My New Napoleon 1402 Insert

First, I would like to say I got this stove for very cheap from http://www.dynamitebuys.com/. I dealt with a gent there by the name of Sean that was very pleasant and customer service oriented. I originally contacted them for an Osburn 2200. It was cheap there versus other sites, but still out of my price range, which was around 1500. I was floored when Sean quoted me a great price on this stove. It was about 300 bucks cheaper than any other site ( at least!! ) and included the gold webbed door, surround, blower etc. I was kind of getting pissed off with other sites that wanted to itemize the doors etc. Anyway, it was shipped via ( free shipping )Estes and made it here 2 days. It was my first time dealing with Estes and those dudes did me right! Good customer service there! Next time im selling something on Ebay that's heavy, I will use them!


Now, to this new beast of a stove I got. First impression out of the crate? Amazing construction. These guys seriously put some work into building this bad boy. I heard someone say that the metal in the firebox was thin, not my impression! They used heavy gauge thick steal everywhere I could touch. The ash lip is cast and the damn door was heavy as hell cast iron. Lets put it this way, I had a Vogelzang Colonial insert that is not as deep but taller and wider than this insert. This puppy out weighs it by 100 pounds WITHOUT the firebrick. Don't believe me? Well im laying down today cause my back is chit after installing this bad boy yesterday. The firebrick in this bastard is heavy duty compared to the zangster! There are special cut concrete pieces around the door and top of back and pumice pieces just to the side of the door. The entire firebox is covered with brick baby! Reminds me of my buddies Clydesdale. I will say this sucker was hell to install. It took me and a drunk friend of mine about 7 hours to install. The liner we ran for the Vogelzang was too long. He cut it once and I told him to stop, but naw, drunk bastard cut it again and we ended up short 8 inches to the cap. The back of the stove is square and the flue collar is straight up instead of angled. We played hell getting the liner into it. But Corrie didn't you guys think about buying an adapter? Hell no! I'm too stupid to do that and my buddy way too damn drunk! It only took about 4 trips on the roof pulling slack out and/or pushing the liner down to give slack for us to get it in. Of course being the gentlemen I am ( afraid of heights ), I let my drunk buddy go up on the roof.

Corrie, hows the burn? Well it's fooking awesome! This stove drafts MUCH better than my Vogelzang. This stove wants to run hot and burn! The secondary tubes created two vortexes of flames in the firebox that is amazing to watch. Only Napoleon and Country Flame utilize this ultra super rare space Nasa technology. It didn't take much wood to get a nice fire going. On my second fire, the top plate of the stove was hitting 700 degrees!! Where as the top corners above the door was around 550. This leads me to my next question, where do I check on this stove for the stoves temp? I am using an IR gun and get quite different results depending where I shoot at. If anyone can chime in, I would appreciate it. Also, just to double check, the fiber board with the edge on one side, the edge is meant to go towards the firebricks to hold them in right? Just checking.

And please tell me after looking at the pics, how did the idiot and bastard drunk do with this install? :lol:

P.S. Wayne if you ever read this thread, thank you so much for helping me out with this stove install. I only ask next time that you dont accidentally let your cigg start a fire in my car again..... That was a scary drive friend.

KB007 said:

Nice Job, nice insert.

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Hey man! Thanks! Btw, only saw one firebrick retainer at the back of the stove attached to the secondaries. Is that right?

KB007 said:

Probably. Napoleon don't use retainers much. They shouldn't go anywhere

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You know which direction that bump on the fiber board is supposed to go? I put the board thinking it is supposed to hold the brick together on the sides, well keep it from falling, but the more I look at it, maybe it's supposed to go against the secondaries.

KB007 said:

The bump goes down and to the outside. Won't really hold the brick in, the bump is ther to direct heat / flame I believe. Make sure you chekc that the baffles are pushed back as they tend to creep forward sometimes by bumping with logs on loading.

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Ok, good got it right. Would be nice if the directions were clear on that. : - / The boards don't seem to be flush with the secondaries going down the middle of the unit, which seems to cause flames to try and go up through the cracks.

I was reading somewhere that it is normal for the top plate of these stoves to run higher than 700? Mine wants to run 600+ while the rest of the stove is 400-500. So far this bad boy is throwing off the heat! Been running between 75-80 in the stove room and close to 70 everywhere else. I have not even filled the stove up yet...Just two or three splits at a time.

KB007 said:

I have my "calibrated" thermometer sitting about 6" in from the front corner. In your case that'd prolly mean it would end up somewhere near the opening on the surround. If I have a decent load (5-6 splits) in there it'll get pretty hot (over 800) if I don't keep an eye on it. I've gotten the routine pretty much down to: Load it up air full open, leave for about 1/2 hours, check and it's usually up around 550-600 then close down to around 2 (3 if it's a really cold day outside), come back in a few hours and open the air up to full to burn down the coals as much as possible before re-loading. At night I just close it down to between 1 & 2 and I still get heat and coals in the morning.

I go through about 1.5 large (68l) rubbermaid bins of wood per day and clear out a bucket of coal / ash every 3-4 days. My wood is about 9 mo old and I do get a sizzler about every 10th split.

