New To Wood Burning............please help

napolean 1101 said:

Hello All,

I recently bought a house in the woods with electric baseboard heat. I figured since I have access to wood, I would start cutting trees and install a wood insert. The home inspector found that the original flue pipe had been cracked and should not be used. I bought a chainsaw began cutting trees down and splitting. The previous homeowner left me a face cord of wood so I could begin burning. I began doing research and decided to do the install myself to save on $$. I went online to Rockford Chimney Supply and purchased a Napolean 1100 wood insert that came with the blower, thermo sensor and the standard surround. I also purchased the 6" stainless liner kit which came with 20' of flex pipe, top plate, rain cap, appliance adapter and 1/2" insulation wrap. This past weekend I removed my damper and began the process. I insulated the pipe, fed it down the chimney and had to 'ovalize' it to get through the damper. Once the pipe was down, I turned the oval back into a circle and attached the appliance adapter. I got the stove in place and installed the surround. I installed all of the fire brick according to the instructions and lit a fire.

Since I've been burning (4 days), I feel a little lost. I have never burned wood before and do not know if I am burning efficiently. The stove is placed in a 15X20 room with 3 outside walls. The original chimney is completely outdoors. The stove claimed to be able to heat up to 1500 sq. ft. which I figured would work for my ground floor. I have not noticed any heat getting upstairs as of yet. The stove will heat the room it is in up to 82 degrees but it won't last all day while I am at work and doesn't seem to get to the rest of the rooms on the ground floor. Before I leave I fill the stove, get it burning nice and hot and then turn the draft to low. I leave the fan on high to circulate air throughout the house but when I get home from work all that is left is some ash which is still warm enough for the fan to keep blowing. My wife and I are gone from 7AM to about 5PM. Should I expect a fire when I get home? Also, I have read about the damper sealing kit that Rockford sells and I just ordered one. Will this help my issue? I think the only way to heat my first floor the way I want is to feed the fire all day long which I can't do since my wife and I have to work. Also, sometimes when there is wood still in but not any fire, I open the door and the flames begin, is this normal?

Also, during the install when I put the surround on I did not read anything saying to seal it to the face of the fireplace.....should I have done that?

Any suggestions or help anyone can give will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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Install a block off plate around the liner just below where it goes through the old damper. Seal the perimeter where it meets the old fireplace walls with RTV high temp silicone.
Seal around the plate where it goes around the liner with furnace cement if the gap is small 1/8" or smaller. If its larger, get a pc of wood stove rope gasket and stuff that in that gap around the liner.
This keeps the heat from going up around the liner and sucked to the outside through the masonry.

A layout of the home would be most helpful, how high are the ceilings, especially in the room with the insert. You may want to install a ceiling fan to help move the heat.
Box fan blowing the cooler air from the rest of the home towards the stove room may also help.
Not sure of the firebox size of your stove, but most larger stoves 3.0 cf firebox or so should give around 8hrs burn time sometimes a lil more or less, depends on the insulation and heat retention of the house, wood your burning etc.
I would bet your wood is not as dry as you think, which will reduce burn times & heat output as it won't burn as completely and will spend alot of energy usually going to heat but now going to drying the wood.
I have a feeling your insert's firebox is more in the mid sized cf range, so if you get about 8 hrs, your doing good. At the 10 hrs you stating, your asking a lil much. If you still have hot coals to reload and get fire going with again, then your doing ok for that size insert.
Your going to have to learn your stove, get used to it, and how it burns, where the "sweet" spot is etc. Some stoves burn better leaving the air lever open a lil bit, or more, depends on your stove, the wood and the set up.
You will learn what works best for you in time & experience burning the stove.

Welcome to the forums! You've done a heck of a job so far. You're almost at a place where you can really begin to learn your insert and what it can do for you. Heed Hog's advice about the block-off plate and get it in there. Don't struggle trying to burn wood that's not properly seasoned. Don't expect to come home after 8 hours and have a fire burning. Hang out here and ask lots of questions. Rick

Hi and welcome to the forum! I am a longtime lurker but recently joined. I learned a lot from this forum. You’ll get a lot of good advice from the posters but I thought I’d offer a few noobie to noobie suggestions. From your post you say you have an insert. We have the 1400 pedestal stove so I hope what I suggest is applicable to you.

From the sounds of things you have one of two problems: wet wood or not enough air to feed the fire. I think it is the lack of air because if your fire comes to life when you open the door you need to make sure you have enough air going into the firebox. We have (had) the same problem but have found a solution (through trial and error along with a lot of advice I gleaned from these pages).
Once you’re ready to start burning, consider the top down method. We start a load (from cold) using that method learned on this site. An adaptation for your stove configuration can be found at:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/45553/

Once you’ve loaded and lit, you must keep the draft out and if that doesn’t seem to feed the fire (things look black or the fire dies out) crack a window open. You may find that on some days just the draft full out is enough, on other more overcast days (with low pressure), the window will do the trick as it provides an extra boost of air to the room. If that doesn’t improve the situation, crack the stove door open just a bit (this is what my installer told me to do), we usually leave it on its latch but open enough so air can get into the fire from the door as well. DON’T leave the room while you are doing this as this is a really quick way to get in trouble. You must remember to close the door once the fire is well established.

