Need help with this one

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

dies9

Member
Jan 10, 2010
31
belmont nh
stove is a quadrafire mt vernon non AE. Its my fathers stove. I went over his house the other day because long story short he was thinking about rerouting his pipe and the local stove company was going to screw him. So I went over to look at it and found the gasket on the bottom of the door was missing. so only three sides were sealed. bottom was wide open. Put a new gasket on it and now he is saying the stove is extemly hot and the glass is getting a white soot to it and the stove is giving off that new stove smell but the stove is 4 years old. What is going on here? Am i missing something. the stove pipe is vented 3 ft vertical and 3 feet horizontal out the wall. I dont agree with the piping but i dont think this is his issue. So to recap the stove is burning real hot, he is getting that new stove smell and the stove is 4 years old and the glass is white in color.
 
Did you add new pipe? if so it will smell, or it could be the gasket is put on wrong. might want to check it out
 
no new pipe and the gasket is right. i checked it all with the dollar bill
 
The stove had a leak before, when it had 3 sides. Now its got a positive seal, and is getting all air thru the burnpot. Creating a HOTTER and more Robust Fire. It may just be burning off all the crud that has built up from running Rich. (To much fuel/Not enough air thru burn pot)
 
my father seems to think that the stove is meant to be missing the gasket on the bottom. i have never heard of a pellet stove not being air tight.
 
dies9 said:
my father seems to think that the stove is meant to be missing the gasket on the bottom. i have never heard of a pellet stove not being air tight.
Are you talking about the "Door" gasket or the Glass gasket. The glass gasket on a Quad has a side missing. On my Quad (CB 1200) its on the top. This is your Air-Wash.
 
its the gasket that goes against the stove. it has the sticky side on the glass that folds around to the glass side that seals the door. its on odd setup but regardless the piece that was missing was across the entire bottom and was letting air right in through the door.
 
Both of my Quads have gasketing on only 3 sides of the door because the 4th side is supposed to be left open as an air wash to keep the glass clean. I don't have the old Mt. Vernon, but I can't see why it would be any different. The older Quads had the side with no gasket on the top and later the missing side was moved to the bottom since it did a better job of keeping the glass clean.
Someone will be along that has the non-AE version to confirm this, I'm sure. You can also go to http://www.iburncorn.com/new-forum/34-quadrafire and sign up to ask over there as Kap and the gang are quite knowledgeable.
 
tjnamtiw said:
Both of my Quads have gasketing on only 3 sides of the door because the 4th side is supposed to be left open as an air wash to keep the glass clean. I don't have the old Mt. Vernon, but I can't see why it would be any different. The older Quads had the side with no gasket on the top and later the missing side was moved to the bottom since it did a better job of keeping the glass clean.
Someone will be along that has the non-AE version to confirm this, I'm sure. You can also go to http://www.iburncorn.com/new-forum/34-quadrafire and sign up to ask over there as Kap and the gang are quite knowledgeable.
That's why I asked if its the Door or glass gasket. Of the OP had a pic, we can help him out a little more. Door Gasket should be round and pretty large. (Not for sure) Don't own this exact model. My Door Gasket is 7/8 rope. Glass gasket should be flat. Still wondering which one he is speaking of?
 
on the mt vernon the glass is the door. so the gasket im talking about would be on the part of the glass that seals to the stove itself. if it was open on the bottom then the firebox would not be sealed. im getting real confused on this. unfortunately im not near the stove. my buddy has a mt vernon insert that is sealed all around but the seal is on the stove itself.
 
The firebox need not be sealed (and in fact is never truly sealed) , there just has to be enough blower power to create a pressure difference to draw air through the system in the correct amounts in the proper places.

There are two sets of gaskets on the doors of most stoves, the first set is usually flat with one side that is sticky this is used to seal the glass into the door frame (this gasket frequently will have one side missing to act as an air wash). The other gasket is larger and is used to seal the door to the stove frame when the door is closed and latched.

Some stoves have a slightly different air wash system in that they siphon a bit of the air inside the firebox and force it to wash the glass, in these stoves there is no gap in the window gasket, this kind of stove can also have what amounts to a sealed firebox in the room because with an OAK the air supply is completely external to the house.
 
the thick side of the gasket was the side that was missing. so when you shut the door it only sealed on 3 sides. this is becoming confusing to me. the thick side of the gasket that seals the door to the stove should be all 4 sides correct?
 
I would love to tell you, that you are correct. Every stove I have EVER seen, has a FULL gasket sealing the door to the stove. So by definition, you are correct. (I think)I am looking up the Owners Manual now.