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On the top plate on the center where the air blows out, I get above 700 quite easily with the draft closed down. Now on the top plate above the fan housings, I get around 300. On the top corner above the door on the face of the insert, I get 550-600.I guess all of this is normal. I know I am not leaving the air open too long or anything. I am using some wood right now that I scored for free that is 3 years seasoned. It's so gray, it looks like ash. :lol: I can def say im going through more wood with this puppy, but it's lasting longer too. Maybe it will balance out, I hope. I have about 4 cords ready for next year. :-S

Something I need to deal with soon is the hearth situation. I have hard wood and the hearth is 15 inches from the front. I am short one inch. The hardwood in front of the hearth is getting up to 150 and I dont like that. I am not sure how hot hardwood can get but im sure that can't be good. Thinking about using a heat reflective pad a buddy of mine was using.

Took a video of the secondaries last night. Glass did get a little dark as some of the wood was very close to it. It cleaned itself later. This was very early after a reload.



I am still trying to learn this stove. If any owners out there could tell me how they handle the draft when they load/reload, that would be awesome. Thanks!

KB007 said:

Should be the same as my 1450 - open it up all the way on re-load, let it get nice and hot (I wait til it hits 600), usually between 30 - 45 minutes then shut down to around 3-4 then all the way down to between 1 & 2. I only shut down all the way to 1 on mild nights.

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Yeah this stove is weird man! I miss teh Vogelzang's ability to shut down the air and let it ride. Of course the vogelzang didn't pack as nearly a punch. I feel like I have to leave this bad boy open too long like you 30 minutes and let my wood burn up too much. I want a nice slowwww burn that doesnt smoke up the SS. How long between 3-4 and 1-2 do you wait? I had secondaries going nice in that vid last night, shut it down to 1 and damn flames went out in 15 minutes.


Starting to feel like there are only a handful of Napoleon owners on the site now...Guess that means more beer for us!

Thanks! Yeah, I look forward to next year when I break out the hickory, white oak, red oak, pine, tulip poplar, gum, hard maple, red maple, silver maple, birch, and hell whatever else. I have a nice rainbow from my scrounges. This year it's just red/white oak and they were cut big. I bucked all my rounds short and split small so next year I can actually pack this bad boy. Lately the temps outside have been warm enough to cause draft problems but cold enough to still need to burn. : - /

Hey, on that 1450, do you run 700 on that top plate?

ControlFreak said:

The general principle for closing down the draft is to close it off in small increments as early as possible without hindering the secondary combustion. On my 1401, I start closing off at 400 on a thermometer on the top in the center, and have it fully closed off when it gets to 550-600. Of course it all depends upon the moisture in your wood and the draft of your chimney.

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At 400? I have an IR gun and when the top plate runs 700, the top corners of the face of the stove is running 500. So you are starting to close it when it's 400 on top and probably 250 on the face?

KB007 said:

sometime run at 700 on the top plate in the corner ~6" in from the front and side. Usually start to turn down around 600, just depends how cold it feels in the house.

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Wonder if I have a leak or something cause I shut down the air and it climbs on up to 750+. I did notice that the top plate is 1/4 inch steel versus the rest of the stove. Also my board on the left hand side doesnt rest flush on the secondaries. I do notice some flame trying to creep through. I didn't think it was that big of a deal due to the boards being so thick. Think it is normal or should I make a call?

ControlFreak said:

Corriewf said:

ControlFreak said:

The general principle for closing down the draft is to close it off in small increments as early as possible without hindering the secondary combustion. On my 1401, I start closing off at 400 on a thermometer on the top in the center, and have it fully closed off when it gets to 550-600. Of course it all depends upon the moisture in your wood and the draft of your chimney.

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At 400? I have an IR gun and when the top plate runs 700, the top corners of the face of the stove is running 500. So you are starting to close it when it's 400 on top and probably 250 on the face?

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Yes. But we're talking about small increments here. You can't go from full open to full close at 400. If you want to make huge changes, like full open to full closed, then you need to be up at 600.

I'm trying to focus more on the basic principle that you can close it off as early as you can get away with, as long as you don't stifle the fire. Experiment with it and you'll find out what that point is for your set up.

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Appreciate the feedback. I am running a 5.5 inch pipe which is a different set up, but all this info helps. I needed to know what temps to look out for to prompt shutting her down. It's just a total different ball game than the small 1.3 cubic foot vogelzang box I had. I could run that vogelzang wide open the whole burn and not get close to 600!

KB007 said:

Is the baffle sitting funny on the firebrick? Mine sit nice and flat between the brick and the secondary tube. When to shut down, depends on the day for me. If it's cold outside I let it rip up to 700 then shut down. If it's mild, I start to shut down around 500 or so. Have you done the oven test to make sure your thermometer is reading accurately?

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Yeah it sits level on the firebrick on the sides, it just isn't flat on the secondaries. The right side is flat. Me thinks I might need to get the left baffle board replaced when the burning season is over. I have not done a oven test with the IR gun. I trust that it's pretty accurate. I bought the IR gun because I felt the Rutland stove therm was not accurate, but found out that it pretty right on the money. That was a depressing find as I couldn't get the Vogelzang Colonial up above 500.


On another note, went to my buddies house last night. He has a Hearthstone Clydesdale with a 2.4 box. Man I love the dimensions of the Nap fireboxes better. His firebox was very wide in the front, but tapered back. It is sooo much better to have the depth this firebox has. I learned that firebox size, although important, is not as important as how the dimensions are laid out. I know I can fit more wood in this Nap than in his Clydesdale. Those tapering fireboxes are no fun and he will have a hard time doing north to south burns.