Lopi Liberty

SMOKE BURNING IN OUR LIBERTY WOODSTOVE

SUMMARY:  Bob Marengo, owner of Custom Fireplaces & More, is shown closing down the air in the EPA Certified Liberty wood stove (by Lopi), from closing it just a little to all the way, which causes anywhere from a little to a lot of smoke to form. The flames that are popping out of the holes at the top of the firebox are actually smoke burning!  Smoke is actually half the fuel in the wood, so when you burn it fur fuel, you have much less work to do! A good EPA certified wood stove, fireplace insert or fireplace is cleaner, safer more efficient and much less work than you can imagine!

DETAILS: 1 to 38 seconds:  The fire is burning like crazy on high (air is fully open) and the wood itself is obviously flaming.  The woodstove is an EPA certified non-catalytic “air-injection” type, the Liberty (by Lopi), which heats Custom Fireplaces’ entire showroom. Owner Bob Marengo, reaches in to slightly close down the air control lever.  The front flame drops down, and jets of flame begin to squirt out of what looks like rows of small holes in pipes running across the
upper firebox. That flame is actually smoke, burning! Because the air was only slightly closed only a small amount of smoke is made, which is all burning along. The wood continues to burn at a much slower rate.

39 to 49 seconds: The wood is again shown burning with full air. Bob’s hand can be seen in the upper right closing the Lopi’s unique bypass damper. When closed, the smoke is forced forward to the open slot in front of the glass door.  Incoming gets sucked through a tunnel beneath the bed of very hot coals which continues up the rear of the stove to the holes in those pipes at the top of the firebox. This super-heated, super-expanded  air squirts out in jets over 1100 degrees, which then ignites the smoke. The “air injection “tubes look like gas burners with way too much gas!

50 to 55 seconds: Bob fully shuts the air (when the flame goes out on the wood and then flames all jump to the top of the firebox and boil around above the wood, which is no longer burning. Then he immediately re-opens  the air and the jets of flame quit coming out of holes and the wood begins burning wildly again. 56 seconds to 1 minutes & 13 seconds:  Bob shuts down the air totally, which is the position we leave the Liberty in at closing time right after the wood we just
stuffed in the Liberty is fully caught. After a few more seconds, there is virtually no flame on the wood itself and all flame is being made purely by burning smoke.   You can see jets of flame periodically  squirting from a second pipe further back.  When we re-open around 9:00 AM next morning, there is still a good bed of coals to restart.

1 minute 14 seconds to 1 minute 31 seconds: Bob opens the air most of the way and the flame at the top soon stops as more flame comes from the wood.

1 minute 32 second to end: The air control is completely shut down again, and almost all the heat comes from burning smoke.  We get a good 15 hour burn from a full load, 3 hours more than the brochure states, and we come back to a warm store in the morning with a good bed of coals which easily restarts the fire. The bypass  damper, which opens up an “escape route” for the exhaust to get sucked up the flue from the rear of the stove. This ensures truly smokeless loading. (Imagine how embarrassing it would be for our store to be smoky, smelly, ashy, dusty & cold at opening time! See our article comparing catalytic and non-catalytic methods of burning smoke (see articles menu). FYI, we have no central heat and NO HEAT BILL!  Please call us for all the details and to ask questions.

Hearthstone Equinox

Bob Marengo, owner of Custom Fireplaces & More in Cookeville, TN totally closes the air control on the Hearthstone Equinox in several different video shots after the stove had been burning on high (with the air control wide open). Within seconds after closing the air off, the “secondary burn” kicks in, which is actually the smoke burning as it is being used for fuel to heat your home.  The flame on the wood is almost snuffed out, which makes lots of smoke which is then ignited by the super-heated air squirting out of the “air injection” tubes at the top of the firebox, while the wood just bakes. This looks like very much like gas burners at the top of the firebox.  No electricity needed, this is all due to natural “draft” (suction caused by hot air rising up the flue). This and other Hearthstone stoves are made with 1 ¼” thick solid slabs of soapstone set in a cast-iron framework and the soapstone can hold heat for days. We once restarted the fire from coals left from last loading the stove three days earlier!   The wood slowly turns to charcoal while the smoke does most all the work. And you did not have to split that smoke, stack it, carry it in or load it,  and it makes no ash to carry back out. Best yet, the smoke is free fuel equal to half the fuel in the wood! And all this time… we have been simply dumping smoke into the sky as a useless waste product! Some of that smoke, as it went up the chmney and suddenly chilled, would have made condensation and turned into that black gunk that everyone calls creosote, which could possibly erupt into a dangerous chimney fire.  A really good EPA certified wood stove that burns smoke (and creosote) is cleaner, safer, more efficient and less work than you can imagine! Call us for details!

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