaneous ignition temperature of all the combustion products, reported as low as 150 to 250°C"

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10694-018-0787-y
Mind you this applies to wood that had been subject to high heat for an extended period of time, long enough to char--but this was what was happening in some wood stove installations with people thinking that wood studs covered with gypsum board were protected, when the gypsum was conducting heat through to the studs. Eventually the studs caught fire inside the wall.

Simple baffle installed as stated above, eliminates all that possibility, and is cheap. A definite 'why not?' Get creative, cover it with a tile mosaic.
 
The reading area of those temp guns is cone shaped, the center of which is the laser beam. The laser beam has nothing to do with the actual measurement, just a pointing device. Three feet out, the circle of temp read might be 10-12", and there might be info on the side of the gun itself about the measurement area spread. You might be catching the edge of the stove pipe with the actual measurement zone, and getting a higher reading than the wood behind your stove.

I run my stove according to this:

View attachment 1037398


If it turns dull red I know it's too hot. :blob2:

Just kidding. Been burning with wood > 50 years now. I have seen some boiler plate stoves start to glow. Not real good for the stove, those will warp and cast ones will crack.
 
I use my temp gun several times a day to check the temp of the stove and pipes.In the morning I rake the coals or use kindling light it close the door drink coffee and wait till gun tells me its rising up into the 200s on the stove and I can leave for breakfast.
I find the readings on wood to be fairly accurate.
I stripped a 40 gallon propane hot water heater down to just the tank painted it black and plumbed it into my water lines also piped a blow off valve into the sump pump pit.I set the tank against the side of my Fisher Grampa bear stove in my basement.Water temp is around 120 average in winter.I installed a tank less propane water heater set at 122f it allows water above 115f to flow threw it and shuts down so 90 percent of my hot water is free in the winter.
-20c here
Kash
 
On colder days I shoot for a temperature between 500 and 600° f on the hottest part of the stove. The stove pipe I like to see around 250- 300° while a fans blowing on it to pull some heat off and circulate it. Any hotter than that it's just wasted heat up the chimney. It's easy to get the stove over 600° even with only one side open with good dry wood. That's the key though, dry wood is very important for maximum heat otherwise you're just wasting it drying out the wood in the stove. On warmer days 400 to 500 degrees fahrenheit is fine.
I usually burn ash or oak, but if I want to get the place hot quickly some dry spruce will give ferocious heat in a short period of time.
Heavily constructed stoves can take the heat, but thin gauge metal ones I'd be careful with.
 
So, I guess you want the temp on the stove pipe about 13 inches from top of stove to be about 600 far. Thats how i run mine when its real cold. I often wonder if i can safely go higher when its frikn cold
 
I put a small fan near my stove to blow warm/hot air were I want it. That helps keep the area behind the stove cooler. Also helps the rest of the house heat up faster.

I've a small fan next to the stove and an overhead that circulates plenty of air. Several days ago I put up the inch thick foam core board in the large window inserts and put up the extra thick moving blankets over the major windows. Frost is soon to be forming on the windows.

Any colder I'll be wearing my cold weather inside.
 

OM617YOTA in post #8.​

If your wood heater has a stove pipe get one of the magnetic burn indicators like is in post #8.

Place it on the stove pipe couple feet above the stove.
Keep the temp in the yellow zone as much as possible.

But this does not indicate that your wood heat installation is safe.

Get yourself some good smoke alarms and sleep in your clothes at night. (so as to make a quick exit if the smoke alarm goes off)

STAY SAFE.
 
The title is how hot does it get.
This is just now probably has been pegged.
This is not normal but getting it going from the overnight and not coming back quickly enough.

View attachment 1037477
WoW:

adds new meaning to the term: pegged out and warping the heat pointer.

Plastic Smoke alarm is melting.

I've seen that happen sometimes when first stoking up a fire and giving it max air. goes into a run away.

Dangerous thing.
 

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