Once the fire is going at a good clip look to the top of your stove (inside the firebox). Get down on your knees and see if there are jets exiting the secondary burn tubes. What you are aiming for is sideways flames jetting out of those tubes. If you sit back and look at the box you’ll see the flames rolling down the sides of the firebox and then back up to the jets. You’ll also know things are OK because you’ll really start to feel the heat off the glass. You’re burning efficiently now. If you don’t see these rolling flames but the box “looks” hot, give it another 5 minutes and if there is still no show, throw another piece of wood onto the fire. When you get those jets, note your temps as this will be what you’ll aim for from now on. Since we know what to look for I just glance at the stove thermometer and make sure its at least at 400 before I look for the jets.

The last and most important point we found with our stove is to start the dampering down process slowly…you want to keep that rolling action going. Closing down fast will lose the roll and the heat output will drop too. You may never get to minimum and that is ok as the fire needs minimum air to keep burning efficiently and that depends on the wood moisture, species, weather and a whole lot of variables that change daily.

If you need to move the heat around your house just set a fan near the stove (ours is in a doorway 20 ft away). The key is to aim the fan INTO the hot room. Another way to improve heat flow is to actually turn on your baseboard for about 15 minutes to bring the house up to temp. That way the stove heat can concentrate on keeping the warmed up items warm in all the other rooms.

You know you’ve had a good burn when there firebox is still warm (and preferably you'll find a few coals in back under the ashes) when you get home, the glass is clean and all of the bricks are generally clean (as clean as the day you installed). Start the process again but if you have enough coals you can throw just 3 splits on…at least 3 so that they cover the coals. With your stove configuration you’ll have to make sure you don’t smother the coals so leave a few up front near the door so the airwash can do its job.

Oh, and we have had some experience with wet wood. Some of our loads have sizzled and if we throw a piece in that does that we make sure that the fire is kept at full air longer and add a few drier pieces to help things along.

Would you mind posting a link to the block off plate/damper sealing kit you are mentioning? I went to the rockford page linked from their ad here and didn't find anything matching that description. Just curious what all it consists of and costs. Thank you!

The Nap 1100 has a pretty small fire box at 1.7cu ft. I think your getting all you can out of it. Expect 4-7 hour burns with occasional restarting coals after 8. Try setting your blower on the lower setting and see if that throws hotter air. Also may want to try a small fan at the top of the stairs blowing the cooler air down and the warmer air wil rise up around it. Like others said the block off plate should help some and you still have some learning curve to go. Keep about 1/2"-1" of ash in fire box, any more will get in the way of fully loading the stove, but some is good for insulating and longer burns.

Random thoughts:

Wood: You mention your wood, but don't say when you cut and split it . . . having well seasoned wood (cut and split 9-12 months usually) is very important in running a woodstove. The fact that you're getting some nice room temps and didn't mention anything about your glass being all black bodes well . . . but if your glass is turning black and the smoke out of your chimney is often gray and brown and the wood is spitting and hissing when you put it in the firebox then your wood is most likely not seasoned.

Air Control: Air control is also pretty darned important . . . knowing when to turn down the air is paramount in getting good, efficient burns. Again, the fact that you're getting 80 degree temps in the room and you mention turning down the air is a good sign since some folks make the mistake of thinking lots of flames from the air control being open is good . . . when in fact it is usually more efficient to turn down the air and get the secondary combustion action.

Heating the Space: Woodstoves are space heaters. They are not whole house heaters . . . that is not to say you can't heat your whole house with a woodstove. Many folks do. In my own case, other than a small heater in my mud room/boiler room, the woodstove pretty much heats the whole place. However, it is different than running an oil boiler, gas furnace, etc. with zoned heat . . . the closer you are to the stove, the warmer you will be (or in some cases the hotter you will be) . . . it's the nature of the beast. And so, it may be normal to have 80 degree temps in one room . . . and then as you move into the adjacent room the temp is a bit less and as you move further away the temps will be decreased even more.

Moving the Heat: Ah, but you want to have some heat in the other areas of the house. Makes sense to me. One of the best ways folks here say works to move the heat throughout the house is through the use of a box fan or floor fan . . . point the fan towards the stove and what should happen is that you will help faciliate the spread of the heat to the house. Again . . . it helps move the heat . . . but you will still see a temperature difference as you move into rooms further from the stove.

