Wood stoves are at the top of the list of home appliances that can be added to a home to reduce your monthly expenses and provide comfortable heat. I have used a wood stove to heat my home for over 40 years. I am writing this article to help people that want to start saving money with a wood stove or just enjoy the heat that a wood stove provides.
Do I need a thermometer on my wood stove? Yes, a good thermometer is an essential tool that needs to be used to monitor a wood stove. This article will comment on the reasons a thermometer is important and how to use a wood stove thermometer to increase the safety in your home and explain how to improve the efficiency of your stove through the proper use of a wood stove thermometer.
Stove Safety
The heat from a wood stove is a comfortable form of heat. The temperature of the stove can be increased to quickly raise the temperature of a room or whole house. Changing the temperature of a wood stove can be a safety issue if the stove is not monitored properly. Few wood burning stoves have a built in thermostat that adjusts the stove temperature affecting the room temperature.
On a typical wood burning stove, an air vent that increases air flow to the fire is used to increase the fire temperature. Opening this air vent will increase the temperature quickly but must be monitored to prevent the stove from overheating. (Overheating = Not good!) Having a thermometer that provides instantaneous temperature feedback is the best way to know if the stove temperature is increasing, decreasing or stabilizing.
A thermometer with a digital display that reads to the tenth of a degree Fahrenheit is the best tool to complete this task. This level of monitoring is necessary to fully take control of your wood stove. In the past, the best way to set the temperature was to turn the vent control by X number of turns or adjust the sliding vent cover to mark Y on the scale. That worked fine until the wind picked up by 10-15 mph and increased the temperature up by 50 or 150 degrees.
Now with several versions of digital stove thermometers, you can take control of your stove and set the temperature quickly and accurately. The new digital stove thermometers available now are the best innovation for wood stoves since the air tight stove was designed and built. Digital thermometers give you full control of your stove as long as you understand the principles that wood stoves are built from.
The Chemistry of Fire
There must be three elements present for a fire to burn. The three elements are fuel, in this case wood, heat, and oxygen. If you take away one of the elements the fire will go out. Once the fire is started (heat applied), a wood stove is controlled by the amount of air that is introduced into the firebox. More air, hotter fire! Less air, less fire! It is not rocket science, it’s fire science.
Wood stoves have a device that controls the amount of air that is introduced into the firebox. Most have a manual lever, sliding vent, or valve that is used to open or close the air flow. The newer stoves have an automated valve that is controlled by a thermostat. Either way, monitoring the temperature of the firebox will assist in controlling the fire better and keeping your home safer.
The outdoor wind speed has a definite effect on the amount of air drawn into a wood stove. The exhaust of a stove is through a chimney. This chimney must exhaust directly to the outdoors. When the wind speed increases, which is typical of a cold winter day, the effect on a stove can be dramatic. The wind across the chimney will draw more air out of the stove (up the chimney) thus creating a vacuum in the firebox and then drawing more air into the stove. This quickly raises the temperature of the fire.
With a stove that has manual control for air, the effect of increased wind could raise the temperature in minutes. With no automated control of the input air, the stove could burn out-of-control quickly. With a digital stove thermometer (especially one with a high temperature alarm) the issue could be eliminated before it becomes an issue. The alarm would alert the owner of the need to reduce the air flow to the firebox and thus reduce the temperature of the fire.
Low Temperature
The other end of the scale is a wood stove that has burnt up all its fuel (second part of the fire triangle) and is losing temperature fast due to the lack of fuel. This could happen overnight or after a brief wind event burns up additional fuel (wood) and is out of wood before expected. A low temperature alarm that is sent from the thermometer to a smartphone would save having to restart the stove and having the home reach a much colder temperature than desired.
Keeping the stove at a consistent temperature is key to keeping a home at a comfortable temperature. If a wood stove swings from too cold to too hot, this makes the output of the stove also swing too high and too low. An inconsistent stove temperature makes the objects in a home, the floors, walls, furniture, etc. also cool. Once these objects have cooled down the requirement for additional heat to warm not only the air but also the objects increases the demand for heat from the stove.
This creates an overworked and inefficient system for heating. Keeping the stove consistent is the key to a comfortable home heating system. A consistent temperature in the wood stove creates a consistent temperature in the home and an efficient home heating system.
The Best Type of Thermometer
A thermometer should have the following characteristics. First it should be digital and read to the tenth of a degree. This assures that a minute change in temperature is noticeable. A tenth of a degree in temperature rise is very obvious when an air vent on a stove is opened or there is an increase in the wind speed.
The second attribute of a quality thermometer is a thermocouple that is capable of at least 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. The thermocouple is the device that is in contact with the stove and also connects to the digital readout device. The thermocouple detects the temperature, transmits the signal through a cable to the digital readout device where it is displayed.
Ideally, this thermocouple is magnetic so it can be placed anywhere on a metal stove. This allows for changes and adjustments in the placement of the thermocouple to find the perfect, consistent hot spot on the exterior of the stove.
The need to read up to and survive over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit is critical, because a stove can easily and quickly exceed this temperature if a creosote burn out of the stove occurs. This is when the creosote builds up in the firebox or chimney reaches a temperature that ignites the creosote and it flash burns.
This is another time when an immediate notice from a digital thermometer could prevent a chimney or even home fire. Closing the doors or air vents quickly is the best way to squelch the flames and drop the temperature quickly.
The last, but definitely not the least, feature that a digital thermometer should have is a connection to a WiFi signal. This allows the thermometer to send its data to an APP. The APP can then be viewed on any smartphone and gives the owner the ability to view the temperature of their stove from anywhere and receive alerts for high and low temperature events.
This gives the wood stove owner the freedom to leave the room where the stove is located or even leave the house as needed. With the ability to view the stove temperature from anywhere you have cell signal (which is pretty much everywhere today), you are not tied down to watching a stove 24/7 throughout the winter months.
The analog, round, metal thermometers that are on almost every wood stove manufactured for the past 50 years will no longer be the standard found on stoves around North America. The new normal will be a digital thermometer that is connected to your smartphone.
Conclusion
Monitoring a wood stove temperature is extremely important for several reasons. Using a digital thermometer is the best option when it comes to accurately monitoring your wood stove.
- It is critical for the safety of the stove, chimney, and home to know the temperature of a wood stove.
- A stove will heat more efficiently when the temperature of the stove is kept consistent.
- A digital display allows the owner of the stove the ability to quickly and accurately react to the output of the stove.
- The ability to view the temperature from a smartphone and receive alerts is the most important development in wood stove accessories since they started manufacturing them 50 years ago.
Additional Questions
Should I draw outside air to feed my wood burning stove? Drawing outside air should make your stove and your home more efficient. Before doing this make sure you check with the manufacturers’ recommendations on installation and maintenance.
Are wood burning stoves safe today? When operated safely a wood stove is as safe as a furnace based on statistics from fire safety institute.
Great article