New Buck 91 is In... Next Question....

What did you use mortar on?

What did it say on the tube, "Furnace Cement" or what? Better yet, got a pic? If it was furnace cement, or Rutland Stove Sealer/Gasket Cement like I used on my SIL's Dutchwest, yeah, I would put some moderate heat through it before a month went by. Don't make my mistake, though. It was during winter when I sealed my SIL's stove seams, and I tried to dry the cement a bit by putting a light in the stove for a few days. Apparently that wasn't long enough because even though I tried to make an extremely small fire with only a couple small sticks, and gradually build up a bit, the remaining moisture in the cement still boiled and some of the seam seals look porous. DOH! From now on, I'll let it dry for maybe 3 weeks, then cure it with a fire.

Got a blowtorch? Doesn't take much you just want the liquid to dry and for the mortar to set.

Buy a cooking blowtorch then give it to the wife after your done and be the hero.

Fastdonzi said:

I believe it says "Fireplace Mortar" on it. I am Positive it said to Not let it air dry for more than 30 days.....need everything to be perfect with this new stove, the wife was getting pissed that she had to get up every 4hrs to fill the old one.

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Yeah, it must need a little moisture still in the mortar to cure with heat. But if they assemble a stove at the factory with cemented seams, it could sit around for a lot more than 30 days before it gets fired up, so I don't know?? I wouldn't try to speed it up with a blowtorch....too easy to over-do it and get porosity in the cement. I would just let it dry for 3 weeks and then burn a real low fire (just a few small kindling sticks added at a time.) Fireplace mortar, furnace cement, stove/gasket sealer are all sodium silicate-based and should be pretty similar. The stove sealer had a bit runnier consistency.
You won't be getting up at night to load this stove, no problem there. I was on a 12-hr. load schedule at my MIL's house. Depending on how well your house is insulated and sealed, you should be able to do that most of the time in your climate. It took a little longer to ramp the stove up to temp and close the bypass if the stove had cooled down pretty low. Now if the cat probe was still around 600 or so, I could have her up to temp, air cut back and cruising in about half an hour. I often thought that if I had been there all the time, and burning 24/7, I would try partial loads at maybe 8 or so hours. Cat temp would still be way up, and there wouldn't be much ramp-up time at all, in case I was in a hurry. Or you could do 12-hr. loads, then toss a few more splits in before bed. A lot of what I burned were mixed loads with soft Maple, Cherry and what-not. Obviously with Oak, Hickory and the like, stove temps stay higher for longer.