How do you slow down the burn???

I have a LL Pioneer Top Vent stove. It appears to me that it just gravity feeds and I have no control over the fire size.

I have no problem getting it to light, but the combustion blower just rages the fire to the top of the stove and in no time its at 700 degrees and the temps just continue to escalate.

I baby sat it until 2:35 AM and then just shut it off to get a little sleep.

Any help would be appreciated.

Mike

If you are useing the coal-trol and before you lit the stove was the t-stat calling for heat? If it had been calling for heat for a while it will be at 99% feed rate and will take some time to ramp down from there. Before you light the stove again set you coal-trol t-stat to a setting that is less than the current house temp about an hour or so before relighting the stove.

Yes I have the Coal-trol unit and I did have it set for 74 degrees and it was 72 in the room. This was the first fire in the stove and I figured it should be set higher than the room to start it, but will give that a try.

Yes, turn the thermostat down to below the room temp to start (1-2 degrees), otherwise, it will try and compensate with higher feed rates to satisfy the temps. once you get it burning, let it settle for 30 mins or so and check the temp in teh room and the Feed Rate on the indicator (Hit "?" setup, it will first show FSA (Fan Speed AUTO) then FR (Feed Rate) and keep an eye on it. once the room temp. is satisfied, the feed rate should start to go down after a while, then, bump the temp. up 1 degree at a time.

Also check you Setback temperatures to make sure you don't have large swings of 3-5 degrees, better to keep it as close to constant (1-2 degrees), then the stove will not overshoot to catch up.

Another way I do it is to set the t-stat on "min feed rate" put the min feed rate on 10 or so and then light the stove. Let it burn on min for a while to warm up the house. Once the t-stat is satisfied I take it off of min and let it do its thing. This prevents a large overshoot if the t-stat has been calling for heat for a while when the stove was off.

I snuck home from work at 10:30 AM. I lite the stove @ 10:45 AM and did it a little different than last night. I think I had too much coal on the grate, and this caused it to burn hot. I put the half moon metal ring in further back on the grate. Then lit a small fire with the min setting @ 6 and MAX @ 40 set the temps 2 degrees below room temp and let it go. Its been burning now for about 2 hrs and has settled in real nice. Stove temp is at 500 degrees and just a small little fire. Its so small the ash line is about 3-4 inches back from the front edge. I have the day and night settings at 68 and its 72 in here and climbing, but I expected that with the warm weather we are having.

I was concerned last night because everything I read on here is folks trying to get more heat. I was trying to get less, and didn't stop to analyze what was happening. Last night the grate was covered from front to back and at full depth. I had started the fire real close to the front edge and I guess with it calling for heat and the grate was already maxed out I just needed to wait for it all to burn up before turning up the heat.

The one thing I did learn is this stove will surely crank out some heat. I have also learned to be more patient with it.

Starting it off with a small fire and getting it stable prior to turning up the heat is the way to go.

Thanks for the advice.

Mike

4" and 500 degrees is not a small fire. It'll settle in around 150-200 degrees. If you pull to much coal on to the grate and light it you'l get a raging fire. Coal can really put out the btu's.

Always on start-up it will have to burn up what's on the grate, so it might get really hot for about an hour or so until it starts to settle down and you have the ash at the end of the grate. I can throttle mine down to about 140 degrees with the Coal Trol set at 7 or 8. It only has about 1-2" burning and about 4-5" of ash.

I shut it off today to do some final work around the install. It had been idling for 20 hrs and had settled in @340 degrees stove and 140 degrees on the pipe 20" above the stove. I have the coal-trol set at MIN 6 and MAX 40. I also would estimate the fire to be about 1 1/2 to 2" and full width of the grate on the LL Pioneer.

I am burning coal that I got from Keystone, and so far it burns real nice.

I need to snake a new thermostat wire in the wall prior to mounting the finished wood trim, then add the trim and it will be complete.

MrMikie wrote: It had been idling for 20 hrs and had settled in @340 degrees stove and 140 degrees on the pipe 20" above the stove. I have the coal-trol set at MIN 6 and MAX 40. I also would estimate the fire to be about 1 1/2 to 2" and full width of the grate on the LL Pioneer.

With that size of an idle fire you can back down on your min feed rate if you like. Bump it down to 5 and watch it for an hour and if you still have more than 3/4' of hot coals bump it down to 4. My stove idles well on the number 4 setting (stove 150*) and I can go to 3 but I start to see unburnt coal sneeking down the sides of the grate. But each stove is different so go down 1 at a time and observe.

Thanks Rick, I will try that as it was too warm in the house during the day for the weather we have been having.

I will let you know how I make out with it when I start it back up.