lopi liberty users

I have a lopi endeavor and the steel plates that hold the firebrick on top are bent from the heat. I was told I could replace them under warranty. I have had no other problems, although I have read complaints about the tubes sagging and problems with the pins. I was torn between the endeavor and the liberty and I am glad I went with the endeavor. (I have a much smaller house than you)

This is our third year with the Liberty. I burn down the coals below 300 hundred before reloading, this should help with the stove top temps. I also made the seal around the door tighter by taking off one washer (in the manual) so our control of the wood stove is much better.

Door issues; on page 27 of your manual it will show a picture of the door shell, make sure it is tight because the set screws on the bottom come loose (number 14 o the same page) that will give the door shell a loose feeling.

Our angle irons,rolling pins and by-pass are fine.

Do the dollar bill test on your seal around the door, if it pulls out easy then you mighty have air getting in which would make it hard to control.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/77642/


zap

lopiliberty said:

Zap when you say you burn down the coals to or below 300 is that with the fan on or off. When my stove top is at 300 with the fan on i have alot of coals to reload on. If the fan is off, then i usually have very few coals left at 300 of below for an EASY restart.

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We have our Lopi installed in the basement so the fan is usually on, I will shut it off when reloading. We found it better with our setup reloading at those temps, when it gets colder out and starts drafting better thats when it makes a big difference.

Here are some pictures of the set screws I mention in my first post, also the washer you can take off if you need to tighten the seal.


zap

It's not uncommon for the tubes and baffle supports under the fire brick to get a dull red during strong secondary combustion in our Endeavor. The stove likes to cruise around 650-700F on a fresh charge for an hour or two.

We run ours most of the time, as it significantly improves the heat distribution in our layout, which is not necessarily optimal for wood heating.

I heat ~1600 SF with my Endeavor in an arguably milder climate in a pretty tight house. For sure i would not want to try and heat 2400 SF with my stove. I only have one year under my belt. I usually run my stove at 500 degrees minimum as it seems to be very clean above 450. I too think it likes to cruise at 650ish though it is VERY easy to put above 700. No problems with my stove other than me damaging the door gasket adjusting the door.

I have tried NS and EW loading and do not like EW. I may have to fiddle a little more with it this year.

lopiliberty said:

When my liberty is burning correctly the glass stays crystal clear but when it burns down to charcoal the glass gets a white film on it right in the center of the glass and it will not come off until the stove is cold and you use a glass cleaner. I get white film on the sides of the glass and I can wipe it right off with a paper towel when the stove is still hot before a reload. I can't figure out what is going on. I could understand if it was on the sides where the airwash wasn't as strong but the middle? I thought the middle is where the airwash was the strongest. Anyone else have this problem. It drives me crazy.

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Not sure how much it matters but I clean the glass when the stove is fully cooled, page 24 of the manual.


zap

lopiliberty said:

This will be our second season with the lopi liberty which replaced a 16 years old medium sized Dutchwest stove. It was a toss up between the lopi endeavor or the liberty. We heat 2,400 sq.ft primarily with wood. This stove is a heating machine.We have already have a couple of fires this heating season. It keeps the living room with is 25X14 between 80 and 90 degrees and the rest of the house 75 to 80 degrees. We like it hot. The only thing i don't like about the stove is the shallow firebox, but we stared to cut the wood to 14 in. so we could load N/S which gives better burn times and hotter burns. It is almost impossible to keep this stove under 650 degrees on the stovetop thermometer with just 3 or 4 pieces of wood which is bone dry oak, locust, and ash. I usually reload at about 350 degrees let it get to 425 or so then start shutting it down it stages to almost closed at which point it goes into i call nuclear mode. The first couple of burn it was very scary. Now i just shut it down and let it cook checking on it from time to time. My middle and front air tubes usually start to glow at 500 degrees which i was told this was normal. They glow anywhere from a couple of minutes or for the entire burn Does any other lopi users air tubes glow for long periods of time. Also would like to now it any lopi users have had any issues with the baffle angle irons, air tubes, roll pins falling out, bypass issues, or door issues so I know what to expect in the future. This stove in built like a tank so I hope i will last another 16 years. Any info or hints would be greatly appreciated.

