New stove question/pics

[sloth9669]

thanx everyone for the info on the site. Question is on a stoves first burn does it let off a smell and light smoke type put of the air vent. The smoke type is def not wood smoke it's a nap1400. Any comments or tips welcome. I'll post pics when ian on the pc.

 

[Richard_]

probably paint burn off

 

[Joshlaugh]

My soapstone one had a lot of fumes the 1st timed I burned it. I was told it was normal and just opened a bunch of windows.

 

[KindlingKing]

Definitely just the paint curing/burning off. You might get a little more the second time you fire it up if you had a short burn that wasn't all that hot. You are in good shape. Just open the windows. I had to have the windows open with my new stove all evening the first time I fired it up. Left a haze in the air throughout the whole house. Wife and I packed up the kids and left for the evening. No harm done. Things were cleared out after about 6 hours. Hope this helps and puts your mind at ease.

 

[iowawoodcutter]

I get that smell on the first burn of every year. Never as bad as the first time though...

 

[HittinSteel]

Yep, just the curing process.....expect it each time you reach higher temps in the stove.

 

[sloth9669]

pics

 

[sloth9669]

questions

this is a nap 1400 and iam having a few issues


one is burn time iam getting 7 hours with few coals left and iam neededing 8-9 hours. anything i can to to max this out. i load 4 good size pieces in tight let it burn on high for 15 min then cut the air intake to as low as it goes.

second is the air intake lever is hard to pull in and out. seems to be getting worse as time goes on and its a week old. yet to call the dealer just seeing if anyone has any ideas.

last is iam not getting much heat up stairs. its in the basement as you can see in the pic and the stair well is in the middle of the house. we set a fan at the bottom and it kicks the air up. i do get a few degrees but not what i think i should. is burning it on low not engouh air for the temp to get up. and would insulation on the basement walls do the trick. iam thinking strapping and ridged foam boards ?

ideas ? thanks for the help

andy

 

[Mike Van]

Hey Andy, years back I had a stove in the basement, the hottest I could get it down there was less than 70. I used a Ram-set, put 1" nailers on the concrete walls, 2 ft centers, then 1" styro. boards on them. What a difference, all that cold concrete was covered up. One thing I have to add though - All those styrene insulating products are a fire hazard, according to the building inspector. He wanted 1/2" sheetrock or 1/4" plywood over it. I finally found some fire retardant paint that he approved. 40.00/gal, but that was easier than sheetrock. What kind of wood is giving you 7 hours off 4 pieces? I think thats pretty good. My Harman boiler, I load 14 pieces in at 10:00 pm, if it's really cold, like below 10F, it's pretty much gone at 5:00 am when I get up -

 

[KsWoodsMan]

In a word , Yes. Insulation would help. It slows the heat transfer to outside of the house. When heating the basement you are also doubling the amount of square feet you are supplying heat to. Expect your usage to increase or the percieved output to be less.

Depending on the type of wood you used you might be able to get longer burn times. Not sure what wood is in your stack but denser wood does burn longer.

I wouldn't have thought paint fumes were safe to breath. My first burn was outside so my family wasn't exposed to whatever was curing out of the paint.

Not sure why the control lever has been binding. I don't have that stove but with luck someone will chime in with direct experience and offer a solution.

 

[ericjeeper]

How many btus is your current furnace?

You are now heating a space that you did not heat before I assume. 8-9 hours is really a pretty long time to expect 50 pounds of wood to burn and to make heat. 50x6850 btus per pound is 342500 btus produced. SO spread that out over 8 hours is roughly 42,000 btus per hour. Now take in the heat lost up the Santa pipe which might be 20% so you are now down to about 34,000 btus per hour.
So if you have a 150k furnace, yes I understand they do not run continuously.But when they do run they produce a huge amount of heat at one time.
My dad always had to get up in the middle of the night to feed the magic box. As well as my mom would feed it at noon when dad was at work. But that sometimes is what it takes to keep the house warm.
I heat with a home made outdoor wood eating magic box boiler. I can get by with 12 hours on a feed. but I am feeding it a full wheel barrel full when it gets hungry.

 

[sloth9669]

thnax

iam thinking the styro board in the basement and dura rock around the stove. after i get a good 8 feet away iam thinking bare styro should be ok. iam using most if not all red oak. and when i ask for an 8-9 hour burn iam just looking for some coals to start a fire up again when i get home. and house temps around 65-70. one floor house 650 sqft living same for basement area 650sqft

 

[Moss Man]

When you clean the ashes out, leave 1"-2" on the bottom to help insulate the coals when the fire dies down. I wouldn't cut the thing back to much to achieve a real long burn, that isn't efficient and will plug the chimney. I heat with a wood stove in the basement and as others have said, keeping all that cement warm is fighting the cause. Our stove is big enough to still heat the house, but you have to keep on top of things. I don't have the option of having a stove upstairs, so we do what we can. The next project here is to put a hood over the stove and run a coupe 6" ducts to the upstairs along with a couple cold air return vents.

Good luck and keep us posted, us cellar heaters have to network to solve these problems.

 

[ericjeeper]

I have an Idear.

Since the house is not all that large. How about digging up the perimeter, and insulating the outside? Then you can use the concrete walls as a heat storage mass?
If this is undoable.. Then I agree with adding 2 inches of pink board on the interior. Behind the stove I would put the 2 inch board to the wall then fir off an inch or so and then cover with durock or some other flame resistant barrier.

 

[ericjeeper]

How about some through the floor registers

They will help get the warm air up more evenly throughout the house.

 

[Laird]

20 years or so ago I was heating w/a Vermont Castings stove and heating about 1500 sq ft. I never got very good burn times either. I used to drink a BIG glass of water (or 3-4 beers) on particularly cold nights just before bed. This would usually gaurentee that I woke up in the middle of the night to run to the head. On the way I would toss in another log or two.

 

[Moss Man]

My last house had 2" of the pink styrofoam all around the outside of the foundation and it did help the cement to be a more efficient thermal mass. As the cement radiated heat into the basement after the fire went out, it still had a difficult time reaching the upstairs living space.

Most wood burning sites do not recommend wood stoves in the basement for the reasons we are discussing here. Woodstoves are space heaters and are perform best when in the living area that needs the heat the most.

 

[Joshlaugh]

You mean it isn't typical for all of us to get up at 3am to add wood to the fire? I do that every night to keep us warmer and have good coals in the morning. I can't seem to get my wife up to do it.

 

[Moss Man]

You mean it isn't typical for all of us to get up at 3am to add wood to the fire? I do that every night to keep us warmer and have good coals in the morning. I can't seem to get my wife up to do it.

We stop putting wood in at around 7pm and start the process all over again the next morning....usually very few coals left but you can find some in the ashes. During the overnight, the temp in the main part of the house gets down to 62-64 degrees and the kitchen on the north end gets down to 58 degrees, but that isn't sheetrocked yet.

 

[Mike Van]

All I have to hear is the X^?!>>? oil burner kick on & I'm up to feed the fire!