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[agriffinjd]

Approaching the end of my second season with the stove (2nd season with any outdoor stove actually).  Last winter was much more severe with many days failing to reach above zero, and many lows in the -30s and -20s.  This year we've had occasional lows into the -20s (twice maybe?) but many mild days, including 50s and 60s this month.  These are the things I've learned through two years now of working with the stove.

1.  Smaller, dry pieces of wood, loaded to the same volume as large wet pieces of wood, burns much more efficiently.  I was stoked (no pun intended) to be able to load it full with big rounds last year and then reload it 24+ hours later.  That led to a lot of smoke.  I get the same burn times now with splits or smaller rounds that are dry.

2.  Keep the ashes low to keep the firebrick exposed.  I have the non-shaker version.  Last year it seemed the stove lasted longer between loads if I had ash/coal bed piled up almost to the door.  This year, I've shoveled out 20 gallons of ash every one or two weeks, to the point that it looks almost like the fire won't relight because there's so few coals in there that I'm throwing logs onto.  It burns way better this way.  The firebrick help keep it hotter and the fire can relight easier.  I make sure to rake it enough so the ashes keep falling into the cleanout chute, which leads to the third thing I've learned...

3.  Keep the ash cleanout chute cleared at least every week.  This allows the airflow to be much more efficient to get the fire going again, and to burn it hotter once it's going as the air is flying in from two directions with maximum speed.  When it's burning efficiently, I see only heat coming out of the stove.  When the coal bed is small and the ashes are not in the firebox, I get a blowtorch of flames shooting up from the chute when it's burning with the blower on.  I'm assuming it's from small coals falling into the chute that are getting completely burned up to ash.  That really helps in the efficiency department.

4.  Keep the diff longer instead of shorter.  Last year I had it at 7 degrees.  This year, 12 degrees (190 set point, fan kicks on at 178).  I've thought about trying to lower it further, but it's been working so well this way I don't want to mess with it.  Even in the warm 50s and 60s weather we've had this month, I still leave it set there.  I thought I'd have to lower it so the fan kicked on at about 183 for the warm weather, but I haven't had to.  Probably because:

5.  Don't overload it.  Load just enough to get to the next fill.  I aim for 12 hours.  98% of the time, my aimed-for-12-hours-fills would last about 16 hours or more.  Less fresh wood allows it to burn more of the coals completely to ash, which aids in raking the ash into the chute, which aids in keeping the ashes low, which keeps the coal bed low, which keeps the firebrick exposed, which makes my life easier!

Bottom line, I'm really liking this stove.  It's heating 5200 square feet between a house and a detached garage, and DHW, and working wonderfully.

[coolidge]

    

I took the firebrick off the sides of my 250, I find the wood against the sides doesn't burn very well, but my house was warm.

[GUSWHIT]

Hope I am as satisfied as you when I get mine hooked up!  I have approximately 20 cord cut, split and drying(not stacked so no accurate measurement) and I should be able to finalize all of the hook up by then.

[agriffinjd]

Hope I am as satisfied as you when I get mine hooked up!  I have approximately 20 cord cut, split and drying(not stacked so no accurate measurement) and I should be able to finalize all of the hook up by then.

I've had my fire burning since October 23, 2015.  It was lit the week before for 3 days but then I went out of town and relit it when I got back.

Since then, I've used about 8 full cords when adding in the softwoods that I was burning earlier with the hardwoods since late November.

[GUSWHIT]

That's a heck of a lot less wood than I burnt in my central boiler in a year and only was heating about 1900 sq ft house and 700 sq ft garage.  Dealer I purchased from insisted that he used 20% less wood at least in this model.  I still have to finish the install though.  I have access to 2 500 gal l.p tanks that I was thinking about hooking up as extra thermal storage, just not sure yet if that's what I'm going to do.

[agriffinjd]

That's a heck of a lot less wood than I burnt in my central boiler in a year and only was heating about 1900 sq ft house and 700 sq ft garage.  Dealer I purchased from insisted that he used 20% less wood at least in this model.  I still have to finish the install though.  I have access to 2 500 gal l.p tanks that I was thinking about hooking up as extra thermal storage, just not sure yet if that's what I'm going to do.

I'm also super insulated (new home constructed) with R60 attics, R21 blown cellulose walls with R6.5 dense board foam boards wrapped around it too, plus high efficiency windows and doors, with R10 foam boards under the basement floor.  Garage is R21 walls with fiberglass batts and no foam board.  So my main heatloss would be from there, but it's only 1200 square feet.  I wish the standard insulation on these stoves would be R38 batts though.  My house might be insulated better than the stove even after accounting for doors and windows...

Last year burning December 23 through May, I went through about 11 full cords or so, maybe 12.  I think I was losing efficiency on the stove though last year by having such a huge ash pile in it.  Had this winter been as cold as last winter, I'd probably be up to 10 cords by now.

[Strawbale Builder]

 

[atvalaska]

How can u run your AQ s so high and not have left over heat /creep and  goto boil over mode

[mlappin]

That's a heck of a lot less wood than I burnt in my central boiler in a year and only was heating about 1900 sq ft house and 700 sq ft garage.  Dealer I purchased from insisted that he used 20% less wood at least in this model.  I still have to finish the install though.  I have access to 2 500 gal l.p tanks that I was thinking about hooking up as extra thermal storage, just not sure yet if that's what I'm going to do.

About thermal storage, it works really well if your going to do batch burns, not so much if you’re burning all the time as it can lead to excessive idle times while all the water cools back off.

