New Clydesdale Owner

Clyde S. Dale said:

My house is ICF (Insulated Concrete Forms) construction and anywhere we could not use ICFs and had to stick frame we sprayed in Icynene foam including the roofline. We also have high-end energy efficient windows throughout. You won't find a house much tighter than mine. We had to install a mechanical air exchanger based on the recommendation from our HVAC contractor and a requirment from the building inspector who was not going to pass our final inspection without one. As tight as our house is, I have had no problems with draft. My concern in your case would be getting the heat out of the basement and to the rest of your house.

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Thanks for the technical term Clyde "mechanical air exchanger" that's what its called It's actually a nice unit to have especially with the open fireplaces, I get some smoke in the house as with most open fireplaces and just kick on the circulator and good to go.

velvetfoot said:

That's a beautiful fireplace. I'm sure the Clydesdale will enhance it.

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Thanks Velvet! Believe me when I tell you the first time my wife and I viewed the house and walked down the steps to the basement and saw it we were likeSOLD!
The original owner said he did a renovation job for an old lady in a historic home and said he was just mentioning via small talk to her that he was looking around for a "decorative" mantle and surround for his fireplace in the basement, he said she perked up and said "really?, I have an old limestone surround and mantle that's been in storage for 75 years my father purchased in Europe and didn't have a fireplace for it"
He traded her his time and some of the cost of the materials for it and there she be! I'm pretty sure if the roof was leaking, the walls were ripped out from someone stealing the copper and squatters in the house we still would have purchased it because of the fireplace!
Cheers

velvetfoot said:

Don't forget the pictures!

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Will do... T minus 48 hrs to install.

mstoelton said:

The way to help distribute the heat around your house is to use fans to blow the cold air into the part of the house heated by the stove. In your case you would use fans to blow the cold air into the basement. This will caise the warm air to circulate into the colder 2nd floor. You can use ceiling fans, desk fans and there are some small fans that are specifically made for this purpose (I don't know how well they work. I use a combination of ceiling fans and desk fans.

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mstoelton said:

The way to help distribute the heat around your house is to use fans to blow the cold air into the part of the house heated by the stove. In your case you would use fans to blow the cold air into the basement. This will caise the warm air to circulate into the colder 2nd floor. You can use ceiling fans, desk fans and there are some small fans that are specifically made for this purpose (I don't know how well they work. I use a combination of ceiling fans and desk fans.

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I have a ceiling fan in the living room that I will try, thanks!

Okay,

Partial install was done today. The hearth extension didn't come in time for the installation so they just put the stove in without the factory surround or the extension. They had a Clydesdale in stock just not the extension. The guys basically went over everything with me on break in fires, how to clean the ceramic glass, etc... the factory supplied plug wasn't long enough to reach my outlet so I told them I would just grab a small extension cord from the barn and take care of that. They left and about 10 minutes later I came back in from the barn and plugged in the insert... POP! and it wasn't a little pop, it was a pop that made me jump a little. I see a flash underneath the insert like a fuse blew. I look around and find a crimp on the wire and the insulation was rubbed off where it exposed the wires inside the casing. it was either the way it was packaged and was banded too tight to where it rubbed through or the guys may have banged while installing it. Needless to say the wind was taken out of my sails! called the dealer, she contacted Hearthstone and had me email her a couple of pictures. haven't heard anything but that was towards the end of the day so I wasn't anticipating a call until tomorrow.

Good news is I did the break-in fire since it wasn't going to require the blowers and it went beautifully. I noticed on some of the Clydesdale owners posts that they had some issue's here and there with draft or lack there of and I seem to be in good shape. 21' chimney seems to be perfect for this thing. it is a beautiful unit, I just wish I could give it hell tomorrow night to really see what she can do! I am withholding pics until the final product!

I will do another break-in fire tomorrow morning and hope I can get some clarity on the fix and when that will be. I doubt any of you have had this issue but if you have, anything to talk me off the cliff would be appreciated Thanks again for all of your advice, it's made the process so much easier than winging it!

