Need woodstove advice

Does anyone have a Jotul woodstove? Mine is a 3CB model. Today I put new gaskets on the ash pan door and around the glass. For several hours it seemed to be burning better, and now it's burning hot.

My question is: how much fuel do you put in at a time? Last year, and even yesterday, I could put in 2-3 split pieces and had a nice fire. When I added a third piece a few minutes ago, the temp. and flames really shot up.

The damper you open when starting a fire is closed (after the first 5 minutes), the ash pan door is secure, and the main damper is nearly closed.

Any experience and/or suggestions?

Sorry, Darius, I wish I could help. We have a LOPI and the firebox isn't nearly as large as our old Blaze King. We can leave both dampers wide open and it never seems to get too hot. I know on a windy day sometimes we have to pay closer attention.

Thanks, Joann. I have been playing with it tonight. Might just be very dry wood in smaller chunks.

darius, The drier the wood the hotter and faster it will burn. At this time of year I mix the wood, one piece dry and one green. If I add a third piece it gets too hot in the LR.

Snowhermit... that's some of what I'm finding out... plus, oak vs. yellow locust. The oak seems to burn slower and still hot.

Some woods definitely burn hotter and slower. We always have a mixture of oak, Douglas fir,alder, and pine. Sometimes we have had a little poplar too. The oak is much slower and the fir is a good starter. Occasionally we will even get a hold of an old apple tree. That is the best; slow and hot.

Oak is one of the best producers of heat when it is dry. It takes about 2 years for it to fully dry though.

If your wood is really dry try stacking in the stove flatter rather than criss cross on top of each other to reduce the amount of exposure the wood gets from the flame.

The nice part about burning hard wood is the heat you get from the coals.Until recently we used an earthstove and the only time it ever got to hot was after burnind Maple for about three days it built up so many red hot coals we could not regulate it anymore and had to let it burn out.

I never liked burning green wood because of the creosote it produces and the Chimney Fires that followed.Ernie

Erroneously but with good intentions, I bought "locust" and didn't check to see if it was "black locust" or "yellow locust". Seems to be a BIG difference in how hot and quick it burns (i.e., how many BTU's per cord). It seems to be yellow locust (fewer btu's than black locust, and burns quicker and hotter), hence my current experience vs. what I really expected.

I have some dry oak (drying now for 2 years) that were very LARGE trimmed limbs off my 100+ year old oak from the yard, That seems to do the trick.

I begin to understand now that last year I did not realistically assess my high-performance woodstove's daily action since it had so many leaky gaskets, which I did not know.

Thanks to some advice, especially what was posted here, I understand my stove, and appropriate fuel, better!