Where are all the people that own Mt. Vernon's at?
 
Then it should be sealed on all 4 sides. That is the door gasket. Sorry if all of our thinking caused mass confusion. That reverts back to me thinking its just burning off everything, that got caked and sooted up, from it burning with an air leak. Now its burning HOT and efficiently. It would not get as HOT as it does now, if it had a MAJOR air leak as you stated. Surprised it burned well at all. Did he have any burn issues? (i.e. Clinkers, pellet build-up, soot, etc?)
 
In my (non-pellet) experience, that "new stove" smell means my stove is running nice and hot after a period of not running hot. Sorry I come from the other side of the stove, but it may be the same thing.
 
On my Sante Fe and my Castile, there is the flat glass gasket on all four sides and the rope gasket between the door and the stove is only on 3 sides!!! Yea, where are the Mt. Vernon folks? Probably over on Iburncorn since it is a multi-fuel stove. :)
 
tjnamtiw said:
On my Sante Fe and my Castile, there is the flat glass gasket on all four sides and the rope gasket between the door and the stove is only on 3 sides!!! Yea, where are the Mt. Vernon folks? Probably over on Iburncorn since it is a multi-fuel stove. :)
If thats the case, then my stove, the CB 1200 would be the only stove with a "Full" sealing Door gasket. (except the Mt. Vernon AE model, but I dont know that either) My glass gasket on the top is missing, on all 3 panes. Just seems odd they would do something so different for one stove (Mine).
I just replaced my door gasket this week. Ordered from Woodheatstoves, along with comb blower gasket and an ignitor for the parts shelf. It has ran for over a week now without opening the door, and my temps are about 20 degrees hotter coming out of the stove. (Have a Digital Cooking Thermo, clipped as to not touch exchanger tubes) Never made it a week without opening the door (for at least 2 months), due to an ash cake in the very back half of burn pot. Just figured it was the pellets. But after trying 6 different pellet brands and getting the SAME results, I did the old "Dollar Bill" trick. Sure enough, the back side of the door, by the hinges was frayed a little bit. The dollar slipped right through. Here I thought it was normal, because this was the first year I ran the stove 24/7. Ran on thermo previous years. When my Somerset's ran out it started. Therefore thought it was pellets.

Anyways, now it burns much hotter and smelled and cracked a little bit the first time I re-fired after replacing gasket. Have burned 4 different brands through it now, with the same results. CLEAN burnpot and HOT stove. Gasket was only frayed in one lil spot about 3" long. But it was enough to cause a big enough air leak that the stove did not like. Now I am just ranting. Going to bed. Hope some Mt. Vernon owners see this. They can probably be of much more assistance.
 
I think I remember someone talking about the CB being different but it could just be past abuses of my brain........ Anyway, your results sure make me want to go recheck my gaskets for tightness. While I don't have the rope gasket on one side, there is a piece of shaped metal to partially block the airflow and probably channel it along the glass. Those Chinese are soooo tricky. :lol:
 
something does not add up here. the biggest concern is the glass getting dirty after 5 minutes of burning. before he got big clinkers in his burn pot. im going to contact quadrafire about this. i wish a quad owner would chime in
 
Did you go over to iburncorn.com? The white soot, to me, would indicate a very hot burn. The soot should be a light gray, as you know. The overheating smell would be another indication of over firing. The big clinkers could be some really crappy pellets. I see you have 3 stoves so you know all this already. The big question is the gasket - should it be there or not? When there was gasket on 3 sides, were the ends taped with fiberglass tape?
 
I asked the question for you over on iburncorn. We'll see what they say.
 
I have a Quad 1000, but the setup is a bit different with the cast door having a complete rope gasket thats on all four sides.

The air wash comes from vents that connect to the lower air plenum chamber.

The stove in question likely is supposed to have the lower edge of the glass left to "suck air" in to keep the glass clean.

If the stove was not working well, a good cleaning plus a really good sucking with the leaf blower my well fix the stoves ills.

As far as clinkers go, the quads will form some really hard clinkers in the lower portion of the pot.

A clinker will form readily if the pellets have a lot of DIRT and other non burnables in them.

I have used some of the top rated pellets and still get clinkers.

My bet is that the lower edge of the glass needs to be gasket free to allow the airwash to work right.

Snowy
 
Just replaced gaskets on one a couple weeks ago and it had tadpole gasketing on top and sides (bulb to stove) and flat tape gasket on the bottom (between the glass and the door), no tadpole on the bottom that is open for air wash.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.