Well, purely by accident, I learned something about the new EPA firebox last night... how to make it "heat" longer.
It has the draft control in front, a sliding knob with a scale marked from "1" to "5", with 5 being the hottest. There's also a bracketed section labeled "Normal Range", ("2" to "4"). My SOP has been to use "5" to get the fire going pretty good, and then turn it down... wait for heat.
Last night I got home from being on the road for a couple days, around 4:00 PM. It's been sunny and pretty nice here, the wife hadn't started a fire while I was gone... but temps were cooling a bit and the house was down to 67[sup]o[/sup], and predictions were for high 20's overnight. I was dead-tired, and went down to get a fire going, left it on "5" and walked up stairs to relax just a bit before turning it down... dozed off. The kids woke me up about 45 minutes later, and I jumped up to check the fire, concerned it would be over-heating. It was hot, screaming hot, but not necessarily overheating and a lot of the fuel load had been consumed. Man it was throwing some serious heat from the vents. So anyway, I had a bite to eat, went down and topped off the fire... and went in to bed, asleep before 7:30.
Now, for some reason, I wake up whenever the blow stops... even though you can't really hear it running (I know, it don't make sense... but it-is-what-it-is). I heard, or felt, the blower kick off at 4:30 this morning... Nine hours of heating! Granted the last two or three hours it wasn't making a lot of heat, but still. Made some coffee and went down to check the firebox... I had actually left the draft control a bit further open than I normally would (set on "3" instead of "2"), likely because I was so tired.
This just feels backazzwards to me... but apparently this firebox likes to start out "hot" (really hot), and be kept "hot" (really hot), to keep "making heat" over several hours. It wants to run screaming hot... It wants to be fed more air than I've been giving it both at start-up and during the extended burn, which appears to keep the coals hotter, longer. This is backazzwards compared to the old smoke dragon... feeding it more air would cause it to over-heat, consume the fuel load in no-time-flat, and send most of the heat out the flue.
Learning curve I guess... I may have to re-think a few more things.
It has the draft control in front, a sliding knob with a scale marked from "1" to "5", with 5 being the hottest. There's also a bracketed section labeled "Normal Range", ("2" to "4"). My SOP has been to use "5" to get the fire going pretty good, and then turn it down... wait for heat.
Last night I got home from being on the road for a couple days, around 4:00 PM. It's been sunny and pretty nice here, the wife hadn't started a fire while I was gone... but temps were cooling a bit and the house was down to 67[sup]o[/sup], and predictions were for high 20's overnight. I was dead-tired, and went down to get a fire going, left it on "5" and walked up stairs to relax just a bit before turning it down... dozed off. The kids woke me up about 45 minutes later, and I jumped up to check the fire, concerned it would be over-heating. It was hot, screaming hot, but not necessarily overheating and a lot of the fuel load had been consumed. Man it was throwing some serious heat from the vents. So anyway, I had a bite to eat, went down and topped off the fire... and went in to bed, asleep before 7:30.
Now, for some reason, I wake up whenever the blow stops... even though you can't really hear it running (I know, it don't make sense... but it-is-what-it-is). I heard, or felt, the blower kick off at 4:30 this morning... Nine hours of heating! Granted the last two or three hours it wasn't making a lot of heat, but still. Made some coffee and went down to check the firebox... I had actually left the draft control a bit further open than I normally would (set on "3" instead of "2"), likely because I was so tired.
This just feels backazzwards to me... but apparently this firebox likes to start out "hot" (really hot), and be kept "hot" (really hot), to keep "making heat" over several hours. It wants to run screaming hot... It wants to be fed more air than I've been giving it both at start-up and during the extended burn, which appears to keep the coals hotter, longer. This is backazzwards compared to the old smoke dragon... feeding it more air would cause it to over-heat, consume the fuel load in no-time-flat, and send most of the heat out the flue.
Learning curve I guess... I may have to re-think a few more things.
