New Quadrafire Voyageur Question

I have been searching around the forums for a while now searching for an answer to my question and have found several good threads pertaining to an issue I am having with keeping my fire going.

Here is my setup. I have a Quadrafire Voyageur insert that was installed into a prefabricated fireplace. A stainless steel liner was installed inside the existing fire place liner all the way to the top. Since I had a prefab fireplace, the insert exhaust (on top of the firebox) did not line up properly with the existing flue as there was about a 2" offset, so the local hearth shop fabricated an adapter made out of sheet metal that connects the woodstove to the liner. All in all, it was a tight fit but we got it installed.

The problem I'm having is keeping the fire going once I close the insert door. I thought it might be an issue with the wood i'm burning so I bought some kiln dried wood from the local hardware store. I'm assuming this is decent wood as I have not tested it with a mositure meter yet. That hasnt solved the problem.

So I thought it may be the way i'm operting the fireplace. According to the operating instructions, during a cold startup the burn control lever is moved to the "up" position and the ACC is either pushed all the way in which bypassess the the shutdown mechanism, or it is pulled all the way out which slowling closes the startup air over 30 minutes or so. During my normal startup, I move the burn control to the "up" position and push the ACC all the way in for max air. Once thef rie takes off the flames burn violently and travel towards the front of the insert and around the baffles in the top and out the flue. Seems to be a really healthy fire. During this time I have to leave the door just barely cracked. After 20 or 30 minutes when it gets up to temp and the fan blower comes on i'll shut the door. Within 30 seconds the fire dwindles to almost nothing.

As mentioned before, I have searched these forums and have found people with similiar issues. Several suggestions have been to extend the chimney which is supposed to help with proper draft. I feel that the draft is sufficient as seen during startup but perhaps i'm wrong. I will say that my chimney is not in the best location. It is on the east side of the house roughly 8 feet lower than the peak of the house.

I realize this is a new model offered by Quadrafire so there isnt much out there yet but I hope someone has some sage advise that may be able to fix my problem =). Thanks for your help.

Chang,

Thank you for the reply. I'm looking at my installation manual and on page 40 it mentions that if you are not installaing an outside air kit (which i am not) you need to remove the "air cover plate" and discard. Is this the plate you are refering to? I have removed the panel from the front of the unit and i'm looking at it right now. I didnt see anything on page 44 of the manual. I guess I can take it off and see if it works?

Thanks for the info, and I just realized what OAK meant. Sorry im not down with the acronyms yet.

So I removed the front plate and started up a fire last night. I went through the same motions as before for a cold start except I tried shutting the door after only 5 minutes or so after the fire was going. The fire still struggled, so I left the door open until I had a really good raging fire (~20 minutes) and then shut it and it actually kept going. So I'm definetly making progress! Once the wood was reduced to coals, I added some more wood, opened up the ACC and shut the door. It still had a hard time lighting off. So once again I opened up the door to get it started. I shut the door again after 10 minutes or so.

Does this sound like what I should expect or is there something still wrong? I thought once you got a good coal bed you could pretty much throw the wood in and shut the door and it would burn with just the help of the ACC.

Again thanks for all the help, you guys are great!

I havent replied in a while and thought I would provide some additional feedback in regards to the issues you guys are having.

I came across a little bit of seasoned wood this month and have been using it for cold startups. Once the coal bed is established, I can pretty much throw anything in there and it will burn. Most of the wood that I have is only seasoned 8 months. We have been using the stove almost around the clock. After 2 or 3 days of burning, we will get a pretty good buildup of creosote on the glass, more so along the edges. Pretty much inevitable with unseasoned wood, and even the seasoned wood still builds up on the window over the course of a week.

The stove puts out a good amount of heat and keeps our 1500 sf house around 72, unless you just turn it up full blast and then it will burn you out. Overall I have been happy with it, however I still have the same issues as before with reloading. I normally have to leave the door open for 15 minutes before shutting the door, but i'm really thinking that has to do with the unseasoned wood. Hopefully next year it will be a different story when the wood has become more seasoned.

Most of the wood I use is Black Jack Oak, and it will get about 2 hours of flame time before it is reduced to coals. I'll load the stove up at 10 PM and turn the burn control all the way down. The next morning i'll have a nice coal bed that will easily start another fire. If I leave the burn control all the way up it is much harder to get the next fire going as the coals have burned down considerably more. Sounds like you are getting pretty similiar flame times.

Yep, looks like it has been removed. I didnt notice much of a change in performance with my insert after removing the cover plate. What is weird is after 10 minutes of leaving the door open and allowing the fire to really develop, I have had times where the door is barely cracked open and it will have a strong enough draft that it will suck the door all the way closed. However when I lock the handle and get a good tight seal, the fire dwindles to almost nothing. It will eventually come back and provide a sufficient amount of heat and burn the wood to coals within a few hours, but I just dont feel like I should have to operate in this manner. I wonder if the design of the air intake is inadequate?

I agree, it shouldnt be that hard to start and the tapered design can make it hard to put logs in that are over 16" in the back. I had to split all of my logs much smaller just to pack it full of wood.

I have found that it does burn much better when it is full of wood vs half full or only a few pieces. Each piece of wood helps fuel the other one and provide the heat to keep the fire going. As for the burn time, my thoughts are he burn time is more a function of what type of wood and how much air is supplied during the burn. The more dense wood obviously has more mass therefore will burn longer and provide more BTU's. The amount of air controls how fast it burns. As I mentioned before, i'm getting about 2 hours with Black Jack Oak. I would expect shorter burn times for smaller wood, but I'm no expert. I have only been doing this for a few months. Also, the bigger inserts will provide the space for more wood.

Keep me posted on what you decide to do. I really liked the 4100, but my hearth only extends out 18" from the fireplace and the door on that model would come out only a few inches shy of hearth edge. I though it would look weird and the door would end up sticking way over the ledge when opened. But if your hearth design allows for it then its an option, but I would much rather figure out why this model doesnt work. It really is a slick looking insert. What is Quadrafire telling you?