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Do you have a tall chimney? Sounds like you may want to install a pipe damper to slow her down some?

I have had a Lopi Liberty since February 1997. The stove has worked out very well for me in the 14 years that I have had it so far. I bought it with a blower and use it all the time. I have tried using the stove without the blower, and it does throw heat but nothing like when you have the blower on.

As for the steel inside the firebox. The stove was only about 2-3 years old when the back air chambers started cracking at the welds. I had the option to send it back to get warranty work done, but I had to pay for shipping both ways, wasn't worth my time or money to disconnect and haul it to a dealer for shipment. The baffle tubes are still in good condition, but the firebrick and steel members inside that hold the steel have been replaced about three times since owning it. Just replaced them all this year, so it should be good to go for 3 seasons or so again. I am now having some problems with the steel baffle plate that directs the flue gasses into the secondary burn chamber not opening the whole way, it sticks. I can get it open a little more then 1/2 way, still good enough to use though.

Would I purchase this stove again, I don't know! I would look around a bit and really take a good look at the soapstone stones available today. I like the fact that it has one of the largest fireboxes and with the 75,000 BTU heat output, and it heats my home well until we get into the single digit temperatures, then the gas furnace kicks on. The stove is located in the basement and the home is a two story at 2400+ sq ft not including the basement, so the heat has a way to travel. The best thing anyone can do when burning a wood-burner is to leave your furnace blower on all the time to distribute the heat thru the house, it works wonders! The stove typically goes from early November thru April the following year.

If there are any Lopi Liberty owners out there that would like a drawing of all the steel components in the firebox let me know. I produced these drawings when the need arose for me to fabricate new steel when mine burnt up. You can email me at: [email protected] and I will send you a PDF file.

Good luck with the stoves out there!

Craig

I burned an Endeavor for two seasons before switching to the dark side. The only issue I had was those stupid roll pins in the burn tubes. I had two of them fall out which was an easy fix. Other than it wanting to always burn in the 600-700 it worked great. Burn tubes glowing red is completely normal.

My Olympic (also Travis) likes to runaway on me sometimes. This typically happens when setting up for overnight burn and it gets going too fast too quickly and then it's all over. It's happened several times and the next time I try a different layout methodology to see if it can be more easily controlled. I also fear that my draft is too good, especially since it really hasn't been much colder than 40F here now and I have no drafting trouble, 15' chimney. The fire just gets out of hand quickly due to quantity of wood inside and I've had temps up close to 800F. IR thermo of the firebox said 799F at one time. This wastes a tremendous amount of time and fuel and I hate it.

I'm not in a position to install a flue damper because of the flex liner, but the fact that it's a straight shot out the stove up to the top doesn't help slowing it down. I am somewhat worried about what it's like when it gets really cold out.

I have not had the roll pins fall out but I know they were a bear to get out when I first got the stove and wanted to dismantle to lighten the weight when bringing it into the house. My secondary tubes do glow red when the stove gets going. I'm not too worried about that unless the temps are close to 800F. It seems though that once the secondary action starts it can get out of hand quickly.

I've found it difficult to find a sweet spot with this stove. If you go above 600 it really wants to head to 750 fast, but the blower can control that to some degree but not all the time if it's really cooking.

All in all I like it, we'll see how it holds up, I'm planning on keeping this for many years.

steve

Hey Craig,

Thanks for your reply - I just aquired a 1998 Liberty a month ago and I love it so far. I haven't needed a full blown fire yet, but even with half load it cranks! I also noticed (after buying it of course) that the rear air chamber on the inside is cracked at the weld on one side. I wonder if it hurts secondary performance at all? Did you ever try to reweld it?

The guy I bought it from bought it new and said he has never replaced anything in it except the blower fan assembly. I was impressed that the burn tubes and brick support steel have lasted 10+ years.

Dan

Dan,

Do not try to reweld the cracked areas as all they will do is crack again at the weld. I work with enough welds in my profession to know!

If the stove lasted 10+ years with the orginial steel and brick I can tell you it wasn't burnt hard, thats for sure. You will like the stove, it does throw the heat I can tell you that.

Good luck and if you need any pointers shoot me an email..........

Craig