I have a G400 with 250 gallons of water, that is plumbed with a 70 plate HX to my waste oil burner in the shop that holds 450, so 700 gallons of hot water works great in the shoulder seasons when I just use the waste oil burner once a day to heat the water. Not so great the rest of the year in milder weather when the G400 sits and idles half the day as its waiting on 700 gallons of water to cool off instead of 250.

I installed a differential controller to only run the pump on the waste oil boiler to the HX when the G400 water is hotter than the waste oil boiler water, once the G400 has been idling awhile and cools off to within one degree of the 450 gallons of water the pump shuts off from the waste oil boiler to HX. This allows the G400 to cycle more often. When heating wit the waste oil I flip a switch so the pump is on all the time so all the water is available for heating the house and DHW.

[agriffinjd]

How can u run your AQ s so high and not have left over heat /creep and  goto boil over mode

Don't know.  The highest I've ever seen the thermostat on the back of the stove get when it shuts off the blower is about 193.  When I have the stove open too long to clean and load, I've gotten it up to about 197 and then it started to boil over.

[GUSWHIT]

That's a heck of a lot less wood than I burnt in my central boiler in a year and only was heating about 1900 sq ft house and 700 sq ft garage.  Dealer I purchased from insisted that he used 20% less wood at least in this model.  I still have to finish the install though.  I have access to 2 500 gal l.p tanks that I was thinking about hooking up as extra thermal storage, just not sure yet if that's what I'm going to do.

About thermal storage, it works really well if your going to do batch burns, not so much if you’re burning all the time as it can lead to excessive idle times while all the water cools back off.

I have a G400 with 250 gallons of water, that is plumbed with a 70 plate HX to my waste oil burner in the shop that holds 450, so 700 gallons of hot water works great in the shoulder seasons when I just use the waste oil burner once a day to heat the water. Not so great the rest of the year in milder weather when the G400 sits and idles half the day as its waiting on 700 gallons of water to cool off instead of 250.

I installed a differential controller to only run the pump on the waste oil boiler to the HX when the G400 water is hotter than the waste oil boiler water, once the G400 has been idling awhile and cools off to within one degree of the 450 gallons of water the pump shuts off from the waste oil boiler to HX. This allows the G400 to cycle more often. When heating wit the waste oil I flip a switch so the pump is on all the time so all the water is available for heating the house and DHW.

I'm still kicking the storage thing around.  I was contemplating setting it up with a loop to an exchanger and then the storage tanks and various zones would be a closed system.  Just haven't done all of the research yet.  I get varying answers from people.  I have been reading some books lately, but really concentrating on finishing the damn house right now so we can get moved in.  It's amazing all of the little details that you forget about that take so much time to complete! Whoops, sorry for the derail.

[mlappin]

Like I said, works great if you want to batch burn, think like a Garn.

Not so good when heat demand is down and your doing a continuous fire as it leads to excessive idle times and more condensation.

[Oak Hillbilly]

Approaching the end of my second season with the stove (2nd season with any outdoor stove actually).  Last winter was much more severe with many days failing to reach above zero, and many lows in the -30s and -20s.  This year we've had occasional lows into the -20s (twice maybe?) but many mild days, including 50s and 60s this month.  These are the things I've learned through two years now of working with the stove.

1.  Smaller, dry pieces of wood, loaded to the same volume as large wet pieces of wood, burns much more efficiently.  I was stoked (no pun intended) to be able to load it full with big rounds last year and then reload it 24+ hours later.  That led to a lot of smoke.  I get the same burn times now with splits or smaller rounds that are dry.

2.  Keep the ashes low to keep the firebrick exposed.  I have the non-shaker version.  Last year it seemed the stove lasted longer between loads if I had ash/coal bed piled up almost to the door.  This year, I've shoveled out 20 gallons of ash every one or two weeks, to the point that it looks almost like the fire won't relight because there's so few coals in there that I'm throwing logs onto.  It burns way better this way.  The firebrick help keep it hotter and the fire can relight easier.  I make sure to rake it enough so the ashes keep falling into the cleanout chute, which leads to the third thing I've learned...

3.  Keep the ash cleanout chute cleared at least every week.  This allows the airflow to be much more efficient to get the fire going again, and to burn it hotter once it's going as the air is flying in from two directions with maximum speed.  When it's burning efficiently, I see only heat coming out of the stove.  When the coal bed is small and the ashes are not in the firebox, I get a blowtorch of flames shooting up from the chute when it's burning with the blower on.  I'm assuming it's from small coals falling into the chute that are getting completely burned up to ash.  That really helps in the efficiency department.

4.  Keep the diff longer instead of shorter.  Last year I had it at 7 degrees.  This year, 12 degrees (190 set point, fan kicks on at 178).  I've thought about trying to lower it further, but it's been working so well this way I don't want to mess with it.  Even in the warm 50s and 60s weather we've had this month, I still leave it set there.  I thought I'd have to lower it so the fan kicked on at about 183 for the warm weather, but I haven't had to.  Probably because:

5.  Don't overload it.  Load just enough to get to the next fill.  I aim for 12 hours.  98% of the time, my aimed-for-12-hours-fills would last about 16 hours or more.  Less fresh wood allows it to burn more of the coals completely to ash, which aids in raking the ash into the chute, which aids in keeping the ashes low, which keeps the coal bed low, which keeps the firebrick exposed, which makes my life easier!

Bottom line, I'm really liking this stove.  It's heating 5200 square feet between a house and a detached garage, and DHW, and working wonderfully.

Great post.  I have the little brother to the 3444 but all five of your observations transfer to the smaller unit as well.  I am also very happy with the unit as I'm also finishing up my second year with it.

[dukethebeagle]

i batch burn and have storage and mr lappin is right.
if u us storage batch burn.
ur smoke will go down because u are burnin at full efficiency