Steve

So the installers came out yesterday to look at the Clydesdale and come to find out that the crimp in the cord was NOT the problem. Upon taking off the ash pan there were 2 wires above the right blower that were not attached to anything and were contacting the ash pan which is what arced the second I plugged it in! So they re-connected everything and told me to get it back up to 400 degrees to see if we got lucky and as we both expected, we didn't. I wasn't hopeful that it was going to be that easy since it was quite the pop when it arced. So I will find out Monday when we can get a new set of blowers put in.

I have to say I am very impressed with this unit without the blowers! I broke it in on Thursday afternoon with a small fire up to 200 degrees on the Condar, than 400 degrees Friday morning, the guys came around 1:00pm and than after they left I got up to as high as 650 which scared me without the blowers so I opened the door fully and let the cool air slowly back it down to 590. We keep the basement at 61 so when I had it cranked at around 600 it was a toasty 72 with a small fan blowing at the insert which definitely helped transfer heat.

mstoelton, good call on the fan, I am now seeing your point with the fan blowing into the basement. Even though it was 72 in the basement, once I got to the top step you could significantly feel the difference and it was like a wall from the cold air upstairs fighting the warm air downstairs. I will test out with a fan tonight blowing down into the basement. It's hard to imagine what if any difference there would be with the blowers on the unit if that would break the barrier upstairs without a fan? I have to imagine that if I am getting the basement to 72 without the blowers, than it will be a fight to keep it under 75 with the blowers on low! Anyway, I will keep you posted.

I heard about the toilet paper test and didn't give it much thought until you explained it. Good to know. One other thing I should mention is there is a pretty big space above the door where heat could get trapped, would cutting in a vent do anything or should the fan suffice for circulating heat. By big space I'd say there's about 18" or so from the door opening to the ceiling.

Thanks begreen

Here is the unfinished product. As stated above they will be back to install the factory surround as well as the surround extension along with new blowers. Right now it is all the way into the firebox, the installers are bringing a elbow so it can be brought out onto the hearth. I want it as far out as possible to maximize radiant heat as well as convection from the blowers but at the same time minimizing any hard bends in the liner.

I ordered a small 10" fan for the top of the stairs to blow down to the insert. Every night I load up around 10, I have to monitor it pretty closely since I dont have the blowers to cool it down in case of over-fire. I also have the Condar Inferno, gave myself a little scare yesterday morning when I loaded it up and opened the damper all the way for about 30 seconds, closed it down and it went up to 725! i opened the door all the way and it slowly crept back down to about 675 so lesson learned! Funny thing is i will have to re-learn all of this once the blowers are functional since it will probably run cooler. So far i come down to a bed of 2" diameter hot coals, rake em' out and load er up every morning. Inferno reads 175 and the basement goes from 72 when i go to bed and its at 65 in the morning. I am only burning white ash at a MC of 15.5-18.5% and let me tell you, once it gets going i can throttle all the way down and watch the flames tap dance all over the place so yes, very hypnotic! I will update as things progress!

Well, here it is. Finally finished!

Some observations about the Clydesdale:
Beautiful insert, firebox is a nice size and if well packed, will give you a nice bed of coals at the 10 hr+ mark.. I've noticed some posters have said it doesn't fair well with n/s loading but I have to say that I have some 12" cutoffs from the ends of logs that I lined the first level n/s and the rest e/w and find that I get more of an even burn and less large chunky black coals in the back the next morning. I know its states 10 hr burn time but I have honestly loaded up at 10pm and didn't have a chance one morning to restart until 11:30 and still had enough coals to get her going again so pleasantly surprised. Only have burned ash so far and im sure with some well seasoned oak I could probably get a little longer burn times.

Overall I'm satisfied with the investment, in a perfect world I'd like to get a little more heat transfer upstairs but I realize now that fans can only do so much but I do notice the intervals in which the heat kicks on is longer than usual. My last electic bill before the insert was $355 and I'll give an update to the savings once I get the next bill.

Thanks again for everyones help, my wife and I are happy campers!