Buck Stove 74 not heating 400 square foot living room

After the wood is engulfed and burning well start closing the air intake in stages (maybe 1/2" increments). You are pretty much sending all the heat up the chimney with the intake wide open. also do you have a stove thermometer? what temps are you running the stove at?

Yes, you can put the magnetic thermometer on the front of the stove. I don't have the same the stove as you but 450* - 600* should be good range to burn. The break in fires are meant to cure the paint so yes, a few small fires is a good idea.

You will see lower stove top temps on a buck than those that others on here recommend. This is coming from experience. The buck has a cavity above the fire box and below the top plate that the blower flows thru which will insulate the top steel somewhat. You will not see any thermal gains with the stove running wide open. As others have said slowly decrease the amount of air allowed into the stove by pulling the handle out. I found that pulled all the way out and pushed back in 1/4" to 1/2" was somewhere in the ballpark once everything is running smoothly. You will only pull the draft all the way out with a full load and a strong draft (colder outside).. Good luck, the bucks have a bit of a learning curve but they heat once you figure out the rules..

Jason

dukooter said:

I had been running the stove with the air intake all the way open..... could that be the problem?

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Yes. My wife has done the same thing with our model 51 (predecessor to the 74). Burning with the draft wide open results in quickly burning your wood with little heat in the room. After the fire gets to burning good, close the draft in stages until you reach a point where you get a good trade off between a long burn and your desired amount of heat. There's a learning curve with any stove, so just experiment and you'll find what works best based on your set up (type of wood, how seasoned the wood is, insulated liner or not, height of chimney, etc). With my stove, once I get a good fire going, I shut down the draft in a couple of stages until it's mostly closed, and I'll get a lot of heat for several hours.

I have the buck 74 and use it to heat a large living room and 2 upstairs bedrooms with no problem at all.I believe I could heat more by getting some better air movement throughout the house. If I'm not carefull I will end up getting the house to warm where we have to open windows. Like many have said it takes a little getting used to like most new stoves but we are very happy with ours and it does what we wanted it to do. We don't use a stove thermometer on it we just use the old eyeballs to watch how its burning. Good luck don't get discouraged....

dukooter said:

I just had my brand new Buck Stove Model 74 insert installed today. I have had it running all day and the room is still cold..... its about 55 outside and the thermostat in a neigboring room says 60.

Am I doing something wrong? The air intake is open all the way and the blower is on high.....

Any input would be great.

thanks!

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Just out of curiosity... it's "brand spankin' new"? Did you, just for kicks, look at or read the manual? Mine was pretty good at telling me what to expect and what to do...

On my model 20 I turn down the air about 1/2 or 1/3 after it's going then engage the cat and it really heats up. I use the blower above it's slowest setting mainly for lower noise but I think the air feels hotter at the lower speed. Good luck with your stove . I'm sure with time you will get it to put out as much heat as you need. Pete

dukooter said:

Read the manual.... Didn't give much help. It didn't say anything about break in fires either. You can find it online if you would like to see it.

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Sorry wife and I work in fields where 99% of the time, the answers in the manual... ;-)

Let's just say.. my manual was a "bit" more helpful than yours. I only read the "operation" section of yours.. doesn't tell you squat, that's for sure.

So, like other people are telling you, make sure you are putting a good load in the stove to start with, they load up differently then a fireplace, then... once most or all the wood is "involved" (takes 15-20 minutes with my stove), start backing the air down, a bit at a time. On my stove I cruise at about 20% air.

You are not looking for a "fireplace" style burn either. You want to get the stove going then back it down and let the secondaries kick in. That's where the long burns and steady heat live.

Although you don't have control of the temperature at which your blower comes on, you should have control of fan speed.. most people turn it down quite a bit, for noise mostly, but turn mine down far enough and it just stops...

You should have no problems heating your house with the 74... I have had one for 4years now and its the best thing we ever did... We heat our entire house with it 2600sq Cape Cod, of course we are in Georgia so our winters are not brutal... it will be a little cooler in the bedrooms obviously but thats how we like it... We have ceiling fans throughout the hose and the blower on the stove, our furnace very rarely comes on... If your not getting enough heat to heat a 400sq' living room, just like others have said keep experimenting... I can get our 380sq' living room in the 80's no problem if I don't watch what I'm doing...