Im sorry guys I know this one has been beaten to death but I'm wondering if I'm just imagining this problem....
Its my first year using a wood stove. I bought a used Jotul #8 non cat front loader with the sundial shaped damper on the door. I had a chimney sweep come and install a liner in my brick chimney for the stove. He told me that because of the size of the existing flue he would use a 6" liner and an adapter to connect to the 8" flue on the stove and that this would run just fine.
Well that was december 10th and I'm still not sure if I'm doing something wrong or the stove isnt drafting correctly. I can get a fire lit pretty easily and it will get hot fast with smoke just about dissapearing very quickly with the damper wide open. However after an hour or so the fire seems to die down and I have to poke it or shift around the wood and coals every 20-30 minutes to keep it burning well, and this is with the damper wide open. If I turn the damper down the fire dies down quickly and im afraid that its going to go out.
It keeps my living room and kitchen very warm if I maintain it this way, but I feel like I'm burning a lot of wood and I only use the stove 8 hours or so a day between getting home from work and going to bed. I have burnt it hot for 4 hours straight and tried to dampen it down to keep it going overnight and will wake up to half burnt cold logs in the morning.
I havent put a damper in the flue because i assumed it would only make the problem worse, and I havent put a temp gauge on the stove yet as it does get very hot when I'm maintaining it.
I'm just concerned because the guys at work tell me that theirs will run overnight no problem and after dampening it down they very rarely have to maintain it at all other than feeding more wood occasionally.
Can you guys offer any tips?
Its my first year using a wood stove. I bought a used Jotul #8 non cat front loader with the sundial shaped damper on the door. I had a chimney sweep come and install a liner in my brick chimney for the stove. He told me that because of the size of the existing flue he would use a 6" liner and an adapter to connect to the 8" flue on the stove and that this would run just fine.
Well that was december 10th and I'm still not sure if I'm doing something wrong or the stove isnt drafting correctly. I can get a fire lit pretty easily and it will get hot fast with smoke just about dissapearing very quickly with the damper wide open. However after an hour or so the fire seems to die down and I have to poke it or shift around the wood and coals every 20-30 minutes to keep it burning well, and this is with the damper wide open. If I turn the damper down the fire dies down quickly and im afraid that its going to go out.
It keeps my living room and kitchen very warm if I maintain it this way, but I feel like I'm burning a lot of wood and I only use the stove 8 hours or so a day between getting home from work and going to bed. I have burnt it hot for 4 hours straight and tried to dampen it down to keep it going overnight and will wake up to half burnt cold logs in the morning.
I havent put a damper in the flue because i assumed it would only make the problem worse, and I havent put a temp gauge on the stove yet as it does get very hot when I'm maintaining it.
I'm just concerned because the guys at work tell me that theirs will run overnight no problem and after dampening it down they very rarely have to maintain it at all other than feeding more wood occasionally.
Can you guys offer any tips?