Burn Baby Burn . . . Keeping the Fire Burning: Hmmm . . . getting a 10-hour burn is pretty decent . . . and not anything to be too worked up about. Don't believe the brochures and on-line advertising. Well I mean you can believe them when they say Woodstove A has a burn time of 8-10 hours . . . but you have to know that "burn time" is one of those terms that has no real good definition. To me, when I first started out, I thought of burn time as the time when there would be visible flames in the firebox . . . I have since changed that perception and definition to mean the time from when meaningful heat and temps are being produced by the woodstove . . . which means in my own case I may end up with just coals in the firebox at the end of an overnight burn of 6-8 hours, but there is still heat coming off the woodstove and keeping my house warm. It should also be mentioned that there are other variables at play here . . . for example, maybe it's just perception on my part, but it often seems as though "warmer" outside temps (i.e. 30 degrees or higher) results in longer burns vs. colder outside temps (10 degrees or less) . . . however, this may just be the fact that the house is losing heat quicker and so in order to keep the inside temps up at a level I prefer I end up feeding the stove more often.

Time for the Delta Seals: Yeah, seal everything up . . . no sense losing heat up the chimney when it could be used to get you even warmer.

Speaking of Time: Woodstoves seem to take a while to really get a whole house heated . . . probably once again due to the fact that they are space heaters and radiate the heat outwards from one fixed point vs. radiating heat out of multiple places in a home as you would have with electric baseboard. I know in my own case, the first fire I do produces some heat . . . but it isn't until I've reloaded the stove a second time several hours later that I start to really feel the heat in the rest of the house . . . and when the house feels really comfortable is when the stove has been running 24/7 with multiple reloads.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: The amount of ash you have in your firebox is often dependent on the tree species . . . some species produce more ash than others. Ash is a good thing though . . . it can be used on gardens to some degree, you can apply it to icy driveways for traction and ice melting and if you are so inclined you could even make soap . . . and even more importantly having a bed of ash can help prolong a fire and insulate your coals so you can come back to a house and more easily light up that fire. I find that in my case 1-2 inches of ash works best . . . less ash = not as well insulated and more ash = less space for wood.

The Mysterious Case of the Re-appearing Flames: So the wood is in the firebox and there are no flames and then you open the door and voila . . . flames magically appear. Well, maybe not magically appear. This is a case where the air control is too low . . . in most cases you should always be seeing some sort of flames in your firebox. When you first get the fire going with the air control all the way open there should be lots of flames coming off the wood . . . and once you get the firebox hot enough and start to turn down the air you should start to see the Northern Lights or the Bowels of Hell flames which often appear in the top 1/3 of the firebox. No flames at all means either you've starved the wood too much and it needs oxygen . . . or your fire has died . . . but if you open the door and the flames leap to life then it's simply a case of not giving the fire enough O2.

Napolean,

Sounds like you're off to a good start.

The responses directing you to scrutinize your wood are good. As well as sealing up the flue and surround.

When you say that your living room is 82* while the rest of the house doesn't feel the heat - just how cold are the other rooms.

I have a VC Montpelier in the living room of a 2000 sq. ft. two-story house. While the thermometer on the living room wall farthest from the insert my read 74* or 76*, the other rooms in the house range from 63* to 68*. This is to be expected with a woodburner. 63* in the upstairs bedrooms and 68* in the family room/kitchen.

We find this arrangement quite suitable. The living room, the room you are most inclined to be inactive is the warmest. The kitchen certainly is better off being a little cooler, and 63* is perfect for curling up under blankets and sleeping.

We noticed a huge improvement when I sealed the flue and when I fixed the front door to seal properly.

If your living room is 82* and the adjacent room (assuming the living room itself isn't 1,000+ sq. ft) is down in the 50s that would indicate excessive air leaks. Either a lot of air is still being sucked out between liner and flue, or the windows need to be glazed and caulked, doors sealed, etc. A coworker got an outside air kit installed and said that greatly improved the temperature in far rooms. It simply removed the negative pressure on the house. The air going up the flue creates a suction that draws cold outside air in through cracks in the windows, doors, and such. If the stove draws it's air from directly outside, the suction on the windows is much less.

napolean 1101 said:

Update: I did not receive the damper sealing kit yet but what I did do is turn the fan on in the room where the stove is................made a pretty significant difference last night and today. When I got home the room was still 70 degrees and every other room on the first floor was almost to 70. I have the fan running super slow and I can't believe how big of a difference it made. Thanks guys. I'll repost when I get the damper sealed up.

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Good news

Are you using a ceiling fan or??? I've had good luck using my ceiling fan on low with it running in reverse. When running in reverse you can't feel air moving when sitting directly under the fan since its pulling air up. I try to keep our living room (the room with the insert) at about 70, most other rooms stay 67-69. Thats comfortable to us, your mileage may vary.