Hearthstone Heritage not up to heat

I have the HS Homestead. It was installed this summer. From everything I've read on this forum, 11 feet falls about 5-8 feet short of minimum requirement. Our old insert seemed to draft well all the years it was used, however I put in a SS liner. I had just over the recommended height - think it's 16'. My Stove dealer recommended, and gave me a discount on, 4 more feet. So my set up has 20'. Drafts very well. I'm sure the experts will jump in soon.

Your stack is way too short. Manual calls out 14' as minimum. Any bends in the system will make the requirement longer. Also, the stove takes along time to heat up. Expect about an hour to get this stove making real heat once everything is tuned up to spec.

When I start the stove I choose a handful of kindling and then I select enough 3-4 inch splits to fill the firebox. Stacked in a log cabin fashion. The thermal mass of the cold stone will sap away heat and slow down the warm up of the stove. It will then need more smaller wood to keep making enough energy to support strong draft so the smaller wood provides that.

What diameter is the pipe in the stack you are venting to.

This video helps.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/cleanair-airpur/default.asp?lang=En&n=8011CD70-1

My heritage has an 18' stack with 1 elbow. Even then I had to play with the angle of the stovepipe to get the best draft. You need at least 14' with that stove.

I'd suspect the same culprit as everyone else... the chimney is likely too short and not providing enough draft for the stove. Another possibility if the wood... is it well seasoned?

I had idled my stove for a couple days while we had 68 degree weather here...went to start back up last night, and it took like an hour for the chimney to get up over 200 - that stone does suck up the heat for a while. What happens when you keep it going for an hour or so with a good fire in it? I'd suspect an inadequate draft if you can't get it up to temp after an hour. If you can, borrow a draft meter from your dealer to verify you have adequate draft (it's 0.06" to 0.1" WC for the heritage). I'm checking mine tomorrow - My dealer is mailing me a gauge to use, and I'll mail it back when I'm done. Might wat to check into this yourself...

that video should be made into a tape and given to every new wood burner. that would answer most of the questions that new people have.

Begreen,
once you get your Heritage "dialed in", you will wonder how you ever did without it. They are absolutely *Wonderful*!

BrotherBart said:

Also, modern controlled combustion stoves require a stronger draft than the old stoves. It takes more draft to pull intake air around and through the various channels for the primary and secondary combustion air.

Click to expand...

BrotherBart, another one of your understatements. It seems to me that this fact is one of the most important things to understand about the new stoves; yet the dealers often seem to omit it from the discussion with the customer when going through the sales process.

Applause to you and this statement should be posted somewhere for everyone to read; it is the holy grail of getting most of these new stoves to work. Without this understanding, many people are left with a new stove that won't work and think its the stove because their old stove worked fine on that old chimney.....