Bill,

Well, where do we start? First, if your woodstove was installed to
code, having things overheat near the woodstove should not be a
problem. Nominally, flamable stuff should be 3 to 5 feet away from a
wood burning appliance. These devices give of a major portion of their
heat via radiation. The outside of the stove gets really hot (hundreds
of degrees F) and produces lots of infrared energy.

Of course 3 to 5 feet is often inconvenient so various methods have are
used to allow this distance to be reduced. First, many manufacturers
supply heat shields that may be attached to the backs and sides of
their woodstoves. That often cuts the spacing needed to walls in half.
Also, heat shields may be installed on your walls. That can reduce the
spacing by another two thirds. These sheilds typically consist of sheet
metal panels mounted an inch or so out from the surface of the wall on
spacers. Gaps of a few inches at the top and bottom of these panels
allow cool air from the floor to be drawn up behind them keeping the
walls behind them cooler. Your local Air Conditioning and Heating
outfit can probably fabricate these for a reasonable prince.

In general, for long term exposure to heat, wood walls are safe if they
stay cool enough that you can hold your hand on them for several
seconds comfortably. That is typically about 130 degrees Farenheit.
Above that temperature, wood slowly degrades, lowering its ignition
temperature.

Now, as for how to load wood in your woodstove, just remember that
woodstoves work best by burning in cycles. Load the thing up, let that
burn down to coals, and then reload it for another burn cycle.
Woodstoves also work best when burning well, not when damped down.
Lower burning temperatures produces lower burn efficiency and lower
chimney temperatures. That in turn allows condensation and buildup of
combustion byproduces on the inside of the chimney. This is called
creosote buildup. That stuff is flamable and can catch fire during a
subsequent hot burn.

Every woodstove installation works different. Thermometer readings that
produce the best operation of a given installation vary. They vary with
location of the thermometer on the stove and the natural draw of the
chimney. Also, there are two different types of thermometers, those
that attach magnetically to the outside of the stovepipe or stove, and
those that actually stick into chimney gasses. The type that read the
gas temperatures directly are the most accurate. The stick-on magnetic
kind typically give readings that are roughly half the temperature of
the chimney gas.

Again, all woodstove installations are different. Temperature readings
for proper operation vary and have to be learned by experience. The
labels on your thermometer are a good starting point though. I'm
guessing from your 450 F number that you are using a external magnetic
thermometer. I would guess your stove will operate efficiently
indicating in the 300 to 450 degree range, corresponding to about 600
to 900 degree gas temperature. In most woodstoves, this is probably in
the low to medium burn range.

What you would like to do is load the stove and let it fire up with the
inlet damper full open to the 450 degree range. The you would damp it
down a bit to a temperature you feel more comfortable with. It will
take practice finding the air damper setting works best. Once you have
the damper setting established, you will see the temperature slowly
decrease as the wood burns down. Lower burn temperatures when the wood
is mostly burned down is usually not a problem is what is mostly left
is charcoal that gives of little that can cause creosote buildup.

At night, you should use a heavy load of larger chuncks of wood,
preferably hardwood. It may take an hour or more for a full load of
hardwood to get burning fully, less if the woodstove was already hot.
Once the fire is hot you can damp it down to a slower burn. With
practice you will learn how much of what kind of wood and what damper
setting to use to provide you with some glowing coals when you wake up
in the morning. In the morning, scrape the coals together and pile on
thinly split wood. The thinly split wood lights quickly, rewarming the
stove quickly, and burns down quickly.

How you dry or season the wood you burn is one of the most important
factors in successful woodstove operation. Wood should be cut, split,
and stacked a full year before it is burned. The top of the stack
should be covered to deflect rain and snow but the sides must be open
to allow airflow to dry the wood. To folks new to woodstoves, his may
seem like an unreasonably long time to wait before burning wood. It is
not. These appliances do not operate well at all with unseasoned wood.
It may be difficult to get unseasoned wood to burn and if it does, the
fire will not put out much heat but will produce a heavy creosote
buildup in the chimney.

There is an additional step that you should consider. Have the people
who sold you the woodstove come teach you how to use it. If that is not
possible, have someone who does regualarly use a woodstove, show you
how.

Remeber, take all the advice you get from us on the Internet with a
grain of salt. We aren't there looking at your woodstove and your
installation. We could be making some bad assumptions that could be
fatal to you. Use your good judgement.