Inset Stove Design and Testing Part 2

So to recap –

A standard stove is a single sealed iron – steel  -or other fireproof material BOX. Let us call this:
 

BOX ONE.

A controllable amount of air comes in one end to feed oxygen to the fire – and hot gasses and smoke goes out the other end and up the chimney. The heat from the fire is dispersed both by radiant and convection means from all sides of the stove.

An Inset or Insert stove has TWO BOXES. The inside box is a complete stove in and of itself.

The outer box is there for ONE PURPOSE ONLY. It is there to create convection air channels to take the heat from the sides, back, and top of the fire box, and GET THAT HEAT OUT INTO THE ROOM. This box let us call it:
   
BOX TWO.

A BASIC TEST FOR INSET STOVES

Apart from getting the fire to burn well and fully controllably in BOX NUMBER ONE, an inset stove needs to have a convection air current established in BOX NUMBER TWO (the outer box, in order to take the heat from the back -sides and top of the stove out and into the room.

What we are testing:

Is the burn rate of the fire fully controllable?

This test is really easy to establish. When the fire is fully lighted and burning really hot, simply turn down both the primary and secondary air controls fully.

The fire should immediately begin to dim down and within five minutes or so should be burning a dim red. After an hour or so – if the stove is in very good airtight condition, the fire should go out completely.

Most stove are not completely airtight so the fire may not completely die down but may continue to burn. However, it should burn at a really low rate!!

If it continues to burn at a faster rate, you have a faulty stove. The problem could be one of several things:

(a)    Poor door seals.
(b)    Poorly sealing air vents.
(c)    Joints in the stove body not properly sealed.
(d)    A crack or break in the stove wall.
(e)    Or – of course the possibility of bad design!!

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