I’ve got a 20kw boiler stove which is lovely an works very well. I’ve had it for a year or so. So far I haven’t tried to burn it through he night. Occaisionally I’ll wake up and it’s still glowing but I’ve not made any effort too.

I read somewhere that this was more dangerous due to potential co2 poisoning? Any truth to this ? Has anyone set their co2 alarms off trying?

i thought it was carbon-monoxide that was the problem?

(slowing a stove downs means starving it, cutting the air off – leading to incomplete combustion)

http://www.guildofmasterchimneysweeps.co.uk/safety_info.php

Sorry, meant carbon monoxide.

I read somewhere that this was more dangerous due to potential co2 poisoning? Any truth to this ? Has anyone set their co2 alarms off trying?

Because co2 only comes out at night?

We’ve found that logs/coal burns too quickly overnight so smokeless fuel is better for trying to keep the fire in as it seems to burn much slower.

CO (Carbon monoxide, not dioxide)

A stove shut down so that oxygen supply is limited, with fuel still burning inside can go through an incomplete burn (oxidation) producing CO rather than CO2. CO is lethally toxic and will kill you to death.

CO will mix and distribute with the air rather than pool high or low.

Keeping a stove in overnight, shut down, is something that I (and others on here) wouldn’t recommend simply for efficiency and sooting reasons: smouldering wood is the most inefficient way of releasing the energy in the fuel. You will only really produce around 20-50% of the potential heat energy from the fuel this way. The most efficient way of extracting heat energy from wood fuel is at a temperature high enough to produce a gasification burn (150-250 degC). LOw temp burning, rather than gasifying volatile compounds in wood, tends to instead produce vapour that condenses in the flue. The condensates are usually quite corrosive as well as have a tendency to solidify and build up increasing the risks of flue fires, flue opening constriction and subsequent reduced draw.

Any which way, a CO alarm is a v good idea in any room with a burning appliance. And is now a building regs requirement for new installs anyway.

EDIT Sorry, too slow typing. T-R will have linked to useful info.

All the advice I read (though I am much newer to stoves) said don’t do it, and it was most neatly explained in trailrat’s link.

Still on trial and error stages for us as there doesn’t seem to be a guide online that doesn’t contradict another, but they all seem to agree that a burn with the vents shut overnight is a waste of wood and potentially dangerous.

will kill you to death

Just in case there was any doubt as to what being killed meant!

Thanks stoner, that’s why I asked.

I always open up the vents and let the fire burn out fast and (sensibly) hot at the end of the evening unless there is a fair amount of fuel still in the stove. (burning wood)

Leaves the stove nice and clean instead of the sooted up black tarry mess you get if you try and burn the stove too slow/cool or keep it in overnight.

The best way to keep a stove going overnight is to make sure its up to optimum operating temperature before doing so, load it up with hardwood, then open the vents and get it roaring. When it’s really going then turn it down to about halfway, give it another ten minutes before turning it right down.
If doing this the wood needs to be bone dry, if the glass is black in the morning, your not doing it right.
Do not load up then turn the stove down, this is extremely dangerous, massive amounts of co will be produced.

This is a pic of me getting my stove going again with embers, this is 22hrs after the last fill.
I have never cleaned the glass on this stove.

Hmmm. I think I’ll